URBAN PURITANO BLOG

Oh, Quadriga, Qua Quadriga!

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:22:49 GMT

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Oh, Quadriga, Qua Quadriga!

The quadriga’s fourfold sense is irreconcilable with both Reformed confessional statements on the sense of Scripture and reason. While the quadriga transmogrifies the literal sense into the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical spiritual senses as the official hermeneutic of the Roman Catholic Church, some identifying as Protestant, Evangelical, and confessional are attempting a re-imagining of the quadriga as four angles , four sensitivities , or four questions.

However, confessions like the WCF and the 2LBCF share verbiage to address this incompatibility . To the respective questions about whether any particular Bible passage has multiple meanings and whether any particular Bible passage has only one meaning, the confessional answers are explicit:

(1) No, the true sense of Scripture is not manifold. This denial of manifold meaning necessarily includes a rejection of the quadriga since its fourfold sense is an example of of such manifold sense.

(2) Yes, the true and full sense of any Scripture is one.

These explicit confessional statements make employing the quadriga, whether in rehabilitated form or in partial integration into confessionally Reformed hermeneutics, not only unnecessarily problematic, but insurmountable . Advocacy for its use under the guise of reading the Scriptures as the apostles did or reading the Scriptures Christocentrically is, therefore, a definite if not dishonest downgrade in historic confessional commitment. After all, the Reformed theologians and writers prior to the WCF and the 2LBCF matter of factly possessed in their hermeneutical grammar the meaning, application, and distinction between the manifold sense and the single sense. These older theologians, like William Whitaker, and even older ones who influenced them, such as William Tyndale, argued against the manifold sense envisaged by the quadriga and were no less Christocentric in interpreting the Scriptures or no less conscientious in harmonizing the Scriptures for it.

The Biblical authors never supplant the literal sense of Scripture by externally imposed interpretive spiritual senses in a dualistic fashion. Despite present day metaphysical meanderings into thick views on the surrogational view of language by some confessionally Reformed academic advocates and endorsers of the quadriga’s viability as a Biblical hermeneutic, the confession’s rejection of the manifold sense remains. They, ironically, want to apply the concept of Biblical words being symbols for things in a more or less fixed manner, but rush to reinterpret their confession’s explicit denial of the manifold sense of Scripture to include the compatibility of the quadriga with the confession. The result is a confession that denies and affirms the manifold sense! So much for the idea that words mean things.

This advocacy and endorsement of the quadriga’s reframing as four angles, four sensitivities, or four questions may choose to superficially base their abandonment of the confessional rejection of the quadriga’s manifold sense on the Apostle Paul's figurative use of "letter" and "spirit" in 2 Cor. 3:16. There is, we must remember, a great tradition of quickly adducing this as an instance that justifies speaking loosely and superficially of a bifurcation of the literal sense from the spiritual sense. Once this bifurcation is made, the quadriga’s spiritual senses emerge from their literal slumber. But such a move is not made by either the confession or the Biblical authors.

Modern writers advocating or endorsing the rehabilitation of the quadriga to represent a right reading of Scripture are disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst. A third possibility, more gracious, may be that these scholars are painfully superficial, given the history of the confessional denial of the manifold sense in more theologically precise polemical works such as William Whitaker’s A Disputation on Holy Scripture.

Since the quadriga is manifestly not confessional, this prompts the further question: Is use of the quadriga a rational hermeneutical move to be made by either the learned or unlearned? Will the quadriga qua quadriga yield Scripture's true and full sense? Taking our cue from the fourfold nature of the quadriga as a Biblical hermeneutic, we ask:

If Biblical interpretation must yield a fourfold sense of Scripture, why four? That is arbitrary. However, not all arbitrariness is bad. In the U.S., for example, there is a perennial concern for history education within the public schools. How do teachers cover so much required material in an engaging way that fosters critical thinking? The Four Question Method (4QM) was developed to do just that and to necessarily function under the strictures of national standards for education. The questions were:

1. What Happened?

2. What Were They Thinking?

3. Why Then and There?

4. What Do We Think About That?

Could these questions have been different? Ultimately, yes, they could have been. The justification for their nested arbitrariness is basically the context of secondary educational standards and choosing a framework that could be used in effectively planning, teaching, and evaluating the teaching of history courses to high school students.

The quadriga’s history was under no such strictures. First, there was a dualistic bifurcation of the literal and spiritual senses. Then, other domains of meaning were added throughout interpretive history. The vacillation between two and three spiritual senses in addition to the literal sense continued more or less until the Angelic Doctor solidified their quadruple scholastic significance. Despite its nested arbitrariness to either mirror the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love with the quadriga's spiritual senses or, later in hermeneutic history, to track with deeper theological formulations than the letter of Scripture can supply, it must be admitted that it is still ultimately arbitrary. The total number of senses could be less or more if such a framework served some other ad hoc purpose or no purpose at all related to interpretation.

Moreover, if Biblical interpretation must not always yield a fourfold sense of Scripture, why not? That is capricious. At least the 4QM teaching unit has to always cover all four questions. The same isn’t even claimed for the quadriga’s fourfold sense. No less than Aquinas taught that sometimes the literal sense was good enough to stop with because it covered some spiritual truth. Protestant pro-quadrigans say that every text of Scripture may not always necessarily be capable of having 4 senses just as the use of the word "set" doesn't have to mean all 464 senses it can have every time it's used. Context determines meaning for words outside the Bible, but it seems that in addition to context, ambivalence and subjectivity of the interpreter provides the ultimate answer as to why Scripture mustn't always yield a fourfold sense. This sort of principle has the consequence of leading some quadrigans to oddly admit that some portions of the Bible lack a spiritual sense. Patrick Schreiner, for example, recently stated, “I think you can see the spiritual sense in the New Testament at times.”

It would seem, then, that whether two, four, or more than a fourfold hermeneutical framework and interpretation of Scripture is ultimately arbitrary and utterly capricious. How can such a method be rationally maintained?

No method of Biblical hermeneutics that is either capricious or arbitrary is rationally acceptable. The quadriga qua quadriga is disqualified as being a rationally acceptable hermeneutic by being both capricious and arbitrary.

This may leave enthusiasm for the repackaging, reframing, rehabilitation, and retrieval of the quadriga for Protestants in general and confessional Reformed folks, in particular, in a rationally precarious spot. Why wouldn’t the same rational defect that obtains for the quadriga qua quadriga constitute a rational, if not papist, poison pill for the quadriga revived as four angles, four sensitivities, and four questions?

Stay confessional and rational , my friends.

Contra Quadriga and Anything Like It: Retrieving Its Rejection

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 08:06:05 GMT

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"If the rule you followed brought you to this,

of what use was the rule?"

Anton Chigurh

"Until the four-fold method becomes critical of its own

theoretical foundations and develops a hermeneutical theory

adequate to the nature of the text which it is interpreting,

it will remain restricted--as it deserves to be--to the

romanist guild and the papist adjacent academy,

where the question of truth can

endlessly be deferred."

(Not David Steinmetz)

Introduction

Some things are so fundamentally flawed, coming up with alternatives should be easy. Some things are so fundamentally flawless, coming up with refutations should be impossible. The quadriga is one such example of the former while the single sense of Scripture is an example of the latter. But times have changed and some Protestant scholars are increasingly giving Rome's official hermeneutic the right hand of fellowship.

There has been too much intellectual hospitality in Protestant/Evangelical seminaries extended towards the viability of the quadriga as a model for Biblical interpretation. So much so, this medieval method is being retrieved or rehabilitated under the guise of a Christocentric hermeneutic or an Apostolic way of reading the Scriptures. This represents a dishonest downgrade for Evangelical theology in general and for Reformed confessional theology in particular. It is a woefully inadequate critical appraisal of the quadriga at best and a spiritual betrayal to be repented of at worst.

A representative sample of two Reformed confessions of faith are united in confessing " the true and full sense of any scripture...is not manifold, but one ". Both the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith use the same language to deny the manifold sense of Scripture envisaged by the quadriga and affirms Scripture's single sense repudiated by the quadriga.

Soon, there will be a full court press hailing the quadriga's supposed hermeneutical virtues. What was once confined to a few lecture halls of Protestant academia will be delivered far and wide with the upcoming publication of a book endorsing the quadriga for Evangelicals. Dr. Patrick Schreiner's book on the subject will probably be endorsed by a wide cross section of academics on both sides of the Tiber. Whether it's a full throated retrieval of the quadriga or only a limited one for its integration into Protestant Biblical interpretation remains to be seen. Neither possibility is hermeneutically viable.

One thing is for sure, though. The ground has been prepared for some time by some who have learned and taught its tolerance as a benign model of hermeneutics consistent with Biblical sensibilities. Much intellectual hospitality has been given to the quadriga by certain retrieval minded Evangelicals. Instead of the temporary hospitality of critical appraisal, the quadriga has moved in. What also remains to be seen is if the doctrinal deliverances of the quadriga will make their way inside. Time will tell if this has a leavening effect.

Acceptance of the quadriga by Protestants, Evangelicals, and confessionally Reformed isn't viewed as that big of a deal. What is the quadriga's "Triage" score? Any alarm can be assuaged by a consideration of its long track record, right? As David Steinmetz has stated:

"The medieval theory of levels of meaning in the Biblical text, with all its undoubted defects, flourished because it was true, while the modern theory of a single meaning, with all its demonstrable virtues, is false."

What, then, are the Quadriga's defects that lead the Reformers and their confessional

heirs to enshrine, not its embrace, but its rejection?

The short answer via YouTube by yours truly:

https://youtu.be/p8g9pQi2pUs?si=XwKVFvg8Y20yDyF0

The short answer via podcast:

https://share.transistor.fm/s/89564a04

(The long answer will be summarized in this brief outline

that comprises this blog piece. Links to the longform podcast episode at the end).

Although you can't just pick up the Bible and leisurely read it like any other book, you cannot read it rightly unless you read it similarly to most other books every step of the way. After all, to read is to interpret and to interpret is to read rightly.

This prompts some questions: How should a sincere believer, whether learned or unlearned proceed to read Scripture rightly? Are the quadriga's defects prohibitive rationally, Biblically, and confessionally? Some, with varying confessional commitments, like Mitchell Chase, Brandon Smith, Craig Carter, Peter Leithart, Matthew "Tossed To and Fro" Barrett, Luke Stamps and others have to a greater or lesser degree found the Quadriga to be a legitimate means to understand the written Word of God in all its polyvalence.

Who can blame these academics? There is a strong tradition of interpreting Holy Writ, at least academically, in the fourfold sense. Whereas before such a method was taught and promoted among Roman Catholic academics, it is increasingly being tolerated or even touted by Evangelical academics sometimes under the guise of Christocentrism or reading the Old Testament like the Apostles did. Because of this, many young scholars and their younger seminarian whipper snapper acolytes are ignorant of the quadriga's deficiencies. This represents somewhat of a pyrrhic victory snatched from the jaws of rational, Biblical, and confessional defeat.

Major Reformed stalwarts of the past like William Perkins commonly held the medieval Roman Catholic quadriga in disdain to such an extent he averred that "her device of the fourfold meaning of the Scripture must be exploded and rejected." ( Art of Prophecying ). Nowadays? Not so much.

The quadriga is being massaged and repackaged without batting an eye. In a Room for Nuance interview promoting a previous work of his that dipped its toe into the quadrigan pool for interpreting the Transfiguration, Dr. Patrick Schreiner says :

PS: "What I love about the Quadriga, the fourfold sense, is there's an order. You first start with that original question."

Host: "So, it's not just four. You actually have to begin with one."

PS: "That's what I'm kind of saying. And I do think that's what people throughout church history have said. There is actually, you begin with the literal sense. It's all based on literal sense. Then you go to the Christological, allegorical sense.

Then, this is what I think is so helpful. Then you ask the question, what does it mean to me? And I love this because there's actually a gospel shape to it. Because you don't ask what it means to you until you've gotten to the gospel message of what is Christ. So, the danger in asking, what does it mean to me, is you moralize the text. You don't actually get to the gospel. But if you ask these in the right order, you actually get, oh, this applies to me as I am in Christ. As I am forgiven in Christ, then the text begins to mean something to me, because this is actually divine word, which speaks to me. We are still part of the covenant people of God. So this wasn't just written to people long ago. It was written to us because we have dual authorship here. We are the authors, the human authors and divine author."

These types of remarks reflect an embrace of the medieval Catholic couplet summarizing the quadriga: "The literal sense teaches historical events, the allegorical sense teaches what to believe, the moral or tropological sense teaches what to do, and the eschatological or anagogical sense teaches our ultimate destiny." Instead of representing a continuity with classical Reformed rejection of the quadriga, these sentiments represent a discontinuity of the confessional Reformed rejection of the quadriga.

What is the Quadriga?

The quadriga is a medieval method of biblical interpretation crystallized in the Roman Catholic academy, whereby a dualistic bifurcation takes place. There is in Scripture a literal sense and a distinct spiritual sense. The literal sense consists of whatever meaning the words of Scripture render in ordinary ways derivable from a consideration of linguistics, philology, semantics, grammar, syntax, and historical considerations of its content. The latter spiritual sense encompasses three components distinct from the literal sense and each other, thus totaling four in all. These 3 further distinct domains of non-literal, spiritual meaning are:

• Allegory or figurative signs used to signify something else

• Tropology or moral lessons and imperatives

• Anagogy or future focused eschatological hope

These three senses encompass the spiritual meanings of Scripture statements in contrast and contra-distinction to the

literal sense of Scripture. Hence, the name of this method of Biblical interpretation is the quadriga, which is a word that comes from the Latin for a chariot drawn by four horses abreast. The metaphor is apt since it is not four horses in a row one after the other, but four horses abreast or at each other's side with no one horse overtaking the other.

Proponents, both medieval and modern, perceive in the quadriga interpretive virtues emerging from the polyvalence of Scripture itself. Dr. Richard Muller, for example, describes (not prescribes) how the quadriga tracks with "the character of the relationship between medieval exegesis and medieval theology, between sacra pagina and sacra theologia. The text of Scripture in its fundamental meaning is a historia salvationes, from which teaching can be drawn to address Christian faith, love, and hope. The history of the text itself in its literal meaning, together with its doctrinal implications, correspond with the four elements of the quadriga--while the quadriga or fourfold exegesis, in turn, corresponds with the fundamental needs and interests of theological formulation." ( Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, V. 2, p.22 ). Muller describes it all so neat and tidy. It almost seems sinful to question the quadriga's historical development, from its earliest two senses to three senses, to its eventual final four senses. And if one goes back further to the quadriga's supposed source in Holy Writ itself, it would certainly seem even more sinful to question the contrast between the life-giving spirit and the life-killing letter as a Biblical warrant for what the Quadriga, as an interpretive paradigm, is and seeks to do. It would be quite an irony if of the many false deliverances of meaning in the quadriga's history of interpretation, the attempt to justify it from 2 Corinthians 3.6 turns out to be a stretch.

Bugs or Features?

What, then, are the quadriga's defects?

In no particular order, let me suggest the following. First , the quadriga's conceptual clarity as a hermeneutical or exegetical resource should be critically examined . Is it best hermeneutical practice to approach Scripture assuming it will yield four distinct senses?

This seems to be an unwarranted assumption on its face since exegetical interpretive processes should only seek to draw out from the text whatever sense or implications have warrant, not imposing a sense from the interpreter's pre-existing mental schema. In medieval times, the quadriga's schema was fourfold sense grid. In modern and postmodern times and methods, the schema will differ. Must the medieval quadriga reject postmodern methods or perhaps incorporate them and add more senses to the scripture? If it is axiomatic that the quadriga's fourfold sense provides best practices nowadays, why didn't the previous periods of church history with two or three senses of Scripture have staying power? Does the evolution from two to four senses of Scriptural meaning demonstrate progress in the art and science of Biblical interpretation, but such progress is no longer possible?

It would seem chronological snobbery is a possibility not only towards the past, but towards the future. However, whatever number of senses one holds to for a manifold sense of Scripture, the defect in conceptual clarity remains: hermeneutics and exegesis is about drawing out textual meaning, not possessing it before the start.

Second , as a consequence of the first, the quadriga seems fundamentally anti-reader . I mean this as an objective claim or reason.

I know many Protestant evangelical scholars have written testimonial articles, essays, and a soon-to-be-published book on the quadriga's hermeneutical viability and virtues. Most of these testimonies are in the subjective realm. Reading homilies from the Church Fathers and being enraptured by their theological depth has opened new vistas of biblical truth for such academics and their young whippersnapper acolytes.

However, not distinguishing properly between a Church Father's rhetorical skills in weaving biblical allusions to audience adaptations and applications, or worse, failing to distinguish between compositional allegorical affordances in the text of Scripture (very few, if any genuine) for interpretive allegorical imaginations from the minds of the Church Fathers (an abundant number) is a recipe for failure to read Holy Writ rightly. The reader of Scripture is better served by upholding in his mind only what can be justifiably warranted by the text of Scripture itself. Caused and composed by the Divine Author and human authors, respectively, the reader was meant to encounter and draw out meaning from all its features and compositional affordances. That's how communication works, and the Scriptures, as Divine Communication, work no differently. Communication does not work by statements with four distinct senses. As such, the quadriga is defective by being fundamentally anti-reader.

Third , the quadriga is defective by militating against the perspicuity of Scripture. Not only is the issue of how man must be saved clearly read throughout Scripture, but the general tenor of the Bible is clear enough to the average person to catch. Whether learned or unlearned, the reader of Scripture can clearly discern the variety of textual terrain and what the biblical landscape displays in all its diversity of stylistic traits and its rich abstract theological features. The Bible may vary in genre and style, but the character of Scripture's content is fundamentally pro-reader by being generally clear.

Scripture’s content and overarching storyline composed of myriad “stories, examples, precepts, exhortations, admonitions, and promises” (William Ames, The Marrow of Theology , 187–88) concerning God’s redemptive purpose and man’s salvation are sufficiently “clear and evident.” Both scholar and layman can by the same means arrive at the answer to how a holy and just God can bless rebellious, sinful mankind with salvation. As it was before for shepherds, warriors, royalty, and fishermen and as it continued to be for monks, maidens, lawyers, and tinkers, so the Bible’s message continues now―sufficiently “clear and evident” to all who would apply “a due use of the ordinary means” (2LBCF 1.7).

How? By a due use of the ordinary means of learning. A critical and judicious use of both inductive and deductive interpretive tools can be learned at a relatively young age and confirmed and expanded upon as the believer grows in wisdom and knowledge of God's Word. The inductive analysis of Scripture afforded by comparing Scripture with Scripture, especially unclear portions with clear portions (i.e., the analogy of Scripture), takes into account the text’s diverse features without bifurcating the literal from the spiritual, the Old Testament from the New Testament, or a single passage from its canon-wide context. For this reason, most talk cautioning against atomistic reading of Scripture is misguided. At least for the confessional Calvinist since there is no dualistic distinction between the letter and the spirit, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and a single passage from its fuller meaning. After all, the deductive synthesis of Scripture afforded by the uniformity of Scriptural teaching judiciously arrived at takes into account the resulting system of doctrine emerging from the whole of Scripture (i.e., the analogy of faith), which is the confessional Reformed Christian’s “rule of faith and life.” This respects both the human and divine dimensions of the Bible. In sum, we can always delve more deeply into a text of Scripture as long as we understand a text’s meaning isn’t marooned from the rest of the canon much less assume a necessary dualism of letter and spirit in the manner the quadriga upholds its manifold sense.

Remember, as we do compare Scripture with Scripture (analogy of Scripture), we accumulate biblical evidence. Implications are validly drawn out, possible interpretations are eliminated, and control beliefs are modified and subjugated to the total truth of God’s Word. Because Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), what emerges as texts supplement texts in a holistic, systematic fashion is a uniformity of teaching (analogy of faith). The analogy of faith cries out to us to reach for the baton of well-established and judiciously arrived-at Scriptural doctrine and continue running the race.

Fourthly , the fourfold method of the quadriga has inherent problems for rational, exegetical, and logical procedures to draw out meaning. If all of Scripture is assumed to have these four particular domains of meaning, exegesis is more akin to a foregone conclusion in search of data. The fourfold method draws out meaning by putting it there to start with.

In other words, exegesis is now become eisegesis. Methodologically, the fourfold approach is nothing more than transposing interlocking spiritual senses, the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical, onto the literal sense. It pays lip service to the foundational reality of actual events, persons, places, propositions, and relationships in the text of Scripture to get to the higher level, spiritualized senses.

Oh yes, I know, the medieval and now some of the moderns who give the quadriga a pass are quick to distinguish, in theory, the allegoria in factus from the allegoria in dicta or verbus. But this labeling of the letter of Holy Writ and the spirit of Holy Writ is no rational help in the process of drawing out the sense of scripture. The rubber does not meet the road when the need is created for a partitive exegesis of sorts , because the dualistic bifurcation of God's word is held on to.

Instead of opening up hermeneutical vistas for fruitful exegesis, the quadriga only serves to double down on dualism and bifurcation of the literal from the spiritual, when no such division exists. Remember, the spiritual sense is composed of three distinct domains of meaning, distinct from each other and the literal sense of Scripture. The correct and vital posture is to recognize and remember the following: The Bible is at once nothing more than literal and nothing less than spiritual.

By way of illustration and analogy, consider the incarnation. Dr. Iain Proven is quite correct when he states, "I do not see Scripture as primarily human in nature, any more than I see Christ as primarily human in nature. I see Scripture as fully human in nature. And then also as God's word to us" ( "Become a Text Critic": The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture ). It is this "seriously literal" approach (as Provan calls it) of the Reformation that alone receives the revealed, inscripturated Word of God as His communicative intent meant it to be received.

Moreover, when the Bible's hypostatic union of sorts isn't recognized and remembered, and instead bifurcated, such as in the case of the quadriga, interpretation inevitably results in ambivalence on any given meaning of the four senses. This ambivalence in interpretation takes the form of interpretive subjectivity. In Reformed and confessional circles, it is often snickered at and found worthy of mocking to hear of a Bible study where the teacher goes around and asks attendees what a text under consideration means to them. But the quadriga is more ambivalent to the four senses than is acknowledged and more subjective than is admitted. Especially by some Evangelical and Reformed professors and pastors who are giving it a pass as a viable option for biblical hermeneutics.

St. Bernard, interestingly and unironically, presents the problem of ambivalence towards the four senses bluntly. He stated:

"I know that I have explained this passage more fully, and in another sense, in my book Upon the Love of God. And if it shall please any of you to read that, he can decide whether of the two is to be preferred. A prudent person will not, I think, condemn the giving of the two senses to the same passage, provided that each appear to be grounded in the truth, and that charity, which is the rule in interpreting scripture, shall edify the more persons, inasmuch as there are a greater number of truthful senses, which each may apply to his own special need. For why should that be found faulty in the interpreting of Scripture, which we see is industriously practiced in other things? To how many different bodily uses, only to take one example, do we put the element of water? In the same way, a person is not to be blamed who gives divers senses, fitted to the various needs of souls, to a passage of Scripture." (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs

as found in Life and Works of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, edited by Dom John Mabillon and translated into English by Samuel J. Eales, V. 4 , 310, 1889–1896).

Ironically, this quote from St. Bernard might be considered to be a gold mine for some academics seeking to give the quadriga a pass. Articles, interviews, books, and the authors of such are twisting themselves in knots bending over backwards to say that the quadriga is simply attempting to apply the literal sense. However, this just demonstrates that the quadriga is not only a potential, but an actual mine field of its basic logical defects. Hermeneutics should not conflate the sense of Scripture with the application of the sense of Scripture, should it? Confessionally Reformed Biblical interpreters should distinguish well to earn the respect to merit the verdict of teaching well .

A thought experiment can be helpful to appreciate more fully what we're dealing with here in practical and logical terms. Bernard says as long as each appeared to be grounded in truth, prudence would not condemn the giving of two different senses to the same passage of Scripture. Now suppose he gave an allegoria in factus interpretation in the first case, but an allegoria in dictus or verbus in the second case.

Suppose further that a different saint gives another allegorical interpretation altogether. As the allegorical senses multiply through the corridor of time, some become standard within a community. That's basically capital T tradition. But even though some allegorical senses become standard through tradition, are all the alternate senses that have accumulated over time just disposed of by the exclusion effected by the standardized interpretations? So, if you consider 20 centuries of church history, you can see within it 20 centuries of the history of biblical interpretation. Saint Bernard gives two senses of the same biblical passage, with four possible senses in all, with perhaps two types of allegory.

Add to that more saints throughout church history, some more famous, some obscure. If all these saints do the same as Saint Bernard, the work of standardization is going to need some major help in arbitrating, not only multiple offerings per sense, but how many overlap and how many are united in their conclusions of the four senses of Scripture as a whole. The Magisterium has entered the chat. How else do interpretations of Scripture become authoritatively standardized? I won't make the lazy assertion that the quadriga leads to Rome. No, the quadriga is simply at home in Rome.

To find it in Wittenberg, Geneva, or London is tantamount to finding Alistair Begg at a trans wedding bearing gifts. I mean, it's possible, just maximally inconsistent and weird. Truth be told, medieval tradition may also speak of the three non-literal spiritual senses of Scripture, each consisting of two additional types of meaning: open and mystical. Do the math now. T his manifold meaning model of biblical hermeneutics is more historical than veridical.

Saint Bernard hints at another feature, not bug, in the quadriga's nature as a hermeneutic. On the heels of its ambivalence, in the form of subjectivity, is its utilitarian or pragmatic motivation or criteria. Again, certain evangelical and reformed voices, giving the quadriga a pass nowadays, often decry the Church's downgrade into pragmatism in ministry. But the same eyes that see this problem among broader evangelicals are blind to it in the quadriga as an interpretive method.

I repeat St. Bernard, quote, "A person is not to be blamed who gives divers senses, fitted to the various needs of souls, to a passage of Scripture." This pragmatism in hermeneutics puts the applicational cart before the four horses. Bernard's pragmatic and utilitarian criteria for interpretive viability has had a long history. Over seven centuries before, Gregory of Nyssa argued:

"Therefore, if indeed the literal meaning, understood as it is spoken, should offer some benefit, we will have readily at hand what we need to make the object of our attention. But, if something that is said in a hidden fashion, with certain allegories and enigmas, should yield nothing of benefit according to the readily apparent sense, we will turn such words as these over and over in our mind. This is just how the Logos that teaches us in Proverbs has instructed us to understand what is said as either a parable, or a dark saying, or a word of the wise, or as one of the enigmas. (Proverbs 1:6). When it comes to the insightful reading of such passages, that comes via the elevated sense, that is, the anagogical sense, we shall not beg to differ at all about its name, whether one wishes to call it tropologia, allegoria, or anything else, but only about whether it contains meanings that are beneficial." (from introductory section in Homilies on the Song of Songs where Gregory sketches his hermeneutical approach).

Because of this, perhaps, in addition to the four senses, another sense should be added: the beneficial sense .

Thomas Aquinas was no dumb ox when he famously taught that if the Scripture at the literal level speaks expressly of future glory, then the Scripture passage is only to be interpreted on the literal level. Bonaventure similarly said that if the literal level speaks of faith or of love, then a higher symbolic spiritual or typological sense needn't be sought further. Nicholas of Lyra said that it was useless to seek beyond the letter of Psalm 67 for a second sense because the literal sense of the psalm is already spiritual.

So much for the superficial and incorrect interpretation of the letter of Scripture killing. Hermeneutically, not only does the letter not kill, but the letter is all we've got. Remember, the letter is the work of God's causation, just as much as the things recorded by it. No need to introduce manifold meaning of Scripture by the dualistic bifurcation of the literal and spiritual senses of Scripture.

Lastly , under the fourth rubric of the Quadriga's inherent defects for rational exegetical procedures to draw out the Scripture's meaning , we note its ultimately arbitrary and capricious nature. What do I mean?

Arbitrariness is the quality of willy-nillyness. Any such willy-nillyness can't long pretend to have a consistent rhyme or reason, much less a restraint of use in implementation other than the pragmatically beneficial. Capriciousness is the quality of a propensity to change as unpredictably as a Mexican girlfriend mad at her boyfriend. Any such capriciousness doesn't even try to pretend to have any rhyme or reason, much less restraint for its attitude and behavior.

How can this be said concerning the quadriga? Shouldn't I be more respectful of this historical, pre-critical method of biblical interpretation, being given a pass, and even being rehabilitated and retrieved by erudite evangelicals in our day? Let that sink in. When you do, you will have to answer to whether your sensibilities and interpretive practices should be guided by any respect whatsoever for this pre-modern fourfold sense grid.

If biblical interpretation must yield a fourfold sense of Scripture, why four ? This is arbitrary. If biblical interpretation must not always yield a fourfold sense of Scripture, why not ? This is capricious. Talk about Latina girlfriend vibes! How you feel about dating or a hermeneutical method, however, matters very little. The quadriga shouldn't even be friend-zoned. It should definitely be broken up with if she tempted you to give her a chance and just consider her manifold sense as applications of the literal sense of Scripture. After all, the same arbitrary and capricious nature for the quadriga's fourfold sense certainly obtains for revisioning her as a model for application.

No method of biblical interpretation that is either capricious or arbitrary is rationally viable. The quadriga disqualifies herself as being a rationally viable hermeneutical method by being both capricious and arbitrary. The confessional reformed interpreter, on the other hand, by rejecting the quadriga's manifold sense of Scripture, experiences no downgrade in hermeneutics by adherence to the single sense of Scripture. This sense is ipso facto rational with no arbitrariness or capriciousness.

This leads to the fifth of the quadriga's defects.

It contradicts our Lord and Savior Himself as He states, "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." (John 6:63). Moreover, he quotes Deuteronomy saying, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4). Every word of Scripture is spiritual and life-giving sustenance. It's meaning is ipso facto beneficent with no dualistic bifurcation. Therefore, any dualistic interpretive framework, such as the quadriga, is a failure.

Such dualism only serves to subvert and subordinate the objective letter to the arbitrary and capricious spirit, if such an interpretation is subjectively and pragmatically beneficial. Ultimately, this method lacks true virtue and is unworthy of respect because it contradicts the Lord Jesus himself.

The words of Christ in all of Scripture are at once nothing more than literal and nothing less than spiritual.

This leads to the sixth and final reason the quadriga is hermeneutically defective. The manifold sense of Scripture as an axiomatic framework shows itself to be an unstable and uncertain starting point for rational thought and speech. This medieval model of multiplicity of meaning front loads the Scripture with communication problems that simply aren't present in the text.

Scripture never asks us to choose between the literal or spiritual. It never asks us to choose between a beneficial or non-beneficial use. It never asks us to be methodologically ambivalent. Much less does the Scripture ask us to access its meaning through arbitrary and capricious senses or applications. These outcomes happen because the quadriga guarantees them from the start. Therefore, it is not merely that the quadriga has a history of bad users. It is that the quadriga itself is a bad method. The real miracle found in looking at the history of the church's interpretation of Scripture as the quadriga was being developed and employed is that there was any truth delivered at all. I suppose even broken clocks can be correct twice a day.

How then can communication via rational thought and speech be maintained? Only through the axiom of a single sense of Scripture. Only such a model or framework reflects and preserves the God-breathed, rational revelation of Holy Scripture. God saying something, anything, is simply Him communicating his thoughts propositionally. And while not all of Scripture's sentences are declarative, they are rightly understood to be the equivalent. Whether Scriptural words and thoughts are expressed properly or figuratively, their sense is singular. For all the aforementioned reasons, if the Scripture yields the quadriga's manifold sense, it can have no sure meaning.

Such is the communicative intent of Scripture, and it does not return void. Interestingly, the framers and signers of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith took the single sense of Scripture for granted against the medieval quadriga and anything like it. They weighed the manifold sense and found it wanting.

Not simply its many infamous abuses and supposed ascent into spiritual biblical interpretation, but the principle of manifold meaning itself. The quadriga as an interpretive method was in and of itself seen as irredeemable. As far as they were concerned, to be deep in the history of biblical interpretation was to cease to be quadrigal.

Ultimately, it makes perfect sense (no pun intended) the single sense of Scripture holds confessional status for the truly Reformed. The Westminster Confession of Faith and Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Section 9, states, "The infallible rule of Scripture is Scripture itself. And, therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture, which is not manifold, but one, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly."

Note that in describing the discovery of the sense of Scripture by means of Scripture itself, the Westminster Confession and the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith also affirm and deny certain things about the meaning or sense of Scripture. To the respective questions about whether any particular passage has multiple meanings, and whether any particular passage has only one meaning, the confessional answers are explicitly to the point. Namely:

1.) No, the true sense of Scripture is not manifold .

And,

2.) Yes, the true and full sense of any scripture is one .

The sense or meaning of Scripture can be enhanced in such a way that one can arrive at a fuller comprehension of a text under consideration with the help of other texts of Scripture. This fuller understanding, however, has been ambiguously described as levels of meaning or applications of the meaning of Scripture by those wanting to integrate the quadriga into evangelical and even reformed hermeneutics. However, this hermeneutical movement is simply incompatible with reformed confessional statements such as found in the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession. As previously stated, however, the same defects for the quadriga as a manifold sense model of meaning obtain for the quadriga as a manifold application model. Those professing to hold to this confessional statement cannot rationally, historically, biblically, or honestly give the quadriga a pass.

The Reformed denial of the manifold sense of Scripture is also irreconcilable with the quadriga's fourfold sense reimagining as spiritual senses collapsing to the literal sense. Even this twofold bifurcation of the literal from the spiritual senses collides with the explicit confessional statement that the sense of Scripture is one. It is noteworthy that this reimagining doesn't argue that the literal sense should be based on the allegorical, tropological, or anagogical meaning.

This direction and priority of the literal sense is in itself a tacit admission. To ground the spiritual senses by the literal sense and not the other way around hints at an argument for the confessional single-sense theory of Scriptural meaning. Namely, all true meaning of scripture is derived from the literal sense. Any allegorical, symbolic, figural, typological, moral, or eschatological meaning of Scripture, if true, is derived from the literal sense. The sense of Scripture, therefore, 1), is not manifold, but one, and 2), the literal sense and no other constitute the singular and true sense of Scripture. Despite its attempted rehabilitation in academia and its friend-zoning by undiscerning pastors and certain types of podcasters, the quadriga should find little appeal to serious readers of Scripture, especially of the confessional variety.

As William Whitaker successfully argued, "For although the words may be applied and accommodated tropologically, allegorically, or anagogically, or any other way, yet there are not therefore various senses, various interpretations, and explanations of Scripture. But there is but one sense, and that the literal, which may be variously accommodated, and from which various things may be collected." This encapsulates the superiority of the confessional reformed biblical hermeneutic over the fallacious medieval, pre-modern quadriga. The import of Whitaker's argument and conclusion is not grasped if one doesn't realize this necessarily excludes the quadriga in principle.

At an irreducible and foundational level, the pre-critical quadriga must be refuted and allowed to collapse under the weight of its own irrationality and unbiblical dualism. The confessional Calvinist must be committed to a single-sense theory, not only as a matter of historical confessional precedent, but ultimately because the Scripture doesn't endorse a fourfold sense of Scripture or anything like it. When it comes to the Bible then, the literal sense is the spiritual sense and vice versa. We've been outlining so far its foggy conceptual clarity as a hermeneutic, its methodological question-begging eisegesis, its ambivalence between the four senses in the form of subjectivity. Contemporary evangelical and reformed professors and pastors giving the quadriga a pass haven't been Berean. They haven't tested its hermeneutical spirit. They haven't looked into its DNA. They should have, but they didn't.

What Would Tyndale Do?

From William Whitaker, let's turn our attention to another William. William Tyndale was an outlaw. His crime? Translating the Scriptures into English, so that all would have access to God's Word. His motto might as well have been, "If translating the Bible is wrong, I don't want to be right." All subsequent quotations may be found here . (H/T: @TyndaleTweeteth on X).

Perhaps, pointedly, in contradistinction to Richard Muller, William Tyndale does not consider the quadriga's manifold sense to correspond with the fundamental needs and interests of theological formulation. According to Tyndale, the Roman Magisterium has virtually made the literal sense, "become nothing at all, for the Pope hath taken it clean away and made it his possession." This seeming acerbic polemic is not to be dismissed by a waving of the hands.

He states the concrete situation by describing how the literal sense of Scripture is taken away by the Pope, one, by the "counterfeited keys of his traditions, ceremonies, and reigned lies," and two, "partly driveth men from it with violence of sword, for no man dare abide by the literal sense of the text, but under a protestation, 'if it shall please the Pope.' "

Fast forward to the present day.

Those past circumstances don't hold true today, but there is a discernible difference today between some within the evangelical academy, let's say, and a regular member of a confessional Protestant local church. If you've ever been told or taught that a believer cannot, that is, it is impossible to interpret the Scripture apart from the history of the church's interpretation of it, does this not militate against the perspicuity of Scripture? Or worse, perhaps it militates against Sola Scriptura itself.

Instead of the phrase, if it shall please the Pope, we may hear, for all practical intents and purposes, if it shall please the Church Fathers or if thus saith church history. This whole matter is not one of consultative desirability and permissiveness in biblical interpretation, but its indispensability and necessity for the interpreter to access those consultative sources as if they were more understandable or authoritative that Scripture. The confessionally Reformed answer must continue to be both the analogy of Scripture and the analogy of faith for the Academy, the Pulpit, and the Pew.

Tyndale continues with the quadriga's three further senses. He states that the Tropological and Anagogical are simply superfluous since they accomplish what the allegorical sense seeks to do. "Tropological and Anagogical are terms of their own feigning, and altogether unnecessary, for they are but allegories, both of them. And this word comprehended them both and is enough. For Tropological is but an allegory of manners, and Anagogical an allegory of hope."

For Tyndale and his hermeneutical heirs, the Tropological and Anagogical interpretation amounts to taking Scriptural speech and finding an analogy and expressing it with borrowed speech. There is a source and there is a target. Tyndale says, "An allegory is as much to say as strange speaking or borrowed speech as when we say of a wanton child, 'This sheep hath maggots in his tail. He must be anointed with birch and salve,' which speech I borrow of the shepherds." So, we can see by this illustration that Tropological meaning in this speech borrowed from shepherds is the literal sense of the allegorical expression.

But this is true by rightly understanding the literality or literalness of the words themselves. Tyndale anticipates William Whitaker by adducing that this consideration hints at the sense of Scripture being single, and namely, the literal. Tyndale is consummately rational in maintaining, "That the Scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense. And that literal sense is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth, whereunto if thou cleave, thou canst never err or go out of the way." I've heard many seminary profs and pastors online and through podcasts echo something deceptively similar, but not quite. They say, the quadriga is legitimate as long as we collapse the three non-literal senses into the literal sense. This collapse can only mean, however, that the sense of Scripture is both one and literal. The medieval quadriga was advocating for the fourfold sense, not collapsing the spiritual senses into the single literal sense. The reason the Reformers and some post-Reformation scholastics addressed the issue was not to rehabilitate or retrieve the quadriga, but to clarify and advocate for the single literal sense of Scripture as the correct position.

It escapes some of these Protestant, Evangelical, and Reformed men that t he quadriga's legitimacy stands or falls on whether the sense of Scripture is manifold or one. It does absolutely no good to the cause of rehabilitating or retrieving the historical quadriga for Protestants or Evangelicals to acknowledge in Scripture its compositional affordances, its communicative ornaments, its figurative language, and its artistic license to do with words what its human authors or its divine Author saw fit. Tyndale lists "proverbs, similitudes, riddles, allegories, as all other speeches do. But that which the proverb, similitude, riddle, or allegory signifyeth is ever the literal sense which thou must seek out diligently." Tyndale goes on to mention common English idiomatic expressions full of rich borrowed speech from one thing and applied to another thing to create something new. These features of Biblical content and style, known to both Catholics and Reformers, don't bridge the great gulf fixed between their respective disparate conceptions of the manifold or single sense of Scripture.

Tyndale continues to deny the quadriga and quadrigans' quarter if we try to conceptualize it as applications of meaning.

When we draw out "the literal sense of the Scripture by the process of the text or by a like text of another place, then go we, and as the Scripture borroweth similitudes of worldly things, even so we again borrow similitudes or allegories of the Scripture, and apply them to our purposes, which allegories are no sense of Scripture, but free things beside the Scripture and all together in the liberty of the Spirit." So, then, any attempts to get preachers, for example, to embrace the legitimacy of the quadriga as a model for homiletical application are truly less than helpful or even legitimate. Tyndale is nothing but a Debbie Downer for the overly intellectually hospitable seminary profs and their up-and-coming seminarian whippersnapper acolytes, who write and appear on the podcast circuit discussing the virtues of the quadriga for sermon applications. It truly boggles the confessional mind to hear shepherds of souls express something along the lines of, "Preachers may deny the quadriga's categories in hermeneutics, but embrace them in homiletics."

You may have read or listened to some seminary profs who should know better claim that if you apply the text of Scripture tropologically or anagogically, that's tantamount to the quadriga's approach. On an episode of the Preaching and Preachers Podcast, for example, Dr. Mitchell Chase was asked about the quadriga given his book on typology and allegory. Contra Tyndale and the WCF/2LBCF 1.9, he stated, "I would love to see a resurgence of appreciation for it among preachers."

Tyndale, however, was consistent in rejecting the Quadriga in Hermeneutics and homiletics. He stated :

"...take an ensample. Thou hast the story of Peter, how he smote off Malchus's ear, and how Christ healed it again. There hast thou in the plain text great learning, great fruit, and great edifying, which I shall pass over because of tediousness.

Then I come, when I preach of the law and of the gospel, and borrow this ensample to express the nature of the law and of the gospel, and to paint it unto thee before thine eyes. And Peter and his sword make I the law, and of Christ the gospel, saying, 'As Peter's sword cutteth off the ear, so doth the law, the law dammeth. The law killeth and mangleth the conscience. There is no ear so righteous that can abide the hearing of the law. There is no deed so good that the law dammeth. But Christ, that is to say, the gospel, the promises and testament that God hath made in Christ, healeth the ear and conscience, which the law hath hurt. The gospel is life, mercy and forgiveness, freely and altogether and healing plaister. And as Peter doth hurt and make a wound, where was none before, even so doth the law. For when we think we are holy and righteous and full of good deeds, if the law be preached aright, our righteousness and good deeds vanish away as smoke in the wind, and we are left damnable sinners only. And as thou seest how Christ healeth not, till Peter hath wounded, and as a healing plaister helpeth not, till the corrosive hath troubled the wound, even so, the gospel helpeth not, but when the law hath wounded the conscience, and brought the sinner into the knowledge of his sin.' "

What is Tyndale's point? After waxing eloquent in this hypothetical homiletical display of rhetorical prowess, he states, "This allegory proveth nothing. Neither can do, for it is not the Scripture, but an ensample or a similitude borrowed of the Scripture to declare a text or a conclusion of the Scripture more expressly, and to root it and grave it in the heart. For a similitude or an ensample doth print a thing much deeper in the wits of a man than doth a plain speaking, and liveth behind him, as it were, a sting to prick him forward, and to awake him withal." Does this sound like a sense of Scripture or a communication strategy and tool? Talk about the wrong meaning from the right text.

This is the result of recommending the quadriga's manifold sense of Scripture for preaching. It conflates meaning with application and gets both wrong. Putting a spotlight on an intended rhetorical flourish for a homiletical outcome should not be conflated with a sense of Scripture. Tyndale's point, using the law gospel illustration, with borrowed speech from the story of Peter smiting Malchus' ear, is that despite the seemingly pragmatic ease with which allegorizing the text to say something good, but different, and other than what the text actually says, such a strategy, "proveth nothing, neither can do, for it is not Scripture, but an ensample or similitude borrowed of the Scripture..."

To use a term from the art of rhetoric-- invention --that is, the process of deriving and formulating by the mind of the rhetorician, or in this case, the preacher, is what borrowed speech really is--not a spiritualized or allegorical sense or application. But the preacher must distinguish between a compositional allegory and an interpretive allegory. The former may be a feature of Biblical literature here or there (few genuine examples exist), not one of the four senses of Scripture itself. The latter is more akin to the quadriga's imposed external to Holy Writ spiritualized domain of meaning. There is much food for thought in Tyndale's reasoning for the teaching aspect of preaching the word. Unfortunately for those trying to rehabilitate or retrieve the quadriga for Protestant appreciation and use, there is no rational or logical quarter for relying on the quadriga as a resource to help one charged with deriving meaning from Scripture to then proclaim that meaning.

Tyndale continues, "Moreover, if I could not prove with an open text that which the allegory doth express," that is the law/gospel illustration, "then were the allegory a thing to be jested at , and of no greater value than a tale of Robinhood ." Now, let me give a contemporary example of such an allegory worthy to be jested at.

In his book, titled Manual for Preaching, medical doctor, seminary professor, and preacher, Abraham Kuruvilla, details an experience he had while waiting in the foyer of a church he was visiting. He says, "I found a copy of a popular daily devotional that I spotted a homily on Acts 28. Paul is shipwrecked on Malta, and he joins everyone else in helping out, picking up sticks for the fire. So the writer recommended we too should be willing to do menial jobs in churches and always be willing to do even the lowliest job. Of course, the devotional conveniently failed to mention the viper that came out of the cord and bit the hapless apostle. Now I, being the clever guy that I am, could use that part of Acts 28 to recommend exactly the opposite. Never ever do menial tasks, because who knows? A venomous beast, usually of the two-legged variety, may sink its fangs into you.”

Kuruvilla's anecdote, several centuries removed, seems to encapsulate and confirm Tyndale's various conclusions. In this example, the tropological sense is nothing but an allegory of manners. Be willing to do menial work based on Paul doing menial work. With text-based mischief, Kuruvilla also illustrates that a contradictory tropological allegory of manners can equally be commended, hence the jest, as Tyndale said.

Indeed, the quadriga's ultimate value for both hermeneutics and homiletics is as a thing to be jested at Biblically, rationally, historically, and confessionally. Whether conceived as manifold sense or manifold application, the Protestant rejection of the quadriga was not due to its abuses, but to its inherent defects. The principle of the manifold sense of Scripture cannot be resolved much less incorporated into a confessionally Protestant single sense of meaning model by an appeal to semantics. The principles themselves are opposed. From its attempted sophisticated rehabilitation or retrieval under the guise of Christocentrism or interpreting the Scriptures like the Apostles to its painfully superficial means of conceiving it as an applicational tool for preaching, the quadriga's true forte is in its propensity to inspire jest.

J.R.R. Tolkien's famous quadriga easter egg is a classic example:

“Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. . . .

“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good

morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want

it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a

morning to be good on?”

“All of them at once,” said Bilbo.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 17–18.

The End!!!!

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Mon, 02 Sep 2024 22:20:38 GMT

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Foreword

Man shall not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4 NIV)

“Pastor, would you please pray for me? I am struggling to read the Bible.”

Over the last fourteen years of pastoral ministry in the local church, this refrain (or a sentiment very similar) is one I have heard time and time again. This has come from Christians of virtually all phases of life and every educational background (with the exception perhaps of many new believers). The State of the Church surveys put out every two years by the late R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries as well as many other national surveys consistently show an uphill battle for every biblically faithful, historically orthodox Christian who seeks to contend for the faith once delivered for all the saints (Jude 1:3). The landscape of Christianity in the West in general, and the United States of America in particular, is marked by biblical illiteracy yet even worse—deliberate—that is, a chosen ignorance of the Scriptures.

This unsurprisingly has led to a decay of doctrine in the souls of many self-professing Christians and a shallowness among many if not most local churches. There is little to no confidence and assurance in the sufficiency, inerrancy, and unique unrivaled authority of the written Word of God. Why? Well, many claim, “After all, when it comes to the Bible, it’s all a matter of one’s interpretation, so who can be right?”

The situation is often only exacerbated when we look at the present state of theological education. Many so-called evangelical scholars training current and future evangelical pastors today care far more about being respected in the eyes of the deceived scholarly world over humbly fearing and following the living God according to the whole counsel of His Word. Pastors, then, with a diminished view of Scripture, turn to gimmicks and tricks of leadership gurus and functionally abandon the Scriptures that uniquely bear witness to Christ (John 5:39) in whom unsearchable riches are found (Ephesians 3:8).

Moreover, today many who claim to be confessional and convictional Protestants openly or secretly seem to scoff at some of the core ideas that led to the Reformation and a recovery of so much sound doctrine that was muted in favor of tradition, superstition, and mysticism. The interpretation of the written, revealed Word of God can be and often is a demanding task. But it is always worth it as the God-breathed Scriptures are the vital core of a true God-fearing Christian’s discipleship. The Lord Jesus in His high priestly prayer asked the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17 ESV).

Yet this is why Roberto Gazga’s book before you now is so needed and important, and I highly recommend it to you. Faithful local church pastors and elders (vocational or lay), Bible teachers, and Christian professors especially ought to take up this book and carefully read this (though I truly think most all Christians should as well). Roberto’s book is not just another book on interpreting the Bible (hermeneutics), though it will help you wisely interpret the Bible and delight in it. Roberto’s book is also not merely a polemic, though he will bless you as he rightly and precisely pushes back on some increasingly popular but incorrect paradigms in our day. Roberto’s book is also not simply a blessing for the sources he probes and gem quotes he has dug up that will bless you—though it will do this as well! Rather, Roberto’s book before you is an invitation and a plea for Christ’s blood-bought church to live under Christ’s lordship and to do so not according to our wits and whims but according to the Word of God.

Our Lord directed people to the Scriptures claiming that they spoke of and would direct people to Him (John 5:39). Even in the first century, our Lord encountered and countered religious leaders who neglected the Scriptures for the traditions of men (Mark 7:6–13). Our Lord clearly cared about and asked about the content of the law (Luke 10:25–37) and countered the devil himself with the very written words of God-breathed Scripture (Luke 4:1–13). The holy text of Scripture is for the Christian what water is for the fish and food is for the daily life of all creatures. We will starve or die spiritually without Scripture. As Brother Roberto rightly reminds us, “Interpreters, at whatever stage of maturity, have to

get their hands dirty in handling the text.”

It is personal to you and me and every Christian. Why? Because God does not treat His Word lightly like we so often do. In fact, the way God is glorified by His people is never around or ignoring the Word but always through and with and under the Word. God takes His Word with the utmost seriousness, and so must we. Roberto writes as a thoughtful and committed churchman seeking God’s glory in all things. As you read, you will see and feast your mind on truth. Truth always has great earthly and eternal consequences, and Roberto knows this and believes it. This brother humbly presents the written, revealed Word of God and helpfully brings in faithful voices from the past who can aid us today in our present crisis, helping us grow in discernment.

Roberto’s book is not only an invitation from a faithful churchman; it is also a challenge in the best sense of the word. Every single Christian from the least to the most mature must beware of and reject intellectual laziness and simply adopting Christian fads even among intellectuals (Proverbs 18:17). Whether you are a Christian who is a fresh, new convert or a seasoned pastor or tenured professor with a PhD, you and all of us must remember we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16); and as such, we are to discern God’s will and honor God with our minds (Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 1:13; Philippians 4:8; Colossians 3:2).

Though the Lord tells us His Word never returns void (Isaiah 55), and though through their faithfulness to the Lord and His Word our forebears turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6), and though believing faith comes through hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17), many now seem to believe based on their ministries and lives “I will do everything. The Word can do nothing” (reversing Martin Luther’s famous “I did nothing. The Word did everything”). Indeed, this appears to be the norm rather than the exception.

I praise God for this book and commend it to you. Read it carefully in this present evil age. Hear what is being said. Think hard about the arguments being made and truths being proposed. Do the hard work and think carefully and prayerfully with your local church family about the role of God’s Word in your life and in your church. What role does the Scripture have in your life? In your family’s life? In your local church’s life? In the world? And if you see shortcomings or a less-than-biblical place for the Bible, what shall be done? The God of glorious grace opens the door for repentance and change of mind. Confess this sin and reorient yourself afresh under Christ’s lordship. Praise be to God! As Brother Roberto reminds us in this volume, “We have, in the text of Scripture from beginning to end, God’s strategic wisdom and tactical cunning summed up in the person and work of Christ.”

May this book be used by the Lord to help individual Christians and many local churches recover or renew their desire and commitment to have the mind of Christ. May the glory of God’s Word in the verses below bearing witness to God’s grace and truth in Christ the Redeemer become an increasing reality in every reader’s life, as well as every family, every local church, every community, and every school:

The Law of Your mouth is better to me Than thousands of gold and silver pieces. (Psalm 119:72)

The words of the Lord are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. (Psalm 12:6)

The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. (Psalm 19:8)

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Peter 1:20–21)

And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:25–27)

Soli Deo Gloria

Brandon Myers

Senior Pastor of Christ the King Reformed Baptist Church, Niles IL

May 2024

Preface

What does the Lord Jesus have to do with interpreting both God’s Word and God’s world?

Conventional wisdom puts the cart before the horse, claiming that the world, whether scholarship or popular opinion, must dictate how the Bible is to be interpreted and who Jesus really is. Most critical scholarship argues that the world is a self-contained, self-explanatory system. It asserts that the Bible contains no overarching metanarrative and should be relegated to a haphazard arrangement of tales. It argues that Jesus was an itinerant rabbi who died a martyr’s death and later became the founding figure of a community of followers. In doing so, conventional wisdom gets the world, the Word, and the Lord Jesus woefully wrong.

Christian wisdom in general and Calvinist wisdom in particular, however, self-consciously mediate and subjugate knowledge of the world according to the Jesus of the Word. In doing so, they get God’s world, God’s Word, and Jesus right, holding that the world is the theater of God’s glory in Christ, who is the telos (goal) of all creation precisely because He is the raison d’être (fundamental reason and purpose of its existence). As the Bible says, He is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Calvinists observe that according to the Bible, Christ is the all-encompassing Alpha and Omega for both creation and redemption.

This Calvinist self-conscious mediation and subjugation of knowledge of the world to the Jesus of the Word is a lifelong process. It is both a science and an art. It is a science insofar as it seeks to discover further truths from the axiom of God’s Word. It is an art insofar as this lifelong process can be as messy as a painter’s palette.

Therefore, my present work of “art” starts within the “scientific” framework of the primacy of the Lord Jesus as revealed in God’s Word. Only He, through His Word correctly understood, can get the things of this world right.

I begin and end by asking myself two questions respectively:

Am I a Christocentric reader?

Am I a Christocentric teacher?

In painting, artists sometimes apply neutral colors (called grisaille or bistre ) to a blank canvas as underpainting to give the work more depth and realism. In the same way, I invite the reader to look over my shoulder as I have sought to paint a portrait of Christocentrism for God’s Word and God’s world. Perhaps my efforts will inspire you to paint your own Christocentric work of art.

Each stroke is infused with a line of thought. What may be vibrantly seen in the final work belies the necessary tonal underpainting and the further grayscale on the canvas of my experience.

As a Calvinist Christian, I believe it is only natural and right to mediate and subjugate all of life to the primacy of the Lord Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures. He tells me He is the way, the truth, and the life. Therefore, I can see and live my knowledge of my experiences in the world only in light of Him. In His light I see light. Christians ought to take this as a joyful invitation to take the Bible seriously and “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, but with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 NASB).

So how have my life’s experiences been shaped by the primacy and centrality of the Lord Jesus in both the Word and the world? By the grace of God I have been privileged to be called to teach children and adults in diverse settings, in both Christian elementary schools and the local churches I have been a member of. In those teaching capacities I have sought to open the Scriptures, to explain and teach God’s Word to God’s people.

My hope is that parents, pastors, teachers, students, and lay leaders would ponder the eternal significance of God’s Word for God’s world, whatever their present understanding of both are. As for me, I humbly stand upon the unbreakable rock of Reformed Christocentrism. I can do no other, so help me God.

Introduction

The Christ of Scripture is central to the believer’s life. Too many Christians lack a robust understanding of this idea. It is not sufficiently fleshed out regarding hermeneutics (the branch of knowledge concerning interpretation of texts, especially Scripture), much less its applicability for the world we live in. Whether we call it Christocentric Calvinism or Reformed Christocentrism, we can gain a clearer and greater appreciation of this idea once it is incarnated in real-life reading of the Word and real-life application of that Word in the world. It is well past time for the rays of Christocentrism to escape the confines of the academy and be reflected and diffused in the church, in homes, and in the street.

This work isn’t meant to be a formal theological or philosophical treatise. However, it may be more theological and philosophical than some may like. Indeed, I want to ground sound interpretation of the Word and the world upon a Christocentric foundation. But overall, my case is more impressionistic and suggestive rather than theologically and philosophically rigorous. For this I make no apologies.

After all, this work is deeply personal, born of reflection I was engaged in while living my calling and carrying out its duties as a teacher in the midst of an increasingly decaying and crumbling society and culture. I taught subject matter to children and adults, including an elementary school curriculum as well as the Bible respectively. Why? Because despite the cultural rot, God always has the first and last word on all matters.

Although I’m no more than an armchair Christian philosopher or theologian, I still self-consciously tried to apply Reformed philosopher Alvin Plantinga’s advice to Christian philosophers in his famous essay “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” from 1984. He argued, “Christian philosophers must display more integrity––integrity in the sense of integral wholeness, or oneness, or unity, being all of one piece. Perhaps ‘integrality’ would be the better word here.” For our purposes, such integrality involves seeing Christ in all of Scripture for all of life.

I have two hopes, dear reader: (1) that you can adapt and integrate my work with your own experiences and (2) that you can encourage those in your sphere of influence, whether in your household, your local church, your college, or your seminary, to strive to see all of Christ in all of Scripture for all of life. Whether or not you identify with the Reformed tradition as I do, our shared faith commits all believers to seek the Lord Jesus “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3 NASB).

To that end, my portrait of Christocentrism according to confessional Calvinism is divided into three interdependent parts.

Part 1 will lay a foundation for biblical interpretation according to confessional Calvinism, wherein I discuss some axiomatic principles of biblical hermeneutics (that is, proper interpretation) necessary to read Scripture correctly. Historic Protestant confessions such as the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) or the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LBCF) explicitly demand and endorse such principles.

Part 2 will provide an example of these interpretive principles applied to a challenging Old Testament text. It constitutes an extended reading for teaching and preaching Christ in the manner of passages about the roads to Emmaus (Luke 24) and Gaza (Acts 8). This will necessarily involve getting our hands dirty, for only in such a way can we rightly divide the Word of truth. We will have to employ various tools in order to judiciously and rationally draw out the text’s single sensus plenior (fuller sense). That is, human authors in the Old Testament intended to convey a message to their audiences. God often had a concurrent redemptive-historical intention related to Jesus’s ministry to convey to a future audience via the divinely inspired sacred text. He was able to do this because He alone is sovereign over both history and the process of recording the redemptive-historical events themselves. We will therefore use a robustly Reformed grammatico-historical method wedded to a Christocentric redemptive-historical approach. We will scratch the surface in addressing the right reading of figurative language and typology, simultaneously rejecting the medieval interpretive paradigm known as the quadriga , a word that comes from the Latin name for a chariot drawn by four horses abreast, which later became the name of an approach to hermeneutics. Various church fathers and medieval theologians up to the great Thomas Aquinas recognized four levels of meaning in Old Testament texts: literal, typological, tropological, and anagogical. We will touch on these concepts later. Suffice it to say now that those horses don’t haul.

Finally, in part 3 we will commend the fortunes of a Reformed Christian worldview as applied to some key areas of education. There is a continuity between a right reading of the Word and a right vision for the world, which the content of education inevitably deals with. No matter what model or system of education you participate in, the primacy and supremacy of the Lord Jesus is central and paramount. Whether it’s a traditional Christian day school, a classical Christian school, a co-op, a homeschool, or the kitchen table for tutoring your or someone else’s children entrusted to you, authentic Christian education presents a challenge worth considering by all involved. It is a challenge worth wrestling with as much as Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord until he received his blessing.

And so I have organized this work to exhort a right reading of the Word of Jesus to exemplify Jesus as a warrior and to elucidate key issues of the world according to the Lord Jesus. I encourage you to see all of Christ in all of Scripture for all of life!

CHRIST'S SCOPE AND SCEPTER: HIS WORD, HIS WORLD

Coming Soon!

Family Worship Bible Guide

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 12:23:18 GMT

The Family Worship Bible Guide:

Laying The Foundation for Transforming Your Home

Let's be real. Family worship is a little known subject among evangelicals.

Family Worship is more known and practiced among Dutch Reformed denominations than in run of the mill evangelical denominations. Anecdotally speaking, I've known and worked closely with Presbyterians in my life, and although it's a known subject, it isn't practiced as much as you may think. Same goes for Reformed Baptists. But overall, this situation is changing as more resources are produced.

Family worship is having a renaissance of sorts. One reason is the decaying culture surrounding us. Christian parents are being convicted to take full advantage of their relationship with their children and lead them devotionally to attend to the voice of God as found in the Scriptures not only on the Lord's day but every other day too. Whereas before family worship was looked as being unnecessary or a spiritual luxury, more and more evangelicals are looking at it as indispensable in our current cultural climate.

But what is meant by family worship? In essence, family worship is the daily practice of parents designating a time to lead their children to read scripture, pray, sing spiritual songs for the purpose of creating conditions conducive for robust faith and spiritual growth. I say parents because if the husband and father is not present, the mom is in charge. Then again, there are single dads, too.

Families are so diverse nowadays. Family worship may be conducted by one parent if only one parent is believing. In any case, family worship is intended to be daily, or at least consistent. Does dad work late hours? Does mom work outside the home? Coordination of schedules may present a challenge. Parents have to come to the point in their lives where they are persuaded that to prioritize their own and their children's spiritual lives, they will have to commit themselves to consistently being together to attend to their spiritual needs on a regular basis.

What direction or help can a father obtain for family worship? One immensely helpful resource is a little book published by Reformation Heritage Books called The Family Worship Bible Guide. Full disclosure: Reformation Heritage Books generously provided me with a free copy of this book in a synthetic leather edition that was recently released. This blog post is my honest review. I hasten to add that I bought the hardback cover edition of this book when it was first released several years ago. I even used it in adult Sunday School class and consulted it for sermon applications.

To the best of my knowledge, the Family Worship Bible Guide is a section of the Study notes from the Reformation Heritage King James Version Study Bible released in 2014. Now, although I don't own that Study Bible, I did buy, (once it became available) the same Study Bible in Spanish called Herencia Reformada. Interestingly, then, the same notes for family worship are found in the Spanish version of the Study Bible, and it was especially convenient for me because I was a member of a Spanish speaking congregation. So, I have been a fan and supporter of this resource for several years.

In a sense, it's like having Dr. Joel Beeke as a coach beside you, guiding you every step of the way. He tells us in the introduction, “Family worship will require some preparation.” Let me share some bullet points. In broad strokes, such preparation includes:

praying for God's blessing upon family worship,
having your Bibles ready
having a Scripture passage preselected
having the Catechism of your choice, or perhaps something like the Pilgrim's Progress for discussions
choice of Psalms or hymns to sing
picking a place to gather like the dining room table or the living room
setting the times for family worship
guarding those times for family worship
Aiming for brevity

Dr. Beeke goes on to offer deeper spiritual support for daily instruction in the Word of God, daily prayer before the throne of God, and daily singing to the praise of God. The father has no excuses on how to implement family worship, even if he adapts some of the suggestions to his circumstances. For example, some families may not be able to do family worship twice a day as mentioned in the introduction. Fine, so do it once daily.

Now, my two cents differ slightly from Dr. Beeke's suggestions, but only slightly. I just want to acknowledge in my experience and neck of the woods, there are a lot of single mothers, fathers and grandparents or extended family members raising kids nowadays. Ideally, this shouldn't be the case, but it is. Unfortunately, there are a lot of single mothers out there. Some are immature and say they don't need a man. These claim that they function as both mother and father by necessity. Others who are a little wiser recognize that they can't fill a father's shoes. This situation highlights a great two-fold need in the church today, at least in North America. It's really a symbiotic relationship between sound preaching the whole counsel of God and family worship.

The preaching of the Word, as the experimental means of grace is sorely lacking. This sort of preaching gives dry bones life not only to individuals but to families. Experimental and applicatory preaching that glorifies God by opening the Scriptures so that the Spirit can open the doors of the homes and produce a divine work of family reformation that will result in family worship. This may lead to Apostolic prescriptions being obeyed like the command of older, wiser ladies to help the younger ladies out (Titus 2:3-5).

Although it is quite common to hear in contemporary preaching on the failures and sins of men from the pulpit, it is almost as if addressing the unique failures and sins of women is the third rail of pulpit ministry in America. None of us is without sin. The purpose of teaching and preaching is to benefit believers and glorify God, and that will be seen and felt by men, women, and children. Not in the abstract, but in the nitty-gritty of households. And it takes blood, sweat and tears to accompany preaching and teaching. As Dr. Beeke said in the introduction, not only Abraham's faith, but his obedience as well.

Along these lines, I remember teaching an adult Sunday school class a few years ago. I had my Herencia Reformada Study Bible and we were in a parallel teaching series to the preaching series. Ephesians 5 and 6 received much attention over the span of weeks. The family worship notes came in handy for the lessons. Note #3 on Ephesians 5 was very apt for my audience. It says, “Marriage exists to show the glory of Christ. It is God's display case for the beautiful relationship between Christ and the church. Husbands and wives have a high calling. Commit yourself to serve your spouse as God commands in His Word. Whether your marriage is sweet or sorrowful”

This note should resonate with all Christian married couples. Marriage isn't always sweet. It's sometimes sorrowful, but neither the lack of sweetness or abundance of sorrow is the standard by which you measure Christian marriage. What better commendation can I give to study notes coming from a Bible like this? They are as honest as the Bible itself is. The Family Worship Bible Guide is full of experiential, applicatory insights, helpful not only for family worship but for teaching and preaching. I wholeheartedly recommend it for your family and church. Soli Deo Gloria.

Check out EPISODE 21 for an abridged reading of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress!

We Distinguish? Biblicism, Boogeymen, and Bereans

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 02:26:16 GMT

We Distinguish? (Who Is We?)

Biblicism, Boogeymen, and Bereans

Introduction

Disputes among Christians on social media are funny…until they aren't. When things heat up, it's either someone's intelligence, integrity, or their orthodoxy being questioned. When things cool down, we are told to keep discussions focused on doctrines, not dudes. But a partisan spirit is difficult to avoid. I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. I am a Cephas. I am of Christ. The same thing can be seen in discussions of the needlessly frustrating topic of Biblicism. What is biblicism and why does it matter? I bet you're wondering whose side I'm on. Have you read my four part blog piece on biblical interpretation according to Calvinism? What are you waiting for?

As far as whose side I'm on in the biblicism debate, I like Tree Beard's answer: “I am not altogether on anybody's side because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me well.” I hope this pointed yet fair and friendly critique is understandable to all who hear the episode and read this transcript. Gird your loins as we scratch the surface on biblicism!

The topic of biblicism has flared up in recent years and shows no signs of riding off peacefully into the sunset. I have, for the most part, avoided participating in such debates and discussions online because they have been addressed by various authors, pastors, and laypeople ad nauseam. We are at the point where blogs, vlogs, and podcasts are frequently referencing biblicism as a foil to confessionalism and occasionally getting both wrong. Ironically, more heat than light is spent on biblicism, and discussing it is not always profitable. It may be a points game now. To the best of my recollection and ability to track some quarters of the biblicism discussion, a recent approach is being doubled down on. It favors assertion more than argument, pejoratives more than premises. It seems the pejoratives are the premises. The bottom line is that biblicism is the boogeyman.

In his recently released book, “The Reformation as Renewal”, Dr. Matthew Barrett noted the term biblicism’s first use as a pejorative without noting its employment by a Roman Catholic. (HT to @NamorPB on X, formerly Twitter). This omission is important due to the common Romanist apologetic against Sola Scriptura, which was from that point pejoratively labeled as biblicism.

Does original use of a term, however, determine its future use for all people and for all time? After all, the term “Christian” was originally used by infidels to label believers and persecute them on the basis of wanting to imitate Christ. “Look at them, they are little Christs.” Early Christians, thankfully, had the holy moxie to embrace the term “Christian” as a badge of honor. And believers of all stripes, biblicist and confessionalist alike, have been known as Christians for two millennia. What infidels meant for evil, simple believers having learned from God's ironic work of redemption in Christ meant it for good.

What if some sincere believers, knowing its pejorative origin in Romanist apologetics against Sola Scriptura, want to embrace the label? Is the label inherently naive or worse, insidious? If so, it must be shown to be so. Not even frequent Roman Catholic use of the term in the same way necessarily determined future use for subsequent Protestants who modified it for their ends.

History may count noses, but truth doesn't. Romanist apologists already reject and refute Sola Scriptura with the pejorative epithet “Biblicist” as being the mother of all heresies. Therefore, when contemporary confessionalists inveigh against the supposed dangers or ignorance of biblicism, it is not that impactful or scandalous. In fact, even some confessionalists embrace the term Biblicist under a certain understanding of it. To the chagrin of some academically oriented believers and their enthusiastic acolytes, these confessional biblicists consider it intellectually and devotionally virtuous. The absolute madmen!

Apparently, there may be versions of biblicism that are perfectly biblical and confessional, similarly to how there are versions of, let's say, determinism that are biblical and confessional despite protestations to the contrary. After all, there are versions of “tradition” quite consistent with Classical Protestantism, are there not? Rome may own the copyright on capital “T” Tradition, but not lowercase “t” tradition. What if some sincere believers, whether learned or unlearned, embrace the label biblicist as an intuitive and natural outflow of faith in the precious promises of God found in the Bible? What logical or biblical need is there to say that such people are narcissists? What about calling them obscurantists?

Isaiah 66 says, “But on this one will I look on him who is poor and of contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.” This trembling at God's word is, as another Matthew comments, “an habitual awe of God's majesty and purity, and an habitual dread of His justice and wrath. Such a heart is a living temple for God. He dwells there, and it is the place of His rest. It is like heaven and earth, His throne and His footstool” (Matthew Henry). So then trembling at God's word is tantamount to trembling at God himself.

What would drive anyone pastorally, logically, biblically, to accuse someone of an “idolatry of the letter” of Holy Writ? What can that possibly mean when our Lord Jesus himself says the words that I spoke to you are Spirit and they are life? (John 6:63). The literal is the spiritual and vice versa when it comes to the Bible. Many decry biblicism as a principled construct inherently imposed on the Scriptures, but our Lord excludes bifurcation of the spiritual from the letter. Do theological teachers give due respect to our Lord's elevation of the Word of God? I fear for the ones who do not.

The devil, however, is in the details of how to apply this in discussions of biblicism versus confessionalism. Who is more biblical, the non-confessional biblicist, the non-biblicist confessionalist, or the confessional biblicist? I know. Heads are exploding right now. But we must distinguish right? Easier said than done.

Defining Biblicism

Recent opponents of biblicism have had varying degrees of success in offering definitions of what they oppose. Let me just mention a few that are offered up by opponents. Davenant Institute produced a video entitled, “Is Biblicism Bad?” in which Alistair Roberts defined biblicism as, “that elevation of the Bible to such a high level that it occludes other things that we need to take into account.” However, it must be noted that Dr. Roberts prefaced his definition with a recognition, unlike Matthew Barrett, of the Bebbington Quadrilateral description of Evangelicals, of which biblicism forms part. David Bebbington is a church historian who wrote, “Evangelicalism in Modern Britain.”(HT: to Daniel C, whose resources can be found at puritanreformed.net . He was a graduate of Westminster Seminary California.)

Bebbington's fourfold classification of evangelicalism consisted of conversionism, activism, crucicentrism, and biblicism. Apparently, Bebbington identifies himself as an Evangelical. Presumably, biblicism, therefore, isn’t at all pejorative. It is simply descriptive of how Evangelicals express their ultimate theological commitment. So, if biblicism is indeed irrefutably demonstrated to be bad, this prompts the question: Does that make evangelicalism into a wobbly Jenga tower seconds away from collapse? Maybe it does if we accept a pejorative sense of biblicism.

Back to Robert's definition. Is it even possible to elevate the Bible to an unacceptably high degree and level? In Psalm 138:2, David remarkably raises the biblicist stakes and would seem to ruin the cause of anti-biblicism, or at least of Robert's definition of biblicism. The psalmist and Holy Spirit state, “for you have magnified your word above all your name.”

Christians are supposed to be the people of the book. Given God's own elevation of His Word, it would seem that pearl clutching about extra biblical things being occluded is purely academic. All believers should be elevating the Bible to a maximally high degree. Our problems don't ever seem to be a supposed idolatry of the letter, but the neglect of the letter or its supplanting.

Now, a curious point is attempted to be made by Roberts when he adduces the Bible's silence on an issue to illustrate an ethical lacuna of God's Word. Quite perplexingly, Roberts states that the Bible is silent on…(checking notes) necrophilia. Immediately, we are confronted with the academic impulse to score points among acolytes who go off and parrot similar talking points and straying from their own definitions of biblicism.

Doesn’t Genesis 1 and 2 have something to say about sex, marriage, and fruitfulness? And does the fullness of the meaning of marriage revealed in a New Testament have no implications for that sick practice they mentioned? Robert's definition of biblicism did not specify in what sense the elevation of the Bible will necessarily lead to the occlusion of, let's say, natural law or ethical issues such as the example of necrophilia. In fact, I find this whole approach to be a disingenuous downgrade, not worthy of serious discussion. In politics, if you're the first to mention Hitler, you lose. In Christian Ethics, if you claim the Bible underdetermines whether necrophilia is licit, you lose. Necrophilia can quite reasonably be addressed biblically and confessionally as a sinful practice by a thoroughly Reformed exposition of the moral law of God. Anything outside the purview of licit sexual practices is sinful, whether it is explicitly or implicitly found in Scripture. The biblical data does not underdetermine this and many other issues one might think the Bible is silent on.

Moreover, biblical silence is not to be equated with not having an explicit verse directly addressing a particular issue. After all, even non-confessionalist Christians believe in the Trinity by good and necessary consequence (“necessarily contained”, if you prefer).

Speaking of good and necessary consequence (or necessarily contained), the Sadducees on one occasion are recorded to have argued similarly to Alistair Roberts in Matthew 22:23-33. They try to score points against the Lord Jesus by asking him a conundrum situation about the resurrection. They were under the false impression that Jesus was an unsophisticated, ignorant, naive, and perhaps even insidious biblicist.

Since the Sadducees judged that the Bible was silent on the afterlife and a future resurrection of the body, they offered a reductio ad absurdum. They offered this on the basis of their notion of special revelation’s silence on the matter of the resurrection. Whose wife will a woman be at the resurrection if her previous seven husbands were brothers and all died succinctly? The Lord Jesus draws out two valid conclusions from supposed biblical silence. In doing so, he combats biblical superficiality rather than silence.

First, the purpose and function of marriage fulfills its design in this earthly life, and to assume marriage continues in the resurrection is wrong. Why assume that? Second, they didn't read scripture aright, since a central divine declaration would have established the truth of the resurrection. “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The Logos, Jesus, draws out the valid logical implication God is not the God of the dead but of the living. It would seem that the necessity of the resurrection is required by the present tense in God's declaration. Leave it to Jesus to offer them a biblicist bone in their kebab. So much for idolatry of the letter.

Another recent description of biblicism as negative is found in a Modern Reformation Magazine article by London Lyceum's very own Jordan Stefaniak. It is entitled, “Everything in Nature Speaks of God: Understanding Sola Scriptura Aright.” He describes it in the opening paragraphs of the article as “a disordered love” with inevitably “corrosive” effects for both faith and practice Descriptions, however, are easier than definitions. In fact, Stefaniak confesses (pun intended) that there are, “several ways Biblicism could be defined.” Parenthetically, this is the heart of the issue!

Biblicism does not enjoy a standard definition as other terms like infralapsarian or supralapsarian do. And while the infra and the supra attached to the lapsarian objectively mean something, the same courtesy isn't afforded to biblicism. “Bibl” is sitting right there in the middle of the word! Why greet it with crossed arms?

Stefaniak offers the following definition: “Scripture is authoritative for all concepts of God and any other theological locus such as morality, anthropology, etcetera. Therefore, theological commitments must emerge from Scripture alone and be consistent with Scripture. Intuition, creed, confession, tradition, or any other source is incompatible with the supremacy of the Scriptures.” He further adds that biblicism, thus defined, is “impossible” for it allows no extra biblical input for theological construction to faithfully maintain Scriptures supremacy and sufficiency.

Now, apart from painting one's opponent into a corner in a dispute, one must make sure that the proper footwear is being worn to avoid being stained with paint oneself. The process of attempting to paint one's opponent into a corner can be something of a Pyrrhic victory.

Stefaniac asserts that an insurmountable problem with Biblicism as he defines it, is that since it “is unfeasible to derive any theological concept from Scripture without a secondary means apart from Scripture,” then even “[T]heology cannot be done.” Stefaniak further spreads the proverbial paint as he pushes his biblicist opponent into the corner by asserting even “the basic reading of the text and forming an idea of it is itself external to Scripture. Therefore, no one can consistently adhere to biblicism, because biblicism itself is a theological concept derived rationally from Scripture, and is thus unacceptable as a theory by the grounds of its own premise. Moreover, such a vision of theology is inconsistent with Scripture’s own vision.”

Now, nobody is infallible. Despite good intentions, we can't always employ and display serious thinking for a serious church, as the London Lyceum's motto states. I believe Stefaniak's argument above is not as cogent or sound as imagined, at least from the perspective of a, let's say, confessional biblicist.

Many critical observations can be made, but I want to focus certain details. To the best of my ability, Stefaniak's argument can be distilled in this way:

Premise 1. Biblicism maintains it is always feasible to derive theological concepts from Scripture alone without secondary means such as reason, creeds, or even the act of reading itself to form ideas.

Premise 2. It is unfeasible to derive any theological concepts from scripture alone without secondary means.

Therefore, biblicism is self referentially incoherent since it cannot be feasibly maintained.

I'm no logician, so although the form of this argument may seem valid to some observers more logically inclined, I cannot help but offer the following criticisms. Premise 1 is mixed between how Stefaniak defines biblicism and what he stated it entails. Part of what he explained is that the act of reading is a secondary means of knowing or acquiring knowledge that is itself not derived from scripture. But this entailment would not be granted by the biblicist, who can simply maintain that reading, like reason itself, is simply how God ordained image bearers come in contact with divine special revelation in textual form.

For God to design and cause the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture was to fit it to our cognitive faculties like hands and gloves. In principle, the adequacy of human language has been wedded to our cognitive faculties sufficiently to the purpose God ordained it for. It is, therefore, not apparent, much less proven, that the act of reading is a mismatch for maintaining the feasibility of deriving theological concepts from Scripture alone.

Speaking of which, Premise 2 seems to suffer from a lack of modesty. It seemingly is in a hurry to reach that unpainted corner or conclusion, given that there is no reason to think, certainly no demonstrably good reason, provided that according to biblicism, either reason or reading makes it unfeasible to derive any theological concepts from scripture alone without secondary means, we only need to provide one example or instance of deriving a theological concept from scripture alone without a secondary means. Where should we look? To ask, that is to answer it!

If this hypothetical biblicist really existed, the stronger brother should imitate the Lord Jesus as He theologized offering counterexamples from Scripture. The problem is that Premise 2 is formulated from a supposed self-evident truth that it is unfeasible to derive any theological concepts from Scripture alone without secondary means. If I was ever to encounter a biblicist according to Stefaniak's definition, I won't make Stefaniak's assertion of Premise 2. Instead, I will offer a markedly Protestant, Evangelical, Confessional, and, dare I say, Biblicist answer.

Romans 4:3 says, “For what does Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Also, “…just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven.”

Romans 4, where Paul argues for justification by faith, results in refuting Stefaniak's premise 2. Why? Because the Apostle Paul derived the theological concept and conclusion of justification by faith alone from the Old Testament narrative in Genesis 15 and from the poem of Psalm 32. Makes one wonder if Paul was a Confessional Biblicist of sorts.

Not only can this sort of theologizing be feasible, we must remember by whom it must be feasibly maintained. Paul's audience at the Church of Rome were not the sophisticated or philosophically inclined. They were merchants, the poor, the humble, the illiterate, and perhaps even slaves. The Scriptures may not have been able to be read individually by all, but certainly all heard the Scriptures being read collectively and publicly preached from. Don’t forget, “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” We all can feasibly theologize from Scripture alone. That's what Protestantism is famous for concerning justification, right? And the perspicuity of Scripture, right? Stefaniak’s Premise 2 postulates too much and seems to make Protestant Christianity itself self referentially incoherent. Thank God for Paul!

We'll look at one more definition of biblicism before we end this. It's from the Baptist Broadcast in a recent video entitled, “Is Biblicism Biblical?” Like the host and guest, some pastors and professors and young seminary and whippersnappers sometimes define biblicism as a rejection of things not explicitly stated in Scripture, with a concomitant rejection of creedal and confessional statements, even if produced by the church in the past. Whereas the previous descriptions and definitions may have been less on the nose with their synthesis of what constitutes biblicism, this definition isn't playing Footsie with anyone. It is no coincidence many Reformed Baptists use it, since they are by nature incapable of playing Footsie with anyone.

It gives no quarter for anyone who might think they can be Confessional Biblicists: either principled Biblicism or principled Confessionalism. In atypical magnanimous Reformed Baptist fashion, however, there is a glimmer of mercy, but only a glimmer. If the principled biblicist is not insidious or seriously in error, than he is simply seriously naive in his biblicist principles. Someone like a theological Forrest Gump, perhaps. I ask, however, who and where are these biblicists? Reality seems to reflect that this boogeyman is made out to be a mountain instead of being recognized as the molehill that it really is.

“No Creed but Christ!” may have been a slogan known to some of yesteryear from certain denominations, but nowadays I mainly hear it from certain academics and their acolytes who parrot prepackaged talking points. And as mentioned, the talking points don't even get the origin of the term right and its subsequent modifications. One such talking point, used as a slam dunk against not so much biblicism in the abstract, but personally against biblicists, goes like this: “The confession does not have ultimate authority, but it has more authority than you!” Not as artistic or effective as Tetzel’s slogan: “As soon as a coin in the coffers rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

Can you imagine the inadequacy of that talking point to the naive sincere biblicist needing instruction? The inadequacy in that common Reformed Baptist talking point online isn’t in a lack of artistic imagination. If you know of any non-denominational, holiness, denomination, Assembly of God, Free Church, or other run-of-the-mill Baptist biblicist, wouldn't reasoning and reading scripture be more God honoring and fruitful? The sincere believer may be anti-confessional with Biblicist tendencies. He hears that quip and wonders why it's a slam dunk refutation of biblicism. Don't confessionalists, they may wonder, know about Paul and the Bereans?

It's as though some Reformed Baptists don't remember being Pop-Arminians, themselves, and coming to accept the doctrines of grace through much struggle. Unfortunately, there are too many confessionalists who can't be bothered to respect the misguided believer operating under unbiblical assumptions, such as only holding onto explicit statements in Scripture. Boogeymen are offered more than the Berean way.

A recent strategy among environmentalism activists is to claim “climate homicide.” They are charging oil companies for culpability in causing extreme weather events, rising sea levels, etc. But this charge is based on so called “Attribution Science,” which posits connections between one thing and another as cause and effect. At this point, some Reformed Baptists are unwittingly adopting this approach, a sort of attribution theology saying biblicism leads to Rome. That's what's happening in the Baptist Broadcast. I fear this is nothing more than an empty attempt to virtue signal one's own superior theology. What it lacks in virtue, it abounds in non sequiturness.

Conclusion

If at this point, dear reader, you are not closer to a definitive, agreed upon by all parties, standard technical definition of biblicism, that means that the parties involved are talking past each other. Biblicism is an equivocal boogeyman, but a boogeyman nonetheless. That is why I prefer Berean. It's Biblical and fits quite comfortably with my Confessional Calvinism. Test the spirits!

We started by taking note of Matthew Barrett's documentation of the first use of biblicism as pejorative thanks to the detective work of Namor, Particular Baptist (@NamorPB on X, formerly Twitter). We learned it was from a Romanist author for whom biblicism can only ever be pejorative because it is the equivalent term to the Protestant Sola Scriptura. (Imprimatur by the Church? Was Barrett citation indicating approbation?).

But it never seems to dawn on those confessional Protestants advocating the pejorative use of biblicism that they had to change its original Roman Catholic definition of it as the equivalent to Sola Scriptura and use it in a lighter way. If they enjoy the privilege of redefining terms in their favor and for their use, why can't anyone else? Seems that chronological snobbery is a two way street.

Confessional Calvinists with thick skin like myself yawn at being labeled a hyper-Calvinist by other Protestant or Evangelical traditions. Adding one more pejorative like biblicist doesn't make me no never mind. It's mind over matter : if I don't mind, it don't matter. “As long as we don't scream at each other because that's what it sounds like when doves cry.” (Prince).

Next, we gave a Davenant Institute definition. It wasn't the worst. I had the virtue of being polite, but then Davenant got Deviant with the example of necrophilia. At least they acknowledge Bebbington's Quadrilateral, in which biblicism was used non-pejoratively. Thanks once again to Daniel C, graduate of Westminster Seminary in California. He can be found on X, as @puritanreformed, and once again on puritanreformed.net .

With tongue firmly planted in cheek, I say Bebbington may not have ultimate authority on Evangelical Church History, but he has more authority than Roman Catholic Finngan (originator of the term “Biblicism” as the pejorative equivalent of Sola Scriptura). Then we discussed Jordan Stefaniak's definition of a hard version of biblicism. I think I showed that a biblicist worth his salt can effectively avoid being painted into a corner, as well as simultaneously showing that Stefaniak cannot avoid being splashed and stained by paint himself. Lastly, we looked at a popular level Reformed Baptist strategy that just baldly states biblicism leads to Rome. But that's just attribution theology. No charges for Bible homicide can be filed. That's just as lazy as an upper jaw.

The bottom line is, if the glove does not fit, you must acquit.

How to Preach Like a Puritan (Without Being One): 5 Elements of Puritan Preaching

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:30:18 GMT

How to Preach Like a Puritan (Without Being One)

5 Elements of Puritan Preaching

Introduction

Ever since Puritan books started to be reprinted by Banner of Truth Trust over 60 years ago, they have consistently captured the attention of a segment of the Church desiring spiritual meat as part of their regular diet. Before then, such books were only available via second-hand bookstores.

What was mostly lost to history and known only to a few readers was that the reason these Puritan books were a source of spiritual protein was that they were not books in the ordinary sense. They were, in essence, sermon manuscripts.

What made these sermon manuscripts so appealing for popular piety? Why are they still recommended for spiritual consumption among Calvinist and Reformed believers? Is there any way that the Puritan approach to preaching the Word can be reproduced in our day and age?

One answer to the last question is, “Yes!” It was given by Dr. Joel Beeke a few years ago in some talks and articles he entitled, “Why We Should and Should Not Preach Like the Puritans.” He should know. He is as close a modern exemplar of the pros of Puritan preaching as is in existence today. In these talks and articles, he provided the pros and cons about trying to imitate the Puritan approach to preaching the Word of God. I recommend the reader look those articles and talks up.

I paraphrase Dr. Beeke’s list of CONS :

Don’t Structure Sermons by Theology, but by Exegesis
Don’t Multiply Points, but Keep it Simple
Don’t Overwhelm with Application, but focus
Don’t Preach Too Many Sermons on One Text or Topic, but Keep it Moving
Don’t Preach with Too Many Cross References, but Only a Few

The PROS are as follows:

Preach Well-Rounded Sermons
Preach the Main Doctrine of Your Text Thoroughly
Preach the Whole Counsel of God Over Time
Preach in a Plain Style that Regular Folks Understand
Preach with Your Life What You Preach From the Pulpit

Dr. Beeke concludes with: pray for the power of the Spirit for Puritan-like preaching.

I would like to take Dr. Beeke’s wise counsel and take his affirmative answer a step or two further. Given that the answer is, “Yes, there is a way that the Puritan approach to preaching the Word can be reproduced in our day and age,” the next question is, “ HOW does a novice or veteran pulpiteer preach like a Puritan (without being one)?

Lectures for the Clergy or Lectures for the People?

My musings have to start somewhere, so a good place to start is with a birds eye view of a typical Puritan sermon structure. Many observe 3 elements: observations, doctrine(s), and uses (or particular applications of the doctrine(s). This broad observation is, generally, true. The best and most spiritually rich Puritan sermons have often displayed these sermon divisions in one variation or another. However, there is still room to reframe the Puritan sermon structure more fully with an eye towards benefitting the people in the pews today.

In his 3 volume “A History of Preaching,” F. R. Webber illustrated the Puritan era sermon by contrasting a tree with a great stream uniting several rivers. Whereas the several rivers can unite and form a great stream, thus illustrating unity and progress, the tree illustrates many branches and limbs that the further outward they go, the further they are to what unites them. Webber states, “This rage for minute analysis was often at the expense of literary style and clearness.”

Why the rage for minute analysis? Webber states that the “sermons of Puritan times…reflect strongly the influence of the Scholastics. Scholastic theology was rejected, but the structural form of sermons has all the multitude of main divisions and subdivisions that were so popular among the Schoolmen…The aim of preaching in the Puritan era was to present every possible detail of the subject, whether it had any practical relation to the needs of the congregation or not.” Webber’s conclusion may be a bit too harsh. My bias tells me there must have been a method to their madness, not a rage for minute analysis.

Bryan Chappell gets a little closer to the truth when he notes that the Puritan era was a point of transition in the preaching tradition of the Church. The great ship of preaching was being turned from the deep waters of Scholastic education to the stormy waters of a new, self-consciously Reformation pedagogical approach many Puritans were being exposed to. Chappell notes that Puritan sermons took the lecture format for the clergy that they received in the classroom and simply adapted them for the people in the pews.

For our purposes, I want to just scratch the surface and suggest that the means that the Puritans used to make those adaptations were by critically fusing some older streams of thinking with some new ways of thinking. Scholastic method, rhetoric, and Ramism united in varying degrees among the Puritans to ultimately produce a spiritually robust offering to their audiences and centuries later, to us. Remember, our focus is not on Puritan theological treatises, but Puritan sermons and sermon structure. Therefore, the amount of Scholasticism in my treatment will be zero. Sorry, (not sorry) my Reformed Thomist brothers!

In general, Puritans employed 5 Elements to their sermon structure. Taken individually, they are not unique. However, these elements united as a whole sought to accomplish the communication of Biblical truth for the glory of God and for the good of His people via clear and unadulterated proclamation. Puritans were not triflers or peddlers of the Word of God. They preached as from God and in the sight of God in Christ (2 Cor. 2:17).

All sermons are works of science and craftsmanship. Puritan sermons are no exception. The 5 Elements of a Puritan Sermon are:

Introduction/Epigraph
Doctrine (Doctrinal Big Idea, Biblical Proposition, Homiletical Main point, or something similar)
Reasons (Arguments or Proofs)
Uses (Particular applications of the Doctrine)
Conclusion

First Element

The 1st Element of a Puritan sermon is the INTRODUCTION or EPIGRAPH. This element introduces and briefly establishes the rationale for the inquiry into the theme of the chosen biblical text. Like an inscription on the outer wall near the entrance to a building, an introduction or epigraph identifies the structure you are about to enter. Make no mistake: exposition of the Word of God is the function of preaching and to do so, the preacher must clearly introduce the intersection between the Biblical Text and the listener. The Bible is, after all, the Word of God and the preacher at the beginning plants the seed on what and why the text addresses the audience.

The Text’s thrust or flow of thought will be introduced and will serve to anchor the audience. They need to be anchored to the Word to perceive the biblical text’s relevance and applicability to their lives.

This requires a high level of dedication and discipline on the part of the preacher. Both towards the Word of God and towards the people of God. One description of the Godfather of Puritanism, William Perkins, was “painful.” He was known as “Painful Perkins” or a “Painful Preacher.” This didn’t mean it was painful to listen to him. Quite the contrary. What this meant was that he was painstaking in all his duties as a minister of the Word. He was diligent and methodical in crafting his messages with a pastor’s heart towards applying God’s truth to real lives.

This dual concern can and should be established at the beginning in the sermon’s introduction or epigraph. How long should this 1st element be? Dr. Steven Lawson offers some sanctified homespun wisdom in this regard. He said sermon introductions are like front porches. They shouldn’t be greater than the house itself! Puritans would generally agree. At least, the best Puritan preachers would.

The easiest way to do this is to begin broadly and end narrowly. This can be symbolically illustrated by an inverted triangle. A broad beginning can be encapsulated in an image, story, or fact that describes a pertinent life situation parallel to the concern of the Biblical text. For example, in a sermon on the Lord’s Prayer , I used the prayer practice of an eastern religion that fashioned cylinders with written petitions engraved all around it as counting as prayer if the person spun it.

From this, we move to the next step on the front porch and get personal. Establish the parallel need that is pertinent to the audience in a personal way. Personal, not emotional. Small arguments may be of value here that move, not manipulate, hearers into inclining their ears to hear the exposition of the Word. In the aforementioned Lord’s Prayer sermon, I gave a brief syllogism:

All true disciples of Jesus come to a point in their lives when they desire to learn from Him about prayer.
Every believer is a disciple of Jesus.
Therefore, every believer will at some point desire to learn what Jesus teaches concerning prayer.

Having done this, having walked up these two steps, we now narrow our focus further by explicitly announcing the texts theme. Listeners will know exactly what your proclamation’s theme, topic, doctrine, big idea, or proposition will be.

They will know your sermon’s theme by way of hearing you ask them the theme-specific question. Again, in the Lord’s Prayer sermon mentioned above, I asked: “What does the Prayer Life of a disciple of Jesus look like?”

Embedded in that question is the theme; namely, the prayer life of a disciple of Jesus. The answer to the question is the burden of the preacher to proclaim. But not according to his opinion or the opinion of others. The text of Scripture must be privileged because only it is being exposited. We do so publicly by taking the last step on the stairs onto the porch proper by giving a brief literary, historical, and perhaps theological context before culminating in reading the Text of Scripture.

Upon finishing the Scripture reading, the preacher should pray for illumination, his own and his audience’s, before continuing with the 2nd element of Puritan Preaching.

Second Element

The 2nd Element of Puritan Preaching is where the preacher leads his audience into the building through the entrance into the doctrinal BIG IDEA foyer. This element is what one pays the big bucks in seminary for. As a result of intense study of Scripture, with all the hermeneutical helps and tools, the Puritan preacher translates the meaning of his chosen text into a proposition consisting of the text’s subject and what is predicated of the text. All texts have a flow of thought or a thrust to accompany its theme. This doctrinal proposition must always be what is predicated of the subject according to the text of Scripture.

Having studied the text in its various contexts, according to its discernible affordances, its legitimate grammatical, historical, redemptive historical, and theological analyses, you must distill its meaning into that doctrinal BIG IDEA that in reality is the answer to the theme related question that the text answers.

For example, in this episode, we shall illustrate the 5 Elements of Puritan Preaching by a short devotional based on Hebrews 11:39-40. The Doctrinal Proposition (Subject-Complement, Theme-Thrust, Big Idea, Main Point, etc) is: Perseverance in Faith is Fueled by Either Christ in the Promise or Christ in the Glorious Fulfillment.

The 2nd Element of Puritan Preaching, then, is at once your analysis and synthesis of the text’s meaning in nuclear form. This nucleus or doctrinal big idea (proposition) is that which the whole sermon depends. Therefore, if your distillation (analysis and synthesis) of the text’s meaning is wrong, the rest of your proclamation will be wrong.

That is why it is of utmost importance to show your work to the extent that it is relevant to your doctrinal big idea or proposition. No more, no less. You can briefly display or expand whatever contextual or theological observations or considerations may be preliminary or subsidiary to the nucleus that is your properly drawn forth doctrinal proposition. After all, no text or doctrine of Scripture is an island unto itself.

Again, in the sermon on the Lord’s Prayer, some legitimate preliminary considerations supporting the the main point of the sermon was that, in context, Jesus provoked His disciples by His example to imitate His prayer warrior lifestyle (Luke 11: 1). Having done that, He proceeded to provide them with the pattern for prayer for all His disciples (Luke 11:2-4).

In one of the most famous sermons preached on North American soil, Jonathan Edwards Big Doctrinal Idea was prefaced by a preliminary and subsidiary observation or idea. I paraphrase: Wickedness is always prone to unexpected consequences of one's own doing at God’s appointed time. This simple, yet complex, observation of the rebellious Israelites during their wilderness wanderings is further distilled into a proper Doctrinal Big Idea or Proposition: “Only the mere pleasure of God keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell.”

Edwards briefly defines what he means by mere pleasure and quickly transitions to the next element of Puritan preaching. And so do we.

Third Element

The 3rd element of Puritan Preaching is proving the Doctrinal Proposition of Doctrinal Big Idea by means of reasons and arguments. Does the text itself provide them? Yes, either explicitly or implicitly. It will usually involve a combination of textual and theological considerations.

Without this 3rd Element of Puritan Preaching, the validity of the Doctrinal Proposition would remain unproven. It would merely be an assertion drifting in the wind like a plastic bag. Many sermons are just that: words drifting in the wind like plastic bags in a parking lot.

I recently heard a putative Reformed sermon on a passage in the Song of Solomon that was little more than a string of flowery metaphorical assertions that the preacher must have thought were elegantly strung pearls instead of the popcorn on a string that they really were.

Undoubtedly, this preacher was enraptured by his prior typological or allegorical analysis of the passage, but without providing an appropriately formulated proposition with evidence and proof of its validity, it was a truly inferior speech that did not rise to the heavenly level of heralding the Word of God. In other words, the Reformed community isn’t immune from preaching deficiencies it often identifies and decries in other communities.

The Puritan method behind the madness of employing proofs, reasons, and arguments to validate Doctrinal Propositions is simple, yet complex. I can only scratch the surface here as I have been doing all along. I can only illustrate the rationale of this element in Puritan Preaching by citing Isaiah 1:18 where God speaks to the prophet saying, “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

The Bible itself is one long argument proving over and over again that God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Whether by His prophets or His apostles, whether in word or by deed, God has employed reasons, proofs, and arguments as a necessary means to the end of explaining Himself to us in order to unite us unto Himself. Therefore, in proclaiming His Word, use of reasons and arguments are as indispensable as they are inevitable.

Fourth Element

The 4th Element of Puritan Preaching is what most believers designate as Application. It was slightly different for the Puritan preacher of old. They called this element, “Uses.” As a result of the right preaching of the Word of God, Puritans wanted the right hearing and the right living as the supernatural consequence. Not just theology as an academic discipline, but as the art of living unto God. Puritans wanted hearers to be doers of the Word, not hearers only. Hence, the term “Uses.”

Roughly, “uses” were particular applications of a doctrinal proposition. They may have ranged from simple to complicated, referring to either internal or external responses to the Doctrinal Big Idea (Proposition). Internal uses had to do with your mind, will, and affections. Never was it a question of emotionally manipulating a person’s fluctuating feelings. Since “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” “Uses” had to have specificity tied to the doctrine aiming at deficiencies in our lives due to sin or ignorance. External uses are whatever things find expression in our external world or our actions. Hebrews 11 contains both internal and external realities that demonstrate that true faith pervades both worlds.

Of course, nothing said about “Uses” suggests for one moment that the role of the Holy Spirit is supplanted by the preacher, any homiletical method, or an element of a sermon structure such as this Puritan one. Unless the Holy Spirit cause the ear to be opened, the preacher can say, “Eat and drink…, but his heart won’t be with” the preaching of the Word.

This aspect of preaching captured in the Puritan “Uses” element of preaching develops with time, experience, and learning from everything and anyone around you. A man with no wife and kids tasked with preaching may have difficulty relating to those who do. He may struggle conceiving of apt “Uses” with specificity. He may be more comfortable contemplating academic abstractions rather than the down and dirty issues where real people live. Sheep, however, smell.

Some older preachers resist dedicating an element of sermonizing to the applicatory specificity of Puritan “Uses” out of the misguided notion that it is the sole domain of the Holy Spirit to do so. Well, so is opening hearts and illuminating minds, but never apart from the preaching of the Word. Why is it within the purview of sermonizing to develop and explain a doctrinal truth, but not to develop a doctrinally derived and specific applicational “Use”?

Examples of internal “Uses” are:

Of/For Information
Of/For Meditation/Adoration
Of/For Comfort/Encouragement

Examples of External “Uses” are:

Of/For Confutation or Reproof
Of/For Instruction or Correction
Of/For Trials

Fifth Element

The 5th and final Element of Puritan Preaching is the Epilogue or Conclusion. Having introduced the theme, posed the question that the text under consideration answers, read the Text, prayed for illumination for yourself and your audience, declared the doctrinal proposition, provided reasons and proofs, and provided legitimate “uses” with applicatory specificity, you are now ready to close your sermon. How can this be accomplished?

A simple summary of the Doctrinal Big Idea with thanksgiving unto God is sufficient. The Puritan Preacher can then lead the congregation in prayer.

As was stated in the beginning: all sermons are unique works of craftsmanship. Homiletics is an art and science. It requires painstaking skill even if it is a divine calling. Who is sufficient unto these things?

Regretfully, many being trained and educated to preach today don’t take the time or exert the energy to take the fruits of their exegetical labors to translate them into a true sermonic medium. Instead, too many Evangelicals are content with chats and motivational talks. To our shame, too many Reformed are content with lectures or running commentaries. Repentance is truly in order.

One way to remedy this situation and display fruits worthy of repentance is to heed Dr. Beeke’s counsel and recommendation. The cautions of Puritan preaching notwithstanding, the PROS he lists are achievable via applying the 5 Elements of Puritan Preaching.

After all, the Puritan challenge for the art and science of authentic Christian preaching still stands: Preach one Christ, by Christ, to the praise of Christ!

Much more could be said of Puritan Preaching. Stay tuned for General Reflections on Hebrews 11:39-40: The Vindication of Faith

For Examples of the 5 Elements of Puritan Preaching in English and Spanish:

El Gran Peligro de La Incredulidad

The Gospel of the Reformation is the Gospel of the Scriptures

La Oracion Segun Jesus

Prayer According to Jesus

Take up and read : What is the Gospel? A Puritan-esque Answer

From Sunday School to the Pulpit

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 05:24:14 GMT

From Sunday School to the Pulpit

Not all religions are built the same. Neither are all theologies of prayer. Authentic Christianity views prayer as an act of worship. As such, its sole audience is God and not any creature. Therefore, the only acceptable way to pray is by what He prescribes in His Word alone. Luke 11: 1-13 is one important Trinitarian passage on prayer for all disciples of Jesus.

How might we analyze it in order to teach it and preach it? There is always more than one way to skin a cat. Let’s begin! First, we must break down what’s there. Such a break down can be used for a Sunday School Class, a small group, or for personal study. Second, we will reformulate our analysis into a homiletic outline that is serviceable for use in the pulpit. The resulting synthesis always has a view to joining people’s true needs with the grace supplied in the Text of Scripture as the voice of God being proclaimed by the pastor or preacher.

Luke 11:1-13 - Prayer According to Jesus

I. Christ’s Example Prompts Request, v. 1

A. Jesus Prayed (Christ Praying Exemplified in Luke)

B. Disciples Request Instruction on Prayer

II. Christ Provides Model Prayer, vv. 2-4

A. Preface: Our Father in Heaven

1. Intimate Reverance

2. Holy Transcendence

B. Petitions:

1. Hallowed By Your Name (God)

2. Your Kingdom Come (God)

3. Your Will Be Done (God)

a. On Earth

b. As It Is In Heaven

4. Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (Us)

5. Forgive Us Our Sins, For We Forgive Everyone Who Is Indebted To Us (Us)

6. Do Not Lead Us Into Temptation (Us)

7. Deliver Us From the Evil One (Us)

III. Christ Prescribes Persistence, vv. 5-8

A. Inopportune Friend’s Persistence

1. Need Arises

2. Negative Answer Given

3. Inopportune Friend Persists

4. Request Granted Out of Persistence

B. Argument Explained

1. Inopportune Persistence Will Incline An Unwilling Friend To Grant A Request

2. Confident Persistence Is Grounded On The Father’s Already Willing Inclination To Grant His Children’s Requests

IV. Christ’s Concluding Motivation to Persistence in Prayer, vv. 9-13

A. Persistent Asking, Seeking, and Knocking Results in Receiving, Finding, and Opening

B. A Son Who Asks a Father For:

1. Bread…a Stone?

2. Fish…a Serpent?

3. Egg…a Scorpion?

C. Even Sinful Fathers Give Good Gifts to Their Own (We are all sinful)

D. How Much More Will Our Heavenly Father Grant Us the Greatest Gift to His Children: His Holy Spirit

Theologically, it may be observed that Luke captures Jesus’s rich teaching of Trinitarian grace just as the Triune God intended. His relationship with the Father as the Holy Spirit anointed One is the foundation for our prayer life. Jesus instructs us all concerning the Father’s love and care for His children in the area of our interests in light of God’s interests. The heavenly Father is shown to be ours, not just by virtue of creation, but by adoption. And beyond our temporal needs, we learn that we have been bestowed the Holy Spirit who far exceeds the temporal gifts we may partake of on earth. No doubt, we may fall short in our prayer lives due to sin which leads to lack of persistence in prayer. (Incidentally, because prayer is an act of worship, this excludes the legitimacy of offering persistent prayers to any human creature since we are all sinful and even to sinless angels since God alone is our Father and His holy, omnipotent, and sovereign hands are the source of all our blessings). But the Father is full of grace and is more than inclined to grant us the forgiveness in Christ and grace of the Holy Spirit that we need daily.

Now, what if you wanted to take the fruits of your analysis and keep going in order to synthesize it for use in the pulpit? Many preachers take their exegetical outlines and simply use them as their homiletical outlines. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, as you develop your own philosophy and skills in the art of preaching, you may want to take the extra step(s) to reformulate your exegetical outline with a view to effectively proclaiming it to the flock of God.

How might this be done? By isolating the theme and the thrust of the text. The theme is prayer and the thrust is what Jesus says about prayer. Essentially, John Broadus and Haddon Robinson are correct. Personally, I add insights from Bryan Chapell. I identify as Reformed and I recognize that no text of Scripture is an island unto itself either canonically or theologically.

To sharpen the focus of the proposition that needs to be isolated in order to preach it in an orderly and faithful fashion, it would help to step back and identify the question this passage of Scripture answers. The question might be something like: What does the prayer life of a disciple of Jesus look like? The answer might be something along the lines of: The prayer life of a disciple of Jesus (a) should be patterned after what the Lord Jesus set forth, (b) should be characterized by indefatigable persistence, and (c) should be motivated by God’s ultimate gift of His Holy Spirit to His children. The proposition is made up of the subject (i.e., the prayer life of a disciple of Jesus) and the 3 predicates (a through c).

Can this be one sermon? Yes. Can this be more than one sermon? Yes. In fact, each predicate can cover a whole sermon with an appropriate Law-Gospel, Christocentric emphasis. All preachers must strive to rightly divide the Word of Truth. My own approach includes a self-conscious application of Puritan homiletical insights whereby I try to include experiential applications and uses . There’s some debate on the legitimacy of such things. Each preacher must be convinced in his own heart what method or methods he will choose. My hybrid approach is just one possible arrow in the quiver. Ultimately, our aim is to faithfully proclaim the Gospel for the glory of God and for the good of the sheep.

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Why Covid Employment Mandates Have Always Been Bad: 4 Reasons For Exemption

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 15:21:32 GMT

Go Along To Get Along?

The Covid-19 pandemic turned this country’s workers into patients, worshippers into zoomers, and this country’s citizens into subjects. We are now denizens . Strictly speaking, it’s not Covid’s fault. The fault lies at the feet of the ruling class at federal, state and local levels. The medical industrial complex was able to cash out the implicit faith invested in them by the public for decades. That is why we went from medical paternalism and took a bee line straight to medical tyranny , seemingly, overnight.

The Church in America largely followed suit. In fact, it’s arguable that the American Church has never been so swift to obey any mandate from anyone, including God, than when the Church obeyed orders by governing authorities to lock down . The Church closed her doors for several months while strip clubs never did. Even after the availability of the Covid-19 vaccines, many churches continued to follow health authority recommendations without much reflection. Contact tracing, segregated seating, lowered attendance capacity, etc.

Where were the Christian ethicists? In many places throughout the country, participation in society was regulated by conformity to subjecting oneself to the Covid-19 vaccine. The public square was only open to those who provided proof of vaccination. In some cases, multiple jabs. Participation in society was the exclusive privilege of those who adopted the de facto utilitarian ethics of the politicized medical industrial complex. This is coercion , plain and simple . Acquiescence is not exactly informed consent . What were the alternatives for the common man?

In a real sense , ground zero for a covid response for the common man has been the HR Department of his employer. You would have thought that ground zero for covid was ICUs across the land, but we now know better. In my neck of the woods, McCormick Place was reconfigured to hospitalize the multitudes of covid patients that were anticipated to flood the system. But it was a colossal failure having seen less than 50 patients at the cost of almost 2 million dollars per patient before it was unceremoniously shut down. Most people in the country have been exposed to covid . It’s nobody’s fault despite any “winter of death” messaging. The ubiquity of covid has led the country’s medical industrial complex to target all workers by mandating not one, but multiple, vaccinations in order to keep their jobs.

To avoid becoming a patient against your will at work, the one avenue was to submit either a medical or religious exemption request. Although there’s overlap, I would like to share the religio-ethical reasoning of one healthcare worker. Feel free to Littonize it (copy and paste with minor edits) or be stimulated to think about the ethical state of affairs we have found ourselves as a result of the response to Covid-19.

Christianity, Ethics, Consent, and Coercion: It's Complicated

I, _______________, a baptized Protestant Christian of the Reformed Tradition and the __________ denomination humbly seek a religious exemption from the COVID-19 immunization requirement (and simultaneously seeking to avoid suffering adverse employment action). This letter explains how the Reformation’s Biblical teachings may lead individual Christians, including myself, to respectfully decline certain vaccines.

The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (commonly referred to as “the Word” or “God’s Word” or “His Word”) are the norm of norms for faith and practice (morals/ethics) for all Protestant Reformed Christians and it teaches that a person may be required to refuse a medical intervention, including a vaccination, if his or her conscience comes to this judgment.

While the Scriptures do not prohibit the use of most vaccines, and implicitly encourages practices that safeguard personal and public health, the following Biblical teachings and ethical considerations demonstrate that there is a conjunction of principled religious belief on which basis a Christian, such as myself, may determine that he or she ought to refuse certain vaccines:

1) Vaccination is not morally obligatory in principle and so must be voluntary. This is the principle of autonomy and it assumes or states that decisions concerning what happens to oneself are to be made free of coercive influence. This principle is even enshrined in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith , Chapter 21 : Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience (and Chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession of Faith ), to which I have subscribed to for decades and have taught to others in both personal capacities and well as Chaplaincy contexts when pt’s HCPOA struggle with a moral, end of life issue: “God alone is the Lord of conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or not contained in it. So that to believe [or comply with] such doctrines, or obey such commands out of [i.e., against or outside the boundaries of one’s] conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience; and the requiring of an implicit faith, and absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.”

2) There is a moral duty to refuse the use of medical products, including certain vaccines, that are created or have benefited from the use of human cells lines whether derived from abortion or not (i.e., miscarriage); however, it is permissible to use such vaccines only under case-specific conditions—if there are no other alternatives available and the intent is to preserve life. This is not the case in the present circumstances. The Scriptures teach that human dignity consists in being created in the image and likeness of God and that that uniqueness is to be respected as highly as possible. The significance of 6th Commandment forbids the taking of a life and implies the utmost efforts in not being complicit in a life being taken or benefiting from the same upon pain of divine judgment. This is the fundamental basis for human flourishing I have sought to live by as a Christian and as a Chaplain.

3) A person’s assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the possible adverse and undesirable side-effects are to be respected unless they contradict authoritative Biblical moral teachings. This ethical principle is sometimes called the principle of proportionality and it directly impinges on one’s simultaneous assessment of a medical intervention’s beneficence and non-maleficence. The principle of proportionality can be viewed as ethically adjacent to the Biblical 6th Commandment’s implied meaning to do no harm to oneself.

4) A person is morally required to obey his or her conscience so as to “serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him [i.e. God], all the days of our lives”. This confessional statement (from the 1689 Confession or the Westminster Confession of Faith mentioned above) is informed by Romans chapter 14 (in the Bible) in which the Apostle Paul clearly states that to disobey conscience is a sin before God.

Therefore , a Protestant Reformed Christian may judge it wrong to receive certain vaccines for a variety of reasons consistent with the aforementioned teachings (or the conjunction of them), and there is no authoritative Biblical teaching universally obliging Protestant Reformed Christians to receive any medical intervention in general or a vaccine in particular for anything like the current pandemic.

An individual Protestant Reformed Christian may invoke ethical reasoning informed by Biblical teaching to respectfully decline a vaccine that used or benefited from abortion-derived (or derived from miscarriage) cell lines at any stage of the creation of the vaccine on the basis of the 6th Commandment’s explicit meaning and implied significance.

More generally, a Protestant Reformed Christian might refuse a vaccine based on the ethical consideration concerning therapeutic proportionality and how coercion is a violation of a Biblically informed conscience . Therapeutic proportionality is an assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the possible adverse and undesirable side-effects and burdens in light of the integral good of the person, including spiritual, psychological, and bodily goods.

Moreover, the judgment of therapeutic proportionality, beneficence, and non-maleficence must be made autonomously by the person who is the potential recipient of the intervention, not by public health authorities or by other individuals who might judge differently in their own situations.

Since vaccination is not a universal obligation, then a person must obey his or her own conscience. Therefore, if a Protestant Reformed Christian comes to an informed judgment that he or she should not receive a vaccine, then the Church's norm of norms, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, requires that the person follow this judgment of conscience and refuse the vaccine.

I humbly and sincerely ask that my right to act in conscience and in freedom so as to personally and autonomously make moral decisions be respected in this matter. To be forced to act contrary to my conscience or to be prevented from acting according to my conscience, especially in matters with religious implications, would be a violation of my sacred duty before God.

Before the vaccines were widely available, all employees were able to work with accommodations and fulfill the mission of our organization for months. I continue to be committed to fulfilling my role in the the mission of our organization. And my commitment to the organization’s mission is evidenced by my good faith efforts and continued education.

I am very thankful to be part of the team since before the pandemic, throughout the pandemic, and hope to continue to serve as a _________ for the future beyond the pandemic. I continue to be keenly committed to contributing to the mission of the organization in providing spiritual support to patients and co-workers as I have done throughout the pandemic alongside others.

Sincerely,

__________________

Conclusion...

A truly Biblical and Christian ethical response to Covid-19 can never be irrational or futile . The utilitarianism of the politicized medical industrial complex had the impossible task of calculating the greatest good for the greatest number. As soon as political conditions changed, so did the attempt at this calculation. That’s why the goal posts have changed. See the recent change in CDC guidelines. Christianity uniquely provides the ethical guidance to procure the interests of the patient while safeguarding the rights of the individual. Other views can’t even compete!

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Bryan Chappell's Christ Centered Preaching: An Appreciation

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 05:40:04 GMT

Who Is Sufficient For these Things?

Expository Preaching is often talked about, but the devil's in the details. Some circles refer to it as verse by verse preaching. Most contrast it with topical or thematic sermons. Still, others say that expository preaching must replicate the form of the Biblical text in the form of the sermon which seeks to proclaim the meaning and significance of the text. In all these descriptions, what stands out is that expository preaching strives to not deviate from the content of the Bible because it's God's Word and His people need to hear it.

All preachers and would-be preachers must have different tools in their preaching toolkit. Denominational church traditions differ and so their preachers may or may not have a robust preaching toolkit. Some denominations would not ordain non-seminary trained preachers. Other denominations raise up preachers at the local church level with no formal theological education. The only training they receive is hands on in their local church.

Whatever the preacher's background, reading is within every preacher's reach. When it comes to contemporary classics, I greatly appreciate and commend Bryan Chapell's homiletics text called, Christ-Centered Preaching . It is distinctly Reformed, highly adaptable/practical, and strives to apply the whole counsel of God's redemptive work in the Christ of Scripture to bear on the preaching task.

Chapter 1

Why are expository preachers committed to making the meaning of the passage the

message of the sermon? Bryan Chapell answers that by stating that, “expository preaching

endeavors to discover and convey the precise meaning of the Word. Scripture determines what

expositors preach because they unfold what it says.” This is the expository preacher’s reality and

responsibility. Preachers have no authority to say anything else. Why should they? They do not

have anything else worth saying. They are called to be servants of the word and servants to the

word.

This is why I prefer to not engage in the Christian-ese colloquial use of verse by verse preaching as an equivalent to truly expository preaching. Preaching isn't a running commentary on the text. It's not a lecture. It's not a string of flowery exclamations of platitudes.

Chapter 2

How many things is a sermon about? According to Chapell, only one. He says that,

“Sermons of any significant length contain theological concepts, illustrative materials, and

corroborative facts. These many components, however, do not imply that a sermon is about

many things. Each feature of a well-wrought message reflects, refines, and/ or develops one

major idea.” This is the key to unity and focus in a sermon. Without it, the preacher lacks these

things and forces the listeners to assign a major idea that may or may not best reflect the point of

the text. Listeners will naturally do this in order to follow the sermon. Therefore, the preacher

should carefully decorate the major idea tree with all of the ornamental components to make the

tree look beautiful and memorable.

Preaching has always been considered an art. An art is a skill that is carried out based on a theory. In the case of the question of how many things a sermon is about in expository preaching, the theory is that the best practice for the skill of sermonizing is that unity is ensured by keeping its content about one major thing.

Chapter 3

In what ways can the redemptive context of a text affect the interpretation of that text?

Chapell points out that regard “for context requires preachers to consider a text in the light of its

purpose in the redemptive message that unfolds throughout all of Scripture." This means that

preachers are to ask how the text helps disclose the meaning or need of redemption. The meaning

is therefore determined not only by the immediate and surrounding contexts, but ultimately by

the entire scope of Scripture. Why? Because the context of every Scripture is all of Scripture.

This is due to the divinely inspired, progressively revealed, and organic unity of Scripture. The

diversity of human authors does not contradict this, but further highlights the miraculous nature

and sovereign authorship of the One divine author.

Do you see why I greatly appreciate Chapell and his book? No text of Scripture is an island unto itself. By divine design and through human implementation, we must take God's redemptive historical disclosure of Christ seriously in our sermonizing.

Chapter 4

What three components of exposition usually occur or should occur in each main point?

Why are all three important? Chapell highlights that, “Explanation answers the question, What

does this text say? Illustration responds to, Show me what the text says. Application answers,

What does the text mean to me? Ordinarily, each component has a vital role in establishing

listeners' "full understanding of a text." This balanced pattern should occur throughout the

message for greater communication and congregational engagement. All three components work

together to accomplish this purpose. They do this by addressing the intellect via logical

explanations, the affections via experiential and relatable illustrations, and the volition via clear

and practical applications.

Herein lies the burden of the preacher. We must open up the meaning of the Biblical text to the people and its significance to their lives. Some expository preachers refuse to illustrate or apply the text in their preaching with the pious sounding excuse that the Holy Spirit is in charge of that. The Holy Spirit is, indeed, in charge of the results. How this consideration excludes the preacher's pastoral and evangelistic guidance by providing illustrations and applications is beyond me. It's beyond the prophets and apostles, too.

Chapter 5

Why is an exegetical outline by itself usually insufficient as a homiletical outline? Dr.

Chapell explains that an “exegetical outline establishes what a text says. A homiletical outline

establishes how a text's "meaning is best communicated to a congregation." It is therefore the

responsibility of the preacher to convert an exegetical outline to a homiletical outline that is

worded in principles derived from and supported by the text. This is all part of the pastoral

emphasis and care the minister demonstrates in preaching. Otherwise, the outline will merely

reflect a dry and distant textual commentary and have little to no direct and personal significance

to the listener. The preacher is to write for the ear of the listener and not the eye of the preacher.

Sermonizing is hard work. It's a time consuming art or skill based on a theory or science. Many disingenuously put the art in tension with the theory. However, make no mistake: expository preaching is an art with a view to how best to communicate the Word of God to the people of God.

Chapter 6

What two major components compose formal propositions and main points? Bryan

Chapell establishes that, “Propositions meet formal homiletical requirements when they answer

both Why? and So what? The ‘why’ question elicits the truth-principle component of a

proposition. The ‘so what’ compels a preacher to determine the application component.” In

other words, the formal proposition is a marriage between the universal truth of the text and the

application of that universal truth. This is important in order to capture both the meaning and

significance of the text. It also provides the necessary balance of a doctrinal indicative followed

by moral imperative. Preaching points should reflect a healthy balance of doctrine (or

explanation) and exhortation (or application). Hence, why all of this is referred to as expository

(explanatory) preaching (application).

As a novice preacher, the way I understand this is that the basic building block of an expository sermon is the homiletical proposition composed of a subject and a predicate derived from the text by good and necessary Christological consequence.

Chapter 7

How are the key words of a main point's explanation used in illustration? Chapell helps

the preacher with this by advising that an “illustration should not merely reflect the concepts of

the explanation; it should echo the terminology of the explanation as well.” By doing so,

preachers can show truths in terms of experience with the world of the listener and better equip

them to see the world through the lens of the text’s language and truth. Illustrations are

memorable because they take a general principle and illustrate it as a particular experience

listeners can relate to and remember. Illustrations can easily be misused or abused. Therefore, the

preacher is to apply wisdom in his use of illustrations. If used well, illustrations will serve as

windows that allow more light into the room of the listeners mind. They will also function as the

feathers that help guide the preacher’s homiletical arrows. The preacher needs to remember that

they are meant to shed more light on and help reinforce the truth of the text.

I have a lot to work on in this area.

Chapter 8

What is the main thing to be done in an expository sermon? Chapell argues that

application is the main thing to be done. Why? Because it “gives ultimate meaning to

exposition” People don’t really know what a text means if they don’t know its significance for

their lives. This is why the best preaching takes truth to struggle. A sermon basically is God’s

truth applied to human struggle. Without application, a sermon functions more like a lecture that

seeks to inform. Preaching is a call to action. It requires a response. It exhorts unto life

application. As the word is alive and active so is the faithful preaching of the word.

John Broadus would agree.

Chapter 9

In what two ways should a sermon introduction prepare for a proposition? Dr. Chapell

guides the preacher by saying that the “introduction, therefore, should prepare for the proposition

in concept and terminology." An introduction should tell the listener what the message will be

about. In an introduction, the preacher also indicates why the listeners should listen to the

message by identifying the Fallen Condition Focus of the sermon. The introduction serves as the

hook of the message. Listeners need a reason to listen and a way to see how God’s grace in the

text addresses their fallen condition in particular ways. A strong introduction helps expose the

condition of man clearly and present or point to the grace of God that people need.

My preference is for a brief intro similar to how Jonathan Edwards introduced his sermons.

Chapter 10

How does a clear identification of the Fallen Condition Focus prepare a preacher to

construct a redemptive message? Chapell claims that “A clear FCF provides a sermon with a

distinct aim so that a preacher can organize an entire message to address a unified purpose." An

introduction that begins with an FCF enables the preacher to begin pastoring properly from the

pulpit. Preaching is to specify a FCF indicated by the text and address this aspect of our

fallenness with the grace revealed by the text. This reflects the law and gospel dynamic of

Scripture. Without the FCF and the grace of God, the preacher is no different from a speaker of

any world religion or cult. This is part of what makes preaching uniquely Christian and truly

helpful to the listener who is in need of the grace of God.

This is a unique contribution by Chapell I am thankful for. Perhaps the FCF can be viewed as a function of the Law.

Chapter 11

What is the proper place for the Christ-centered focus in an expository sermon? Bryan

Chapell emphatically reminds the preacher that a "truly expository Christ-centered sermon is not

as concerned with the proper location of the cross in a message as with the necessity that each

listener walk away from the sermon with a keen awareness of the personal import of God's

redeeming work.” This in turn empowers Christian living. In such preaching, the rules of

Christian obedience do not change, but the reasons do. In other words, it puts the acts of

obedience in order. All of this encapsulates the pattern of the Christian life. For example, we

forgive others because He has forgiven us. Biblical examples like these abound and represent the

nature of our faith and the need for a Christ-centered focus versus a moralistic or legalistic

approach that leaves the listener with a burden he or she cannot carry or want to carry that matter.

Who is sufficient unto the preaching of the Gospel? By God's grace , ordinary men like you and me.

For more great insights from Bryan Chapell, see Preaching: The Task of Application, Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 4 .

For my own dark, predestinarian ruminations on the preaching burden and task, check out: Christ-Centered Preaching

Also worth your time for edification and stimulation are some Christ-centered expository sermon examples: The Gospel of the Reformation is The Gospel of the Scriptures and Prayer According o Jesus .

Stay tuned! There's more to come!

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A Confessional Calvinist Approach to Biblical Interpretation: Butchers, Biblicists, or Bereans? Part 4

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 07:52:08 GMT

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The Unity and Diversity of Scripture

The fourth and final interlocking link in the chain of foundational hermeneutical assumptions is the Unity and Diversity of Holy Writ . The Bible is not, despite what unbelievers say, a mishmash of contradictory fables. Definite unity is rightly perceptible throughout its diverse pages.

There is a discernible cohesion in the midst of the diverse texts within Scripture. In fact, what emerges for the responsible interpreter as he applies “a due use of the ordinary means” to the Bible is what the Westminster Confession says is “ the consent of all the parts” (WCF, Chap. 1, sec. 5).

Chronological Analysis and Logical Synthesis

There are two ways we can apprehend the unity and diversity of Scripture. One way is through the history of redemption. The other way is through systematic theology. The former, also known as Biblical Theology , focuses on the chronological unfolding of God’s revelation to His people in history. The latter, Systematic Theology , focuses on the logical ordering of revelation into a system of doctrines.

These work together as bifocal lenses allowing the interpreter to appreciate both the redemptive historical forest and the systematic theological trees . Neither at the expense of the other. In fact, roughly speaking, Biblical Theology traverses the History of Redemption via the Analogy of Scripture while Systematic Theology views each of the parts of Scripture via “the general tenor of God’s Word” according to the “Analogy of [the orthodox] Faith (as Benjamin Keach stated in in his helpful work called Tropologia).

The present series of blog posts can only scratch the surface concerning the organic unity found within the diversity of God’s Word. Consider the history of redemption. Scripture wonderfully and dramatically displays its organic and progressive unfolding, much like the planted bulb emerges from the ground as a growing bud and in the fullness of time blossoms into a beautiful tulip! The tulip can no more disparage the bulb than systematic theology can disparage biblical theology. Or vice-versa.

Christ-ward Because Christ-centered

To use another figurative illustration, “[all] the books of the Bible have their binding center in Jesus Christ. They all relate to the work of redemption and the founding of God’s kingdom on earth” (Berkof, Principles, p.53). Thus, just as the pages of your Bible make contact with and are held together at the spine with adhesive or by being sewn, so Christ-centered “Meaning” permeates and holds together the Christ-ward “meanings” throughout the pages of God’s Word no matter where you turn the page.

In fact, according to our Lord and Savior Himself, the Old Testament set the stage, book by book, epoch by epoch, covenant by covenant, and promise by promise to point forward in some way, shape, or form to the Savior’s glorious work of redemption for His people. See Luke 24:25-27; vv. 44-47; Acts 3:18, 21, 24; 17:2-3; 26:22b-23; 1 Pet. 1:10-11 to start.

The Old Testament was not a Christless revelation. Quite the contrary. By means of definite plot points, messianic prophecies, figures, types, shadows, and other details we can rightly understand God drawing His people’s gaze unavoidably to Christ as powerfully in the OT as the NT. As Mark Garcia has stated, the text of Scripture, including the Old Testament, is “drawing us by the gravitational pull of Christ Himself into the world given to us in Christ to live in that world, to metabolize these words which are bread of life to us, to draw us deeper into faith, hope, and love.” The Old Testament is nothing, if not, the Christ-centered preparation for the Christological fullness of the New Testament.

The New Testament is nothing, if not, the fulfillment and climactic inauguration of God’s promised redemptive purpose in Christ. The fully-orbed significance of Christ’s person and the work He accomplished at Calvary is what we find exulted over, explained, and the central theme of worship in the New Testament. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament alone are the words of Christ. The words of Christ are the means by which Christ is formed in us. This is, as Mark Garcia has said, “more than a captivating idea, it’s a captivating life.”

The multifaceted and systematic implications of our Lord’s person and work reach out backwards to OT saints and forward to us. The glory of God in Christ is the new song belonging to the people of God because we have been reconciled to God and each other by God’s grace. All of Scripture, whether in Christ-ward promise or Christ-centered fulfillment, details the defeat of evil in all its forms in Christ, by Christ, and through Christ.

This is the warp and woof of Confessional Calvinist biblical interpretation. Berkof, for example, observed, “[m]any of the Old Testament types pointed ultimately to the New Testament realities; many prophecies found their final fulfillment in Jesus Christ, no matter how many of the Psalms give utterance to the joy and sorrow, not merely of the poets, but of the people of God as a whole, and, in some cases, of the suffering and triumphant Messiah. These considerations lead us to what may be called, the deeper sense of Scripture.” But they do so by comparing Scripture with Scripture. Biblical evidence is accumulated and synthesized. Implications are validly drawn out. Texts supplement texts (Analogy of Scripture). Uniformity in teachings (Analogy of Faith) are reached precisely because there is a non-arbitrary, non-capricious, proper, and rational method of Biblical interpretation. This whole, life long process is also the warp and woof that delivers to us the fortunes of a Reformed worldview!

In sum, the Scriptures display, despite its diversity, a glorious unity of content. Whether it is the individual Biblical books, doctrines, concepts, motifs, themes, covenants, promises, failures, fulfillments, genres, authors, or ultimately, the transcendent, lofty God of holiness who is mighty and merciful to save man from his miserable plight, we are not given the right to conclude the Bible is a disparate collection of writings.

We are indispensably helped along the way to apprehend Scripture’s organic unity by means of both Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology. Scripture itself marries Christ-centered, overarching “Meaning” with Christ-ward “meanings”, text with text, and testament with testament thus showing that God Himself has joined unity with diversity. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no interpreter tear asunder.

Suggested Reading Strategies For Understanding Sacred Scripture

To understand the meaning of a Scripture text, you have to apply your thinking process to the thinking process of the Scripture’s authors (especially its ultimate, Divine Author). The reader of Scripture can only grasp its meaning as he appreciates more and more the style, content, and conventions of communication embedded in the text. Why? Because God revealed His Word through human authors in time and space history as He was dealing with His people in specific circumstances. We don’t seek to penetrate through the text to something beyond the words and propositions of Scripture because God’s special revelation are the words and propositions that comprise the Text of Scripture itself. “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth,” said the Lord Jesus. All meaning is found in the text, not behind or beyond it.

That is how a reader gets at the thinking process of the Biblical authors and its ultimate, Divine Author: whatever is explicitly or implicitly drawn from the text, given its features and affordances rightly understood, is what the authors and the Author intended to communicate. The reader must be ready to engage with the text on its own terms--the terms dictated by its authors and its Author. Careful, close, and mindful attention to the Text is the only option for the Confessional Calvinist as a matter of Biblical commitment and conviction. The psalmist reminds us, “...For You have magnified Your word above all Your name” (138:2). This is how God’s people hear His voice.

So, then, we must examine the appropriately chosen text by a close, attentive, mindful, and repeated reading of the passage first. An appropriate text basically means a cohesive unit of thought between a sentence and a paragraph in length. The length of the text will usually depend on the genre it is part of in Scripture.

For example, in a narrative portion of the Bible, a prolonged prose passage of many paragraphs can be divided into many parts that communicate various streams of thought, episodes of life involving people and events, that contribute to its overall flow. Prose lends itself to the qualities of narratives. Whether it is personal narratives (e.g., the story of Abraham), familial narratives (e.g., the story of Jacob and his sons), or national narratives (e.g., the story of Israel during its united kingdom period), they all share certain qualities that prominently convey truth through the stories of people, places, events, conflicts, failures, and triumphs.

However, in distinction from prose of narrative, the Bible also employs the vehicle of poetry to convey its thoughts and truth. The Psalms, for example, are lyrical expressions of praise, celebration, lament, complaint, and even the depths of despair. These passages contain more abbreviated and concentrated units of thought. Yet, for all their brevity and pithiness, they lack nothing in profundity, significance, immanence, transcendence, and applicability to the reader.

So, then, a close and attentive reading of an appropriately chosen Biblical text involves a dissatisfaction with a merely cursory reading. It involves a deep dissatisfaction with a superficial comprehension of the Biblical text. (Is that what Biblicism is?) Close and attentive reading means being as mindful of the emergence of meaning from Scriptural revelation as an expectant mother is of giving birth to her baby. A mother spends 9 months monitoring closely the progress of her pregnancy. She eats properly. She adapts to the nausea in the early months by eating strategically to keep food down. She has regular and frequent doctor visits for ultrasounds and blood tests. On the day of delivery, there are a myriad of measures in place to have a safe and successful delivery for both mother and child. Similarly, a responsible reader is a serious reader who closely monitors their comprehension of the text according to the text itself.

What is a close reading of the Bible mindful of? It is mindful of not imposing meaning on the text. It is mindful of the text’s content, structure, function, context, integration with other Scripture texts (especially with Christological significance), and only gleaning ideas and conclusions from the text itself. A close and attentive reading of the Bible is a strategy that seeks to yield evidence based deductions from an analysis of the content and particulars of the text itself.

The success of this strategy is improved by repeated readings and enhanced by thinking about the details of the text along the continuum of revelation of the person, work, and offices of the Lord Jesus. After all, in addition to not imposing meaning onto a text, the mindful reader should not unduly close off a particular text to its integration with the rest of the Christological significance of Scripture. No text of Scripture is an island unto itself.

Second, examine the flow of thought displayed in the chosen passage itself as well as how it functionally fits within its surrounding literary context. For example, if your chosen text is a sentence or two, how does it fit within the paragraph? If your chosen text is a paragraph, how does it fit within its larger, surrounding context?

No matter the length of the text under consideration, the reader’s examination will have to include a text’s use of language, the function of its grammar, special terms, patterns of organization, figures of speech, and other similar issues. Again, these are usually dependent on the genre the text is a part of in Scripture.

Beyond these immediate literary contextual considerations, the reader must always be willing to take notice of broader thematic considerations throughout the canon of Scripture. Remember, no passage of Scripture is an island unto itself. Among the greatest theological themes in the Bible is how God commenced, continued, and culminated his redemptive work in Christ. From its announcement to its fulfillment in the Old and New Testaments, respectively, the careful reader and interpreter will integrate the “meanings” of the Biblical books in each testament with the overarching “Meaning” of the Christ wrought salvation along redemptive historical lines as the chain of islands of an archipelago.

What is the bottom line? No matter how many foundational hermeneutical assumptions and the interpretive reading strategies that flow from them, the bottom line is, as Dr. Craig Carter has stated, that "a certain kind of reader with a certain kind of document in the light of a certain type of God [will trump rigid steps and rules of interpretation]." All Confessional Calvinists can heartily agree with that. What lies next for all of us is to simply take up our Bibles and read! "What does the Scripture say?"

To conclude, the true Confessional Calvinist interpreter of Scripture is neither a butcher of the Biblical Text nor is he a naive and superficial Biblicist. The Confessional Calvinist follows the Biblical example of the Bereans and the wise counsel of William Hendricksen (Survey of the Bible, 43) by becoming “thoroughly acquainted” with the Bible by “reading the Bible itself. Read not a small portion but a book at a time; say, Genesis in its entirety. What next? Read it again! At least three times! Get into the spirit of the book! See the Christ revealed in it!”

The end...for now!

For all those interested (and everyone reading should be interested!), please listen to Episode 11 of Urban Puritano for a behind the scenes look at a Confessional Calvinist handling of an interesting Old Testament Text of Scripture concerning Christ the Conqueror!

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A Confessional Calvinist Approach to Biblical Interpretation: Butchers, Biblicists, or Bereans? Part 3

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 13:48:12 GMT

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The Analogy of Biblicism & the Analogy of Tradition?

Introduction

Given the nature of the Bible alone as the Word of God, given that the voice of God is found in Scripture alone , how might a believer be rightly attuned to listening to what God has spoken? Given the verbal and plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture through human and divine dimensions that resulted in an overarchingly clear message for God’s people throughout all of time, what other foundational principles did they have a bearing on?

In consonance with and in consequence of the hermeneutical assumptions mentioned previously (i.e., The Verbal and Plenary Inspiration of the Scripture and the Perspecuity of Scripture) the Confessional Calvinist can further adduce the two pronged principle or dual principles: the Analogy of Scripture and the Analogy of Faith . These principles were alluded to in considering the perspicuity of Scripture and refer to “the uniform teaching of Scripture” [Analogy of Faith] by means of Scripture itself [Analogy of Scripture] (Berkhof,Principles, p. 26).

In other words, Scripture interpreting Scripture (AS) inevitably leads to a clear, uniform teaching and theology from Scripture as a whole (AF). These principles are consummately functional and practical and, once distinguished properly and not conflated, will be lifelong companions to the Berean interpreter to safeguard against butchering the text from taking place. If the text of Scripture has been butchered by someone or by a tradition, it can be corrected by Scripture.

The Analogy of Scripture and the Analogy of Faith

The WCF chapter 1, section IX states: “ The infallible rule of Scripture is Scripture itself ; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.” (Emphasis added). Why? Because Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura are the only “rule of faith and life” for the Confessional Calvinist (WCF Ch 1, section 2; same with the 2LBCF). This is truly a workman’s hermeneutic. The Analogy of Scripture impels us to do the hard work of searching the Scriptures, like the Bereans did, while the Analogy of Faith safeguards the deposit of sound doctrine to be known.

Note that in describing the Analogy of Scripture, the WCF also affirms and denies certain things about the meaning or sense of Scripture. The sense or meaning of Scripture can be enhanced in such a way that one can arrive at a fuller comprehension of the text under consideration with the help of other texts of Scripture. This fuller understanding has often been described as levels of meaning . But in many treatments of hermeneutics over the centuries and making somewhat of a contemporary comeback, the deeper levels of Scriptural meaning are conceived as double , triple , or quadruple meanings, whereas the WCF (and 2LBCF) explicitly limits the sense or meaning of Scripture to being singular or one.

The Pre-modern Quadriga: A Butcher?

Now, a venerated, yet erroneous way of explaining away the confession’s denial of manifold meaning is to quickly affirm that the extra-literal meaning is spiritual and that it is never divorced from the literal sense. Some theoreticians may commend the division of the sense of Scripture into four senses: the literal (grammatical-historico), the allegorical (symbolic/spiritual), the tropological (moral), and the anagogical (future/eschatological) senses of Scriptural meaning. But, despite its traditional pedigree, such an arbitrary and capricious bifurcation is both anti-confessional and unbiblical.

Interestingly , whether past stalwarts, contemporary academics, or their seminarian whipper snapper acolytes, it is never argued that the literal meaning should be based on the allegorical, tropological, or anagogical meanings. The literal sense has priority even when the Quadriga is held as a legitimate method of Biblical interpretation.

The priority of the literal sense, however, hints at an argument for the Calvinist’s Confessional single sense theory of Scriptural meaning . To wit: All true meaning of Scripture is derived from the literal sense. Any allegorical, symbolic, figural, typological, moral, or eschatological meaning of Scripture, if they are genuinely true are derivative of the literal sense. Therefore, two things follow. Namely, (1) the sense of Scripture is not manifold, but one and (2) the literal sense and no other constitute the singular and genuinely true sense of Scripture. (See William Whitaker’s book entitled Disputations on Holy Scripture for more on this and many other arguments that found confessional status in the WCF). Despite its attempted rehabilitation in academia, the Quadriga should find little appeal to serious readers of Scripture who claim to be Confessional Calvinists.

Can every verse of Scripture or even every pericope be interpreted by this premodern fourfold sense grid? No. To do interpretation by Quadriga is not exegesis, but eisegesis. No method of Biblical hermeneutics that is either capricious or arbitrary is Biblically legitimate. The Quadriga is disqualified as being a legitimate hermeneutical tool by being both capricious and arbitrary.

The Confessional Calvinist, on the other hand, by adherence to a single sense theory of Scripture can arrive at the single sensus plenior by a myriad of non-arbitrary and non-capricious methods. The inductive analysis of Scripture afforded by the Analogy of Scripture takes into account the text’s diverse features without bifurcating the literal from the spiritual. Moreover, the deductive synthesis of Scripture afforded by the Analogy of Faith takes into account the resulting system of doctrine emerging from the whole of Scripture which is the Confessional Calvinist’s “rule of faith and life.” This respects both the human and Divine dimensions of the Bible.

Our Lord states, “...the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Moreover, our Lord quotes, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ” Every word of Scripture is spiritual and life giving sustenance. The words of Scripture are at once nothing more than literal and nothing less than spiritual.

As William Whitaker successfully argued, “ The sense of Scripture, therefore, is but one, the literal; for it is folly to feign many senses, merely because many things follow from the words of Scripture rightly understood… ” The Analogy of Scripture doesn't multiply senses. But it may multiply what genuinely follows from the single sense of Scriptural words or passages, rightly understood . This testifies to the superiority of the Confessional Calvinist hermeneutic over the capricious and arbitrary medieval, pre-modern Quadriga.

The Confessional Calvinist must be committed to a single sense theory not only as a matter of historical precedent (it’s in both the WCF and the 2LBCF), but because Scripture does not bifurcate the literal meaning of Scripture from other dimensions of meaning. Manifold means many and many is not one. The Calvinist confessions state that the sense of Scripture is one. When it comes to the Bible, then, the literal sense is the spiritual sense and vice-versa. So much for the Quadriga.

“Searched”

The interpreter’s hermeneutical responsibility, whenever or wherever there are problems resulting from unclear texts, is to seek the resolution to such difficulties in other clearer portions of Scripture (AS). Sometimes the solution will be relatively simple. At other times, the solution will be quite complex. It may involve extended observations, arguments, inferences, and deductions. In all these scenarios, the resulting uniformity of Scriptural meaning (AF) only highlights all the more that the Bible is first and foremost, not merely the words of men, but the Word of God.

Sadly, certain theologians and teachers who should know better, promote a concept of paradox as a legitimate hermeneutical category. They may say that since God is infinite, there is infinite meaning in the words of Scripture. Furthermore, because God is infinite, some even maintain that there are meanings and doctrines that are irreconcilable with each other in Scripture. Does this not militate against the validity of the Analogy of Scripture and the Analogy of Faith? This sort of paradox, some maintain, is simply something we have to live with and relish in due to being finite creatures.

This is not the case at all. As a matter of fact, it is infinitely better (pun intended) to not speak of Scripture’s meaning as infinite even if we attempt to base that on God’s infinity. It is simply erroneous. The true and full sense of any Scripture is “not manifold, but one.” The fuller, deeper sense of Scripture entertains no contradictions or unresolvable paradoxes that have to be maintained to do supposed justice to both sides of conflicting texts or doctrines. Theologians, preachers, and teachers should be the first to search and harmonize questions about the true and full meaning of Scripture passages and doctrines.

It is inevitable that questions arise concerning the meaning of some Scriptural text or other. However, the Analogy of Scripture cries out to us to move beyond one’s subjective paradox and not rest until we do the hard work of searching the Scriptures to arrive in objective territory. Paradox, which is relative to persons, should not be elevated to the position of a hermeneutical principle. After all, what is paradoxical to one person, may not be paradoxical to another. Let the interpreter of Scripture never forget that portions of the Bible are not always clear in themselves “nor alike clear unto all.” Interpreters should never ascribe their intellectual limitations on to others. That would be arrogance, not piety. Paradox in hermeneutics can only lead to paradox in exegesis.

“Known”

Furthermore, as we do compare Scripture with Scripture (AS), Biblical evidence is accumulated. Implications are validly drawn out, possible interpretations are eliminated, control beliefs are modified and subjugated to the truth of God’s Word. Because Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), what emerges as texts supplement texts in a wholistic, systematic fashion is a uniformity of teaching (AF). The Analogy of Faith cries out to us to reach for the baton of well established and judiciously arrived at doctrine and continue running the race.

Consider the following example. Scripture teaches that God is one and indivisible. Scripture also teaches that in the “unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity” (WCF, Ch. 2, sec. 3). If interpreters had stopped comparing Scripture with Scripture and simply held that God was one with three modes of existence (modalism), where would Biblical trinitarianism be? No. Method always matters. They didn’t merely conclude, “This is paradoxical. The Scriptures underdetermine whether God is one in one sense and three in a different sense. Because of the infinity of God, let us hold to God as one and God as three in the same sense in tension!”

Athanasius must always prevail over Arius!

To be continued!!!

For more on Calvinistic Hermeneutics, please check out Urban Puritano Episode 5

For a rubber meets the road application of Confessional Calvinist Biblical Interpretation, Check out Urban Puritano Episode 11 : Jesus and Jerusalem-The Shadow of Christ in the Conquest of Zion

A Confessional Calvinist Approach to Biblical Interpretation: Butchers, Biblicists, or Bereans? Part 2

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 04:52:48 GMT

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How NOT to Butcher the Bible

A Confessional Calvinist is many things. However, as one grows in conscientiousness and intentionality concerning their reading of Scripture, they certainly strive to eschew butchering the Text . They also strive to eschew ill-defined Biblicism. Perhaps biblicism is a naive view or approach to Scripture that seeks to explain Scripture without the help of external categories or resources. I don’t know. Some ill-define it one way, others ill-define it another way. Biblicism is a popular pejorative term among academically oriented interpreters of the Bible and their all too eager seminarian whipper snapper acolytes. But as was stated in the last installment, there is growth in a believer’s understanding of the interpretive task. Thankfully, the third option is a Biblical one: Berean believers!

The Berean believers attended the voice of God in Scripture and confirmed the validity of the Apostle Paul’s conclusions by means of Scripture. In doing so, they merited the commendation of being noble or fair minded in searching the Scriptures daily to find out if the things Paul preached and taught were so. No need for confessional pearl clutching. We can do the same since we all have the same starting place.
The Bible: Our Starting Place

The Bible is an extraordinarily normal, worldly book. Its familiarity and similarity to other world literature is undeniable. At the same time, it is an extraordinarily unique and supernatural book. Despite being written by over 40 authors over a 1500 year period, covering historical events in methodical, logical progression from diverse cultural viewpoints, the Scriptures consistently tell us about God and ourselves. Cornelius Van Til correctly observed that for the faithful reader, “sacred history becomes terrible and beautiful. It grips one in the inmost depths of his existence. There is no epic so sweeping, no drama so dramatic as the story of sacred history…”

The Bible is also an other-worldly revelation. Its transcendent character and content is undeniable as well. Sacred Scripture reveals the God of whom it speaks and His Word’s universal applicability to man’s existence by revealing his true nature and plight. Throughout its diverse pages, its unity in message is sufficiently perceived, resulting in either humble embrace or judgmental rejection. The Bible reads the reader and demands response!

This is the revelation that will not be content merely being one among many. It unravels the reader while the reader wrestles with and attempts to unravel it. “Terrible and beautiful” indeed!

“Terrible” in the sense of knowing the weightiness of the subject matter. The Scriptures deal with no light matters. What or who is the God of whom it speaks? What or who is Man to whom it speaks? How can an utterly just and holy God commune with utterly sinful and rebellious people? Trembling is the appropriate response.

“Beautiful” in the sense of the comfort proffered in His Word which details God’s gracious intention to ultimately display His refulgent radiance in His redemptive work and commune with His people. This is love in its ultimate possible expression. Not our love towards God, but the other way around. Omnipotent, immeasurable, undeserving love towards us made our salvation both possible and actual! In His Word, we find the only comfort in life and death, symmetry, vibrancy, every brush stroke, all the pieces to the puzzle, all the threads on the tapestry, every note in the musical score, and every square inch of creation, providence, and redemption redound to His glory and, graciously, to our good.

This is nothing less than the posture of Confessional Calvinism.

Underlying Assumptions and Starting Points

Where can the interpreter begin? No doubt, all interpreters begin somewhere and although there is an “interplay between broader principles of interpretation and particular texts” (Seeing Christ in All of Scripture, pg. 9), it would be fruitful to briefly delineate some of those assumed hermeneutical principles that underlie our interpretation of particular texts.

Thus, the following underlying, general hermeneutical assumptions are a good place to start with before we concentrate our focus further. Some were previously alluded to. Now, they all will be expanded upon slightly and throughout the rest of this and future posts. The underlying, general hermeneutical assumptions are as interlocking links in a chain:

The Verbal and Plenary Inspiration of Scripture
The Perspicuity of Scripture
The Analogy of Scripture & the Analogy of Faith
The Unity and Diversity of Scripture

The Verbal and Plenary Inspiration of Scripture

The verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture refers to the Scriptures being the product of God causing the various Biblical authors to write down everything exactly as He intended. This includes not only the big ideas or major portions of Scripture. This divine causation extends to the whole, inclusive of every word itself. Furthermore, this divine inspiration was neither mechanical nor in any way subversive of human authorship whatsoever. Whatever human effort was involved in the prewriting process and whatever style the authors employed in the writing process itself, God ensured by this divine inspiration that His thoughts and the writers’ thoughts interpenetrated such that a bona fide communication from God to His people was recorded by various authors exactly as He intended.

The presupposition of the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture, like all the other underlying hermeneutical assumptions we will adduce, is not simply postulated by theological imposition. It emerges quite naturally from passages such as 2 Tim. 3:16, 2 Pet. 1:19-21, and 1 Cor. 2:7-13, among many other Biblical texts throughout Scripture. For further study, Louis Gaussen’s Theopneustia and B.B. Warfield’s I nspiration and Authority of the Bible are recommended. Also, Greg Beale’s more recent Erosion of Inerrancy.

Before moving on, I would be remiss in my Reformed duty if I failed to point out that this classical evangelical view of the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture is actually a major illustration and example of the Calvinistic understanding of concurrence between the will of God and the will of man. If divine causation results in man willfully writing down exactly what God intends (e.g., the writing of Scripture), is there any other area in which divine causation results in man willing something or other precisely as God intends? (Calvinists, mischievously or not, answer, yes).

Let the careless reader beware if he comes to the Biblical text presupposing by default the concept of libertarian free-will, the principle of alternative possibilities (especially for genuine love to exist), or the pop-arminian notion that God is a “gentleman” who must always respect autonomous human choice in order to be able to hold us responsible for our actions. Sooner rather than later, the reader will collide with texts that are incompatible with such deeply erroneous notions. Neither the Biblical authors, much less the Biblical God, conform to the false assumptions bound up with libertarian free-will.

2 . The Perspecuity of Scripture

The perspicuity of Scripture refers to the basic quality of clarity the Scriptures exhibit as a whole, but especially in regards to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” The Westminster Confession of Faith is most excellent in this regard. Chapter 1, section VII of the WCF states:

“All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all, yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”

By What Means?

As R.C. Sproul aptly put it, “Biblical Christianity is not an esoteric religion” (Knowing Scripture, p. 16). The means of Biblical interpretation do not involve mysterious practices yielding mysterious meanings. There is no meaning in Scripture other than what the “due use of the ordinary means” will yield. Therefore, our fundamental concern is to remain so close to the text that only what is “expressly” (explicitly) written in Scripture or what “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced” from Scripture is privileged (WCF I, sec. VI ).

This interpretive guardrail is both rational and Biblical. It is Berean ! Remember, Biblical interpretation is attending to the voice of God present in Scripture. The burden of the believer is to rightly understand the words of Scripture, the communicative intent of both the Divine and human authors, and what can rightly follow from what is expressed and how it is expressed. A wonderful example of this Berean approach on display in a theological debate on a Biblical topic was when Dr. Joseph Pipa masterfully gave a reasoned defense for Limited Atonement and successfully attacked Dave Hunt's Unlimited Atonement view. Dr. Pipa did not clutch his confessional pearls, but he adduced Scripture and rightly divided the Word of Truth to be persuasive so that the confidence of everyone present could be in Sola Scriptura . To adduce Scripture and give the meaning through analysis and synthesis is not a naive stacking of verses. Who would be so arrogant or disingenuous as to ascribe solo or nuda scriptura to an Apollos-like defense of Biblical doctrine given by Dr. Pipa or any simple believer for that matter?

The perspicuity of Scripture recognizes that some portions or texts of Scripture may not easily yield their meaning and may be difficult to understand. As mentioned earlier, the Apostle Peter said as much concerning some of the Apostle Paul’s writings that are among portions of Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16). But the solution to a charley horse between the ears is, as Gordon Clark would say, “a rational massage.” The perspicuity of Scripture, thus, does not demand that the meaning of Scripture “always lie on the surface” (Berkhof, Principles of, p.59). There is, after all, the legitimacy, if not the inevitability and indispensability, of logical implications in communication that the Scriptures themselves are not exempt from. What believer would argue against God’s Word having logical depth?

This logical depth, however, is not something beyond the words of Scripture rightly understood. This is key. “Beyond” the words of Scripture cannot mean distinct or separate from the communicative intent revealed by the words themselves and their relationship with other words and portions of Scriptures. No text of Scripture is an island unto itself. This is, ultimately, because of Divine design.

Interpretations must always have a rational rationale. The whole enterprise of Biblical hermeneutics and exegesis is essentially a rational method applied to a rational revelation. Together, they are an artful science seeking to rationally and judiciously arrive at the correct meaning of the Biblical text. Its foundations, principles, methods are thoroughly rational and coherent within themselves and with Scripture.

By Whom?

“The Bible,” Gordon Clark correctly notes, “has a message intended to be understood.” By whom? By a select group of elite academicians, scholars, gurus, or clerics? By only a special class of people who alone are tasked with its interpretation and who are to dole out its meaning to the masses? Gordon Clark, in standard Protestant form, matter of factly states the Reformation’s Dangerous Idea : “The Bible was addressed to the populace at large — the working men and slaves as well as to kings and those in authority.”

This does not preclude other individuals, the academy, or a community of faith from being of help to a person struggling with the correct interpretation of a Biblical text. This does not preclude interpretive tradition from being of help either. Tradition can be a friend. Remember, the Bible is of such a nature that if any contemporary believer arrives at a correct interpretation of a text’s meaning, especially regarding God and salvation, it was surely known and believed by the Church in the past. God’s Word is perspicuous to God's people. The perspicuity of Scripture simply recognizes that correct interpretation is within everyone’s reach and not dependent on a special class of official interpreters or only those who tap into tradition.

Very pointedly, Clark drives the point home: “If you and I are so stupid as not to be able to understand the Bible, but need priests, bishops, and popes [or tradition, however great it may be] to tell us what it means, are we not also too stupid to understand what [they] say?”

Thankfully, and by grace alone, the Scripture’s content and overarching storyline composed of myriad “stories, examples, precepts, exhortations, admonitions, and promises” concerning God’s redemptive purpose and man’s salvation is sufficiently “clear and evident” (Ames, Marrow, pgs. 187-188). Both scholar and layman can, by the same means, arrive at the answer to how a holy and just God can bless rebellious, sinful mankind with salvation.

As it was before for shepherds, warriors, royalty, and fisherman; as it continued to be for monks, maidens, lawyers, and tinkers; so the Bible’s message continues to be now — sufficiently “clear and evident” to all who would apply “a due use of the ordinary means.”

To be continued...For more on Calvinistic Hermeneutics, please listen to Episode 5 of Urban Puritano!

A Confessional Calvinist Approach To Biblical Interpretation: Butchers, Biblicists, or Bereans? Part 1

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 06:32:14 GMT

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Butchers, Biblicists, or Bereans?

Introduction

Confessional Calvinism approaches Holy Scripture as the absolute word of the absolute God. The Scriptures are the word of truth from the God of truth ( Deut. 32:4, John 14:6 John 16:13—a Trinitarian emphasis on God as truth ). As Cornelius Van Til stated: "Nowhere but in Scripture does an absolute God speak” ( Study Your Bible By Edward J. Young, Foreword By Cornelius Van Til). This absolute confidence in the unique nature, message, and character of God’s Word is inseparable from our absolute confidence in the unique nature and character of the God of Truth Himself (see Ps. 138:2).

Concerning its uniqueness and its message, Van Til continues: “Nowhere but in Scripture is redemption by pure grace alone. Nowhere but in Scripture is there a program of the destruction of all sin [and] evil. Nowhere but in Scripture is there the picture of absolute victory at last.”

What, then, is the correct path for us to rightly interpret the vast and sweeping content of the Holy Scripture? Must we first rightly "divide" the deliverances of interpretive history because it has greater authority than the individual before we actually attempt to rightly "divide" the Word of Truth? How would we know for sure that we are interpreting interpretive history correctly if we cannot be assured of interpreting the Biblical text itself correctly? Must we be content to do the best we can all by ourselves and risk butchering the Text of Scripture with no accountability? Is there hope or only unyielding despair for the average believer with an open Bible in hand? Are those the only options?

Mistakes are bound to occur in our interpretations of God’s Word from time to time and in certain portions of Scripture or others. However , the Bible is of such a nature that if any contemporary believer arrives at a correct interpretation of a text’s meaning, especially regarding God and salvation, it was surely known and believed by the Church in the past.

When an interpretation of the Bible’s teaching is accepted by a group of people over a period of time, whether correct or not, it’s called tradition . This points us back to our primary and ultimately vital concern: the right reading or interpretation of Scripture. Why? Because the people of God must attend to His voice in Scripture. His voice is found nowhere else. The echoes of tradition are only derivatively authoritative insofar as they read and interpret Scripture aright. So, all believers (past, present, and future) must not put the traditional cart before the Scriptural horse.

Now, some may scoff at this as not being epistemologically self aware. After all, we all come with ideas, presuppositions, and biases. Indeed, we do.

However, since mistakes are inevitable, we must choose to sin boldly in posturing ourselves before God’s Word first and foremost since this element of “method” is what is held forth in Scripture itself: “Today, if you hear His voice…” (Hebrews chapters 1-3 as a reminder).

Moreover, the question to which both our Lord Jesus and His Apostles never tired of asking (Matt. 21:42 and Rom 4:3, respectively) is: “Did you never read in the Scriptures?” or “What does the Scripture say?” In reality, this Holy Spirit inspired question revealed and recorded in the Scriptures is the question from the voice of God to which all other questions, even venerated tradition, must bow. The voice of Scripture is the voice of God. Scripture alone is God’s supremely primary speech to the world.

Everyone, including believers, possess control beliefs and assumed schema that will be either confirmed or disconfirmed in the course of our lives. It is not only the simple believer who will have to learn and unlearn certain baggage of previously held beliefs. Academics and scholars will, too. Perhaps more so! As time goes on, instead of butchering the Word, we will be butchering and mortifying our own false notions about Scripture through Scripture. Our growth in reading and interpreting Scripture correctly will be guided by the avoidance of twin errors: being mistaken not knowing the Scriptures (Matt. 22:29) and being mistaken not knowing the power of God (Mark 12:24). The knowledge of Scripture and the power of Scripture are present realities not cut off from any of God's people. We are and always have been a people of the Word.

Faith comes to us by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17 NKJV). So, then, we are concerned with getting our hands dirty and handling the Bible in order to read and interpret it correctly. The Scripture describes right reading and interpretation as “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). How do we proceed?

First , let us define what we mean by “interpretation”. Second , we must answer why “interpretation” is even necessary. Thirdly , we will suggest a basic roadmap, as it were, for interpreting the Scriptures for yourself.

What is Interpretation?

Interpretation is the opening up, the explanation of the words and statements of Scripture in order to draw out its single, full, and natural meaning (WCF, Ch. 1, Sec. 7&9 ). This confessional calvinism necessarily excludes all arbitrary and capricious medieval or Quadriga-like conceptions of the interpretive task. In contrast, true interpretation involves:

Negatively , removing differences and distance between the original authors and readers today and
Positively , providing a firm hermeneutical foundation and appropriate exegetical tools to build a solid framework for the inevitable construction of a coherent theology. For every interpretation and meaning arrived at, there must be a textually justifiable rationale for it.

Hermeneutics, the science of interpreting Scripture, is not meant to be daunting. Exegesis, the art of drawing out the meaning from Scripture, is not meant to be intimidating . Indeed, the average person can confirm for themselves by surveying and reading the Scriptures that it is generally clear in its message from cover to cover, especially regarding God and salvation.

Are there some portions of Scripture that are more difficult to understand than others? Yes. Does this justify the lazy and erroneous conclusion that the Bible says whatever the interpreter wants it to say? No.

There is, after all, such a thing as a correct mental grasp of meaning on the one hand and an incorrect mental grasp of meaning on the other hand (Playing By the Rules, Stein, Pg. 44). To apprehend Scripture’s correct meaning is to understand. To not apprehend the Scripture’s correct meaning is to misunderstand. The former leads to a knowledge of the Truth. The latter does not.

When it comes to meaning, then, Scripture is not schizophrenic . Neither in whole nor in part.

Why Is Interpretation Even Necessary?

We, the interpreters of Scripture, are indeed spiritually schizophrenic. We hear and obey the conflicting voices of our own imaginations, traditions, cultures, educations, morals, customs, tastes, loyalties, preferences, aversions, and affections (or those of other people). Not all voices are equal. Even the voice of tradition, however great it may be, must be weighed in the Biblical balance. These many voices bid us to go down different paths of interpretation.

Remember, though, that the Scriptures are not an unintelligible cacophony, but a symphonic communication! Apart from the foundational recognition that the Scriptures are divinely designed revelation and as such are rationally intelligible, the paths of interpretation are as inconsistent as they are uncertain. Indeed, apart from this foundational recognition, is not despair in the interpretive task warranted?

Yet, being a Christian does not, in and of itself, safeguard the interpreter from error. Simply being a Christian and recognizing Scripture’s divine character is no guarantee of interpretive success.

Christians didn’t just fall from heaven as impartial, objective angels with a correct conception of Scriptural Revelation. Who among us is not born into unique, historical and cultural milieus? We all so naturally rely on our own intellectual, emotional, moral, educational, traditional, historical, and spiritual resources to guide us in our interpretative task.

Humility acknowledges that although our spirits are willing to be good interpreters of Scripture, our flesh is weak .

Parallel to this situation is the recognition that even the Bible itself did not descend from on high to each and every one of us in our own language, cultural patterns, or time period in history. Although the “hermeneutic distance” is not to be exaggerated to render our interpretive task hopeless, it must not be minimized . The life and times of the Biblical writers and their accounts are different than our own. And even if we lived in Biblical times and places, there would still exist difficulties at interpreting God’s Word.

Difficulties , not impossibilities .

The ground of the interpreters' hope is that Scripture is a communication from God! Interpretive despair, therefore, is unwarranted.

Thankfully, we can also draw comfort in Peter’s declaration that some things in Paul’s writings “are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16).

These obstacles to interpretation, therefore, highlight the necessity for interpretation. Obstacles exist both (1) within us and (2) outside of us:

Within us, due to a myriad of limitations exacerbated by sin.
Outside of us, due to the distance of time, history, culture and the difference between language and thought patterns between the Scriptures and ourselves.

Going Forward

I want to commend a confessionally Calvinistic, indeed, a thoroughly Reformed approach to Biblical interpretation that can be built upon for personal use. An approach that takes seriously the variety of terrain the Biblical landscape displays in all its diversity of stylistic traits and its rich, abstract theological features. My hope is that this Reformed approach to Biblical interpretation can begin to yield God glorifying results along the lines of both:

a panoramic Christ-ward and Christ-centered (John 5:39, 45-47) view of God’s redemptive, overarching story and message for man and
a symphonic (not schizophrenic), spiritual hearing of God’s redemptive composition called Sacred Scripture. Rev. 3:22: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says…”

As we begin our journey, let us keep ever present that a truly efficacious and spiritual understanding of God’s Word never precludes that it can be submitted to the categories of logical analysis and scrutiny. The Bible won’t wither away at our investigations. In fact, God invites, welcomes, and commends honest investigation and interpretation ( Acts 17:11 ). Neither butchers, nor an ill-defined strawman term like Biblicist. What then?

So help us the Triune God of Scripture---Bereans!

More to come! Stay tuned!

For more on Biblical Interpretation According to Calvinism, listen to Episode 5 of Urban Puritano!

What is the Gospel? A Puritan-esque Answer

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 14:26:48 GMT

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Romans 1:16 (w/Psalm 119:46 background)

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God

to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the

Greek."

(Ps. 119:46 - "I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings,

And will not be ashamed.")

What Is There To Be Ashamed Of?

I. Intro/Epigraph

I. Intro/Epigraph - Read Scripture above. Background: According to the thrust on Romans 1:1-15, the Gospel is a message concerning Jesus Christ, God's Son. This message originated with God and He revealed His plan and promises concerning Jesus Christ through His prophets in the history of redemption found in the Holy Scriptures. It is referred to as the gospel of His Son, who was resurrected from the dead and through whom we have received grace or unmerited divine favor.

Why is this Christo-centric Gospel message even necessary? What does that imply about God? What does it imply about us? One major implication is: outside of God's grace in the Christ of Holy Scripture, there is nothing but bad news. Due to what we are, unrighteous, and due to what God is, absolutely righteous, we stand in need of the verdict against us to be overturned.

We cannot save ourselves through our own efforts, works, merits, or combining any of our supposed virtues and cooperating with God's grace. All avenues outside of the absolute sovereign grace of God are trusted in vain because they are sinful themselves.

This is very bad news, indeed.

The good news is that humanity has not been left to its own resources. It is good news because our own resources can only lead us to despair. Our utter spiritual inability leaves us without merit and, in fact, with an overflowing abundance of demerit. The radical corruption of heart and spirit leaves us under the power and guilt of sin against a Holy God. It takes a greater power to overturn that predicament.

The Gospel, then is a message of grace or unmerited favor ta save sinners among all nations. God's plan, message, revelation, His testimonies about Himself, His provision for our most serious need is what is known as the Gospel. God and God alone saves sinners because salvation belongs to the Lord!

This is very good news, indeed!

The Gospel is God's provision from beginning to end for our undeserved salvation. It is the testimony of the grace of God in the planning, achieving, consummation, and application of our salvation that leads us to our only comfort and hope, both in life and in the face of death. The Gospel is the achievement of Christ on our behalf that releases us from the power of sin, the penalty of sin, and the guilt of sin.

As such, let the theme of our Text be known....

II. DOCTRINE: The Gospel is the Power of God!!!

How could the Gospel release us from the power, penalty, and guilt of sin if it were not a power??? Some people think of the Gospel as a "second chance" , an "invitation" , a "well-meant offer" , a "gentle knocking at the door of your heart."

Those descriptions fall far too short of the descriptions the Apostle Paul under inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives here in Romans 1:16.

No , the Gospel is the power of God unto Salvation!

The good news of the gospel isn't simply something we can take or leave. In light of our irremediably great predicament, the theme of verse 16 is good news.

III. REASONS/Argument - The Gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes it. Therefore, if Jew or Gentile believe the Gospel, they will be saved!

The Gospel is good news because through it, He saves all believers: "for everyone who believes." The gospel reached "the Jew first" - speaking descriptively here Paul declares what one can simply observe by the Biblical history as it has unfolded in redemptive history recorded in the Scriptures. God chose the Jewish people to reveal Himself to in a saving way and to be the proclaimers of His glory to the nations. Our Savior was incarnated as a Jew and inaugurated His spiritual Kingdom among His people. Was the gospel powerless because they rejected Him? Not at all. Even in rejection, the Gospel is Power! It opened up the door for non-Jew to be saved.

The gospel is "also for the Greek" or the Gentile world- again, it is simply descriptive to observe how God has chosen to interact with humanity. There are many examples of God revealing Himself to non-Jews in the Old Testament and even into the New Testament, whether it was the Lord Himself or the Apostles afterward, the "Greeks" or Gentiles (non-Jewish people) were coming to believe in the Lord Jesus and what He accomplished for their salvation.

Spiritually speaking, the whole world (whetherJew or Greek/Gentile) are in the same boat. To borrow from a quote attributed to Martin Luther, in light of the gospel , every human must confess :

"When I look at myself, I don't see how I can be saved. But when I look at Christ, I don't see how I can be lost."

IV. USES/APPLICATIONS

For scoffers - some mock at the powerlessness of believers and consider it a shame that great miracles aren't done in modern times. They are sorely mistaken. Our Lord even said that greater miracles will occur. And indeed they have. We are in 2022 and behind us stand a great cloud of witnesses to the saving power of God through the Gospel. The gates of hell have not prevailed over the gospel or the global community of the gospel--the Church.

The same omnipotent power that both created the universe out of nothing and raised Jesus from the dead is continually throughout history reaching undeserving sinners who languish under the power, penalty, and guilt of sin and is SAVING THEM! Lives are being made whole. The Gospel is being proclaimed. It is being embraced among people as diverse as one side of the world is from the other side. United in faith and in the Savior. No longer without hope for their plight.

For rebuke - let those that claim the name of Christ and who are ashamed stand rebuked. Would you be ashamed to be given the privilege to hold the King's scepter in your hand? Then why would you be ashamed to hold as the most dear thing in the world, the Gospel of Christ? Remember, it is the very power of God unto your salvation!!! Instead of being ashamed, repent and live in humble gratitude of "so great a salvation" that has come to you even though you deserve the opposite of this good news.

For comfort - The Gospel is power to save, it is power to sustain in trials, in the face of even our last enemy - death. Elsewhere Paul triumphantly proclaims in Romans 8:35-39:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36

As it is written:

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who

loved us.

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels

nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,

39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to

separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

For belief - The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe! Make haste in settling your account with God today. You stand before Him under the power, penalty, and guilt of sin, dear friend. There is nothing you can do to save yourself or contribute to your own salvation other than give to God your sins.

Believe in Him alone, cast all your hope for salvation on Him and in exchange for your sins, He will give you His perfect righteousness, the righteousness of Christ who is the substitute for all who believe no matter where you are from or what you have committed. Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world!

Do not cast aside the message of the Gospel. Instead, cast the shamefulness of your sin at the foot of the cross of Christ and you will find that God casts your sins as far away from you as the east is from the west.

The Gospel is good news for sinners like us.

V. Epilogue/OUTRO/Conclusion -

What is there to be ashamed of in the Gospel? Absolutely nothing. Far from being a source of shame, the Gospel message is our greatest privilege and source of spiritual boasting. We boast not in ourselves, but in God alone for His gift of grace.

As King David spoke of God's testimonies before King Saul, King Achish of the Philistines, to foreign Kings who visited him in Jerusalem, I speak to you here, dear reader. Let us never tire or be ashamed of testifying and proclaiming the great message of the God of the Bible. It is not in vain. We stand here in debt to His power, His Gospel.

As the Apostle Paul boldly spoke to Roman Emperor Nero, Felix and Festus (Roman governors), King Agrippa of the Jews, everyone and anyone small and great. It didn't matter what repercussions might come. The powerful gospel turned the world upside down before and it continues to do so in our place and time.

It's all about the Gospel of Christ. Let us not supplement it as though it needed improvement, as though it was defective. Let us not obscure it with our worldly wise accretions. Let us not be ashamed of it, for it is the power of God unto salvation...for everyone who believes .

To God alone be the glory! Salvation belongs to the Lord! Let's pray that God may use us to advance the Gospel wherever our cities of destruction may be until we reach the Celestial City. See you next time or see you in glory!

Let us bow before our sovereign God and pray with expectation.

For a fuller exposition of Romans 1:16-17, please listen to Episode 4 of Urban Puritano

The Challenge of Christian Education: A Reformed Perspective, Part 5

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 13:56:15 GMT

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Glory be to God!

Christian Education in whatever manner it is implemented and executed (home school, private school, classical school, co-opt, or at the kitchen table in addition to their public school education), is a worthwhile necessity that displays a unique spiritual antithesis to the run of the mill secular education being offered for the so-called common good.

But God gave children to the parents, not the government or to a village. We do, however, have the freedom and responsibility to carry out directly or by delegation the education of our children for their good and for the glory of God. How to we accomplish this?

By seeing Christ, the Christ of Scripture, in all of education!

Sharing about how scratching the surface on the applicability of God’s truth to profound issues of human existence, it seems to me, is necessary if we want tot develop in our students a biblical worldview. Teachers must bounce ideas off of each other. We must collaborate. We must hold each other accountable. In his Basic Concepts in Christian Pedagogy, Jan Waterink writes as follows: “it is the task of the elementary school to do everything in its power to have [a] comprehensive view of the revelation of God…developed in the child by the time he is approximately twelve to fourteen years of age…” and we can only “assist the child in doing this… by [correcting] his impressions”9 concerning the world and truth because the whole world is God’s and God’s truth is all truth.

God is not neutral, after all, about anything that sets itself up to be believed as truth. Education has a non-neutral character. One is either promoting faith in God and His Truth as the Israelites were or working against it as the Canaanites were. But our task is compounded if the teacher herself (or himself) fails to realize the implications of a Christian worldview for education. That’s why we must sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron. No one knows it all.

For far too long, God has been marked “absent” in education. This should not be so in Christian schools or in Christian homes. The presupposition that there is a God and that he has revealed himself in the Scriptures of the Old and New Covenant makes all the difference in the world. All educational experiences and curriculum, therefore, ought to be contextualized on this Biblical basis. Reformed thought sees this as the beginning of wisdom for a genuinely Christian Education.

Thus, a genuine philosophy of Christian Education, echoing Reformed theology, provides a strong framework within which all involved in the educational process can make choices about how to think and act biblically. Thinking and acting Biblically is the means by which to please the King’s will, to flourish as humans, to subdue the Earth, and to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ in whatever students study and do. Seeing Christ in all of Education establishes that God’s Truth is all Truth, and should be imparted God’s way. A biblical philosophy of Christian Education, echoing Reformed theology, demands that precept and practice harmonize to the glory of God and for the good of the students. In so doing, the benefits will be palpable to the community, the Church, and the world.

Conclusion

The fortunes of a Christian worldview are many.

Christian education challenges both students and teachers to recognize Christ’s Lordship and significance in every realm of knowledge. Reformed thinkers, our fellow Christians of the past and present, spur us on to that end to help us see the applicability of God’s Word to God’s world. It is a beautiful portrait with layer upon layer of masterstrokes designed to reflect the light of God’s glory and truth. As we ponder tough questions, we come to appreciate and take joy in the rational, biblical basis we have for the unity between truth and life. We are inviting students to do the same, clearing the obstacles as much as possible that obscure their sight from looking to God alone for salvation. Ultimately, we are all learning to joyfully take up the tools of their education, to paint their own life’s portrait, as it were, and live out their different callings in the context of faith and allegiance to Him alone.

As educators, we gratefully and humbly carry out our tasks, sometimes crying and sometimes laughing, sometimes half-heartedly and sometimes with caffeinated enthusiasm, sometimes falling short and sometimes being disappointed, and forgiving ourselves and others while seeking forgiveness from our King knowing that if our great God is for us, who can be against us?

The Christian worldview, as Reformed thought envisions it, is the only framework that provides coherent answers to the profound questions of human existence. Questions that are introduced to children at a very young age and are continually revisited and addressed inadequately – No! Contrary to the Lord of Truth! -- throughout their education. A distinctly Christian education is the only context offering neither a candy coated despair, nor a candy coated delusion. Christian teachers only need subjugate their own God-limiting education by drawing from the arsenal of rational scriptural considerations to promote God’s kingdom through education to our students.

Many people will disagree with our efforts. Many will oppose our endeavors. But no matter the opposition from without or our own inadequacies from within, the important thing is to have our God’s approving eye upon our service for Him. Loving God with all our minds means we recognize that His Lordship over all things, visible and invisible, is the most satisfying thing for Christian educators. For in so doing, we are satisfied by God Himself while savoring His grace in granting us the privilege to enjoy unity in all truth for all of life.

We have the unique opportunity to give our students a glimpse of the applicability of the triune God’s Word to His world in the subjects they study.

Who else can say that?

The End

Listen to Episodes 1 & 2 of Urban Puritan!

1Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living (Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdsmans Publishing, 2002), xiv.

2Kirsten Olsen Lanier, “Food For Thought,” Teacher Magazine, August/September 2000, 69.

3Gordon H. Clark, A Christian View of Men and Things (Jefferson, MA: The Trinity Foundation, 1991), 25.

4Herman Bavinck, In the Beginning (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999), 16 quoted his Reformed Dogmatics.

5Psalm 76:10

6 Any similarities purely coincidental.

7Clark, A Christian View, 320

8Clark, A Christian View, 321

9Jan Waterink, Basic Concepts in Christian Pedagogy, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1954), 128, 129.

The Challenge of Christian Education: A Reformed Perspective, Part 4

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 06:37:34 GMT

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The Antithesis Confirmed: Language and Math

Does Christian Education really pass the curricular stress test?

There are other profound questions of human existence children may ask that I would like to bring to your attention. Seventh grade Sarah will ask, “You know…like…where did language and like all that come from?”

Of course, we won’t drop the ball and answer that language is the evolved grunts and growls of evolved primates that help us survive in our environments. Language is the gift of God to Man given to communicate among ourselves and most importantly given for us to have a true knowledge of Him. T herefore , a Christian teacher can appropriately start off the school year telling Sarah and the rest of the students that learning how to express oneself well is a spiritual exercise.

From a biblical standpoint, communication has great dignity. The pertinent Trinitarian consideration in this: even as the Persons of the Trinity have spoken to each other from eternity and from the beginning to us through intelligible utterances, so are we.

It pleased God to reveal His Word to us through a Book with different genres, with poetry, prose, narrative, with all kinds of literary devices to communicate a knowledge of Himself and His works. Respect for language, for the only adequate vehicle for intelligible thought, is to be oriented to a reverence for God since language comes from Him. With this in mind, we guide and encourage our students to learn the parts of speech, to learn proper grammar, to learn the mechanics of language, to read between the lines, to express intellectual creativity and to do all this to display God’s magnificence, to each others edification, and for the advancement of His kingdom.

Now, this doesn’t mean that all our students without exception will become Christian Studs Terkels or Maya Angelous because of our thoughtful efforts. Some will use their academic competencies in the area of Language for downright rebellious, anger-driven, anti-Christian purposes and be successful and influential at it. When that turns out to be the case, we shouldn’t lose heart, but should humbly submit before God’s sovereign will knowing that “Surely the wrath of man shall praise [God].”5

Our confidence is placed in God alone because His wise, holy, and sovereign purposes can’t be thwarted. He is in control. It doesn’t even mean that our students will always write a clear message to put on the refrigerator for that matter. But it does mean that they have been given a basis to appreciate the true worth of their students. It is a worth only Christianity invest in their education.

Whatever the outcome , teachers have said that this along with other areas of study belongs to King Jesus and we have resolved to do nothing less than to fight for His crown rights here and across the curriculum one day at a time, one lesson at a time, one photocopy at a time.

What about mathematics? Surely, mathematics can’t be Christian, can it? Math is neutral, isn't it?

Consider the nature of mathematics for a moment. Take it slow. Bring your presuppositions forward. Your Christian presuppositions. Ready? What follows isn’t a demonstrative proof. I can’t even hope to get too deep. God hasn’t given me the ability to. Perhaps He has given you the knowledge to dig deeper. If so, share your thoughts with me and others for His glory!

I want to share a line of thought that highlights the applicability of God’s Word to the sphere of knowledge we call math.

Rambunctious, fourth grade Johnny is learning his multiplication tables. He will ask his teacher, “Yo, Mrs V., like where does math and numbers and all that come from anyways?”6 Johnny has unwittingly asked his instructor a question concerning a profound problem of human existence.

How should we explain or account for mathematical truth?

If we go to the local bookstore for answers, we’ll encounter two general answers that flow from an approach that is antagonistic towards Christianity. One answer to the problem of where math comes from is that math is the function of brains. This type of book is usually thick because it depends on research, experiments, and theories about consciousness from which inferences are drawn to show that math is literally all in our head. Let’s call this the materialist math answer. The other answer to the problem of where math comes from is that math just is. This type of book is usually thin because it rejects most research and experiments as irrelevant and instead is more analytic about theories and about defining its terms, but fails to ground mathematics on anything transcendent. Let’s call this the mere metaphysical math answer. The former answer is presumptuously wrong while the latter is humbly mistaken. Both approach the dilemma posed by math from non-Christian presuppositions.

Any way you look at it, math is shared reality. After all, Christians and non-Christians alike deposit and withdraw funds from their bank accounts. The difference is, as Reformed apologist Cornelius Van Til wryly stated, that while “Non-believers can count, they cannot account for counting” and the Christian worldview alone provides a rational ground for the properties that everyone attributes, knowingly or unknowingly, to mathematical truth.

Christian teachers can deal with the materialist math answer in two ways. First, we must reject the basic materialist contention that mathematical thinking must be construed as activity in brains instead of the universal, non-physical activity in non-physical minds. Second, we may reveal the major embarrassment in such a materialist math answer. The materialist math answer will grant that mathematical truth is mental, but will define the term mind to mean our brains. Toes wiggle, tongues taste, glands secrete, and brains think mathematics. Any kind of thinking, is reduced to chemical or physiological activity in our literal heads.

Right away, though, the question arises as to how they can justify calling, chemical, physical, or neurological activity either true or false. In redefining mind to mean brain, materialists have denied themselves any possibility of valid argumentation to justify an acceptance of their position. Why? Because physical motions in our heads cannot produce the rationality of a valid argument.

We all agree that mathematical truth is mental, but only propositions (which are non-material) can be the objects of knowledge in minds (which are also non-material). Physiological activity in a brain is just a bodily change. No matter how much we observe and experiment with the brain, we cannot derive propositions to construct an argument from it that warrants our acceptance of the materialist math answer. Materialists, in redefining mind to mean brain, have done Christians a favor in demolishing their own position.

To reduce any mathematical truth as elementary as 2 x 2 = 4 to physical motions in the brain erects other insurmountable problems: (1) No one person can have the same mathematical thought twice since any thought we have is a “fleeting event…distinct from every other” due to its physiological nature (2) No two persons can share the same mathematical thought at all because the juices that flow in one brain are different that the juices that flow in another brain (3) As a consequence of reducing mathematical truth in such a materialist fashion, “memory and communication would both be impossible” since no one could repeat the same thought twice nor could one receive another’s identical thought.

We may end our rejection of the materialist math answer by revealing its major embarrassment. Since Christians would clearly have to be committed to a view of mathematical truth that transcends the material world and the materialist would object, we can simply reply that based on his own terms, “his denial [of our position] must be conceived to exist in his own mind only; and since it has not registered in any other mind, it does not occur to us to refute it”.7

What, then, can we tell Johnny about Math? We can tell him and the rest of the class that mathematical truth exists universally, it exists mentally and not materially, and that our minds are judged by math. In the classroom, teachers only declare whether students have reasoned their way through a problem correctly or not. We don’t manufacture its truth. We aren’t the basis of mathematics. Students sometimes even catch our mistakes at the board and let us know that we haven’t reasoned our way through a problem either. I hate when that happens!

Some years ago, the lives of Enron and Arthur Anderson employees were being affected by omnipresent and unwavering mathematical truth. ( Sadly, one of those people, embracing despair, committed suicide because he wanted to avoid being held accountable for his part in mathematical dishonesty ).

It is also apparent that mathematical truths defy matter and space because such truths can be present in more than one place. We can also say that mathematical truths defy time because such truths never began nor will ever end. 2 x 2 = 4 was true before any of us was conceived and will be true after we’re long gone.

This is just for starters.

Because of the difficulties of the materialist math answer, some offer the mere metaphysical math answer. This answer recognizes certain mathematical properties and the inadequate account for them by materialists. Proponents of the mere metaphysical math answer rightly define the term mind to mean something non-physical so as to preserve a consistent basis for memory and communication (remember that one form of communication is sharing a valid argument). These folks stand in awe of the order, beauty, and universality of math and like to talk of the mystery of it all. I tend to think that these proponents don’t have any children because if they did, they might offer a more satisfying answer than one that simply concludes that mathematics is just out there.

Why is mathematics “out there”?

Of course, math neither begins nor ends. Of course, math defies matter, space, and time, but why?

Given the qualities of mathematical truth already mentioned, what else does mathematical truth imply? We can also say that math is unchanging. We can also say that math is superior to any one of our minds and to all human minds. Proponents of the mere metaphysical math answer engage in pedantic analytic discussions of terms and definitions, but are hard pressed to account for mathematics’ immutability or superiority to the human mind. They rightly humble themselves in light of their finiteness. They wrongly humble themselves before mathematics.

They offer no basis for why math is just out there, but they do admit that the foundation for math cannot be something limited or temporary. The foundations of math have to resemble the properties of math. Rejecting the Bible as God’s Word from the start, proponents of the mere metaphysical math answer offer a solution incompatible with allegiance to the all-encompassing Lordship of Christ. Although the Christian parent or Christian teacher might think so, the Lord of heaven and earth doesn't consider mathematical truth neutral territory.

As I see it, our Lord looks upon mathematics and declares, “ This is Mine! ”

Christians can account for mathematics on the basis of the biblical triune depiction of God. If truth exists, including mathematical truth, its basis is God whose attributes are reflected in the properties of math. Is mathematical truth unchanging? God is unchanging. Is mathematical truth eternal? Only because God is. Does mathematical truth defy matter, space, time? So does God because He is Spirit. Is mathematical truth an object of thought in non-physical minds and yet superior to human minds? Well, God’s mind is omniscient knowing all truths. Do we stand in judgment of mathematical truth? Not any more than we stand in judgment of God.

Math is not just out there as a mysterious curiosity of the universe. Math pervades all of our lives because God pervades all of our lives. A Christian’s reflection upon math positions him to stand in awe not of it, but of the tri-personal God of the Scriptures (see Ps. 139: 17-18). Since mathematical truth manifests certain properties consonant with the attributes of God as revealed in His Word of Truth the basis and ground for mathematical truth is that God Himself is Truth (Deut. 32:4, John 14:6 John 16:13—a Trinitarian emphasis on God as truth).

We can lead students through these considerations and they will respond with examples of mathematical truths thought by God on their own. I’ve experienced it during my years as a teacher.

The upshot of these Christian mathematical musings is when any of us learn math, we also get to know something of God’s nature because mathematical truths are the eternal thoughts of God. Others may not believe so, but Christians have a basis for thinking so. Gordon H. Clark maintains, “ insofar as man knows anything [as truth, mathematical or otherwise] he is in contact with God’s mind. Since further, God’s mind is God [based on His attribute of simplicity], we may legitimately [though figuratively]…say, we have a vision of God.” 8

To be continued...

Take up and listen to Episodes 1 & 2 of Urban Puritano

The Challenge of Christian Education: A Reformed Perspective, Part 3

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 15:14:06 GMT

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The Antithesis Confirmed: Science and History

Where does the rubber meet the road for Christian Education?

Briefly, consider both Science and History since their content overlap to some degree. (Keep in mind that no matter how much we may wish to avoid it, Ethics rears its head in any such discussion as well). These disciplines ask and attempt to answer the profound questions, “What is there?” and “Where is it all going?” respectively.

A child will ask: “What is life and where did it come from?” The education as usual response is that through incredible naturalistic processes, first , the conditions and elements necessary to form a living thing just fortuitously came about; second , many of those ingredients just got together and blindly synergized in the most hostile of environmental conditions; and, third , they’ve been effervescing and, despite the degenerative effects of random mutations, have just been growing increasingly complex and adaptive ever since. So much so, that even our very thoughts are the products of this naturalistic, evolutionary process.

Our bodies, our minds, and even the deliverances of our minds are geared towards surviving and passing on our genes. Survival takes primacy.

Since everything about us is geared towards surviving, from physical traits to our faculties and their deliverances, then truth is not the important issue in any area. This naturalistic view immediately faces a tiny difficulty as a consequence. It cannot be rationally maintained!

Latent, if not glaringly present, in this position is the absence of any basis to be rationally confident that the “truth” of this naturalistic point of view is, well, true . It is positively self-defeating. A proponent of this naturalistic perspective, no less than Charles Darwin himself, had his doubts. He would not be allowed to express them if he were teaching in a high school today.

Nevertheless, this is a fundamental contrast between the education as usual answer to biological science and what would be taught to students in Christian education settings. Because of this, then, notice that non-Christian education is diametrically opposed to Christian education because Christian education’s primary concern is for truth in every sphere of knowledge, including science.

We seek to equip students with the very tools that bring to bear Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life to all their studies. Education in the truth demands exclusive and all-encompassing allegiance to the only source of truth. This, too, shows that even as there could be no neutrality in education in ancient biblical times, there cannot be any now. Our educational concern is for the primacy of truth in all areas of knowledge.

The dark side of the naturalistic equation is that what ought to be (morals) cannot be objectively derived from what is (the observable world). Children who accept what they have soaked in throughout their education may and often do logically conclude with despair and are easily identifiable in schools across the country. They were not given an adequate moral compass to point to things that are good and things that are evil. To borrow imagery from Kirsten Lanier, perhaps the good is the mouse and evil is the snake. Or vice-versa. Who knows? Who’s to say?

Without God and His Word we have to hold on to both the snake and the mouse. One is as valid as the other in a naturalistic worldview. When students realize this they ask themselves, “What’s the difference? Why does my life matter? Why do my studies matter? Is wrestling with these questions even worth it?” At least they are honest enough to ask the tough questions. Not receiving coherent answers and not knowing what to think of the significance of their lives, they embrace despair.

Could this despairing nihilism be a contributing factor to school shootings over the last two decades?

Students soak in such metaphysical naturalism through the years as they are simultaneously guided in their studies of History to conclude that since History has no meaningful beginning, it does not have a meaningful continuation or culmination other than what individuals or political entities construct for themselves. (If we turn to Science for a knowledge of a cosmic culmination, the ultimate heat destruction of the universe is all that is presently assured for us down the line. Too long ahead of us to matter).

Naturalistic views of History tell us our world is all there is and no explanation from above is allowed, much less warranted. Yet, students are also taught to make evaluations of persons and events. This person is good and that event evil. Of course, the same person or event may be evaluated by different individuals and different societies quite oppositely. Is a basis other than human convention upon which such evaluations are made taught to students?

As the students get older, they reason that even as humans in general have no objective purpose beyond this world, individuals in particular may construct reality for themselves. This very conclusion is the desired learning outcome in the non-Christian, education as usual setting. It is often held up to encourage students to "make the world a better place."

Many students are convinced that this is the best road to take. Instead of despair, the student is encouraged to “make the world a better place” and chooses hope for the future. Hope that humanity will work to make the world a better place tomorrow.

Are these students equipped to answer the questions: Who decides what is “better”? On what basis is one path “better” than another? The Lord Jesus Christ came proclaiming glad tidings and He was killed for it. To his society, they were obviously not glad tidings and His proclamation was found worthy of a cruel and profane death. Do votes or numbers determine what is good, evil, false or true?

Upon what objective basis can the student (and by implication, the teacher who advocates an optimistic outlook for humanity’s future) be justifiably optimistic that his ideals, however they were arrived at, (1) should be the ones that others should strive for and (2) will triumph in the future? Even if they do triumph to any degree, how long will they last and is it worth it?

These questions and the apparently intractable propensity among humans to destroy things and kill each other make optimists uncomfortable. At least Science relegates our ultimate doom far off into the future. History testifies that as humanity increases in the technical knowledge derived from education as usual, we are that much more destructive of our world and each other in the here and now! Such teachers and students must ignore the tough questions to retain their optimism and hence the delusion.

The Whole Counsel of Christ

Praise be to God that we don’t have an irrational, fragmented worldview! Glory to God that of Him and through him and to him are all things! Thank God that He has given us His Word without which we would be in despair or delusion!

The Christian educator rejoices over the fact that as Reformed philosopher, Gordon H. Clark , stated: “Christianity is a comprehensive view of all things: it takes the world, both material and spiritual, to be ordered system” each part deriving its significance from the whole.3

Christianity , therefore, encompasses as much as Christ’s Lordship – everything !

Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck identifies a Trinitarian motif that can be adapted by Christian educators to locate a subject’s relation to God and thus, a view of how God’s truth is the foundation for all truth. Any teacher can use his short synopsis of the faith and seek to discover the big scriptural Trinitarian God picture provided by our subjects. He summarized: “The essence of the Christian religion is this, that the creation of the Father, devastated by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God, and re-created by the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God.”4

Let me scratch the surface on how this can provide for unity in truth and life in the educational process of dealing with the “profound questions of human existence.”

As we have seen concerning Science and its methodological naturalistic conclusions, where it sees all observable and non-observable reality to exist by unguided, blind chance, the Christian's starting point takes Scripture as a special revelation from God and presupposes that the world is uninterpretable by naturalistic lenses.

Creation is complex, and has been so from the start by God's design. It is radically informational, despite the degenerative effects of the Fall, and continues to "groan" in anticipation of its restoration brought about by Christ's finished work applied by the Holy Spirit. The world and all therein is what we would expect, given the biblical creation account. We may see through a glass darkly in what we study in the sciences, but the alternative to doing Science Christianly is doing Science irrationally.

Similarly, the History of the world is providentially guided by God to to glorify Him in the formation and advancement of His Kingdom of which the Church plays a central role. Neither tyrants nor evil have the last word in the affairs of men . And this was decisively demonstrated and portrayed by the determinate counsel of God in the crucifixion of Christ. The fall of Man was reversed and the death of death itself was achieved.

We may not have an exhaustively detailed account of all of History, but the only alternative doing History Christianly is doing History that ultimately results in "unyielding despair." We have Scripture to provide us with the major contours of History and its direct relationship to us. History is hinged on the irrefutable resurrection of Jesus on the repentant sinner's behalf.

All scientists and historians, whether believer or not, will one day bow the knee and confess with their tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord.

To be Continued in Part 4...

Listen to Episodes 1 & 2 of Urban Puritano!

The Challenge of Christian Education: A Reformed Perspective, Part 1

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 22:23:04 GMT

“If I had to give up preaching and my other duties there is no office I would rather have than that of school teacher. For I know that next to the ministry it is the most useful, greatest, and best; and I am not sure which is to be preferred. For it is hard to make old dogs docile and old rogues pious, yet that is what ministry works at, and must work at, in great part, in vain; but young trees, though some may brake in the process, are more easily bent and trained. Therefore let it be considered one of the highest virtues to train the children of others, which duty very few parents attend to themselves.” -Martin Luther

“The prime justification for evangelical education must be a concern for the victory of truth and justice and godliness; its purpose is not simply to compensate for the neglect of the Christian home or failures of the local church, nor to provide personal shelter from the prevailing cultural milieu. Christian education is vital only when it raises up a nucleus of committed evangelical intellectuals who stand in the public arena unequivocally devoted to the truth and right of God.”

Carl F. H. Henry

Introduction

Is Christian Education a luxury or a necessity?

The education of children is a serious matter. Christian Education, inasmuch as it is a fruit of the Church’s “great salvation”, is a vitally serious matter. To all involved, whether students, parents, administrators, teachers, or the surrounding communities schools find themselves in, Christian Education – rightly conceived and executed-- has a unique stamp pointing to the all-encompassing Lordship of Christ.

Does it accomplish this by preaching the gospel of salvation? By promoting missions or evangelizing the lost? Strictly speaking, no. It does this by self-consciously trying to bring to bear the implications of God’s whole revelation to the student in all he or she studies. This certainly is not to say we exclude the message of the good news of God’s salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ’s alone. But it is to say that what Christian Education is aiming at is glorifying God by educating students as fully as possible in things foundational, practical, factual, ethical, and systematically true so that they may flourish in whatever their God-given callings may be.

The Christian educator unabashedly embraces and implements a Biblical philosophy of education as foundational to dealing with the student and his/her areas of study – inside and out. Therein lies one contrast between public education and Christian Education from a Reformed or Calvinistic perspective. The means and ends of the respective educational philosophies carried out in public and private Christian schools are strikingly different. And necessarily so.

And acutely so for the Calvinist !

Calvinists are handicapped by (among other things) the strange visual impairment of recognizing that the truth of the Bible is applicable to every person on this earth, to every subject to be studied, and to every aspect of life! From a Reformed perspective, a fully-orbed Christian philosophy of education makes all the difference in education because it sets forth what must be taught, how it must be taught, why it must be taught; what must be learned, how it must be learned, why it must be learned; and, finally, what must be lived, how it must be lived, and why it must be lived. This all-encompassing Reformed philosophy is derived from Biblical truths and principles and applies to the adults as much (if not more!) as to the children in our care.

Conversions, decisions of faith, and discipleship will take place. Barriers to such things will be removed as much as possible. Cooperation with the local churches should be viewed as indispensable in this regard. But, again, to put it another way, Christian Education at its best is designed to be the outworking of a reflective Christian faith to all educational areas for the glory of God and for the good of the student. After all, the God of the Gospel leaves nothing in His world and our lives untouched.

What, then, is meant by saying Christian Education offers a unique stamp pointing to the all-encompassing Lordship of Christ?

What does it mean for a Christian educator to self-consciously bring to bear the implications of God’s whole revelation in all areas of study? Although God has been marked “absent” in public education for years, private Christian K-12 schools too often carry out a careless and less than expectant attendance count for the God they profess to believe in. Is God really in “attendance” in Christian schools? Does it matter? How could the axiom of Christianity not make all the difference in the world for education? The Bible alone is the Word of the God!

This royal presupposition is our life’s blood, our lung’s air, our only sustenance, and our only solid ground. The remainder of this short essay will attempt to paint a panoramic vista of Christian Education in answering these and other related questions.

The best way that I know how to do this is to paint a Reformed portrait of the challenge of Christian Education. The broad, flowing strokes of a Biblical philosophy of Christian Education will be coupled with the glazing, parallel strokes of Calvinism. Even if the Christian teacher does not presently share this Reformed enthusiasm for and vision of Christian Education, I hope their present working knowledge of the contours of a Christian worldview will be enhanced by my efforts. I hope that Christian educators, at whatever level they teach or in whatever system they teach in, will be encouraged, motivated, inspired, and have their faith strengthened in their own personal reflective process. Freely offered to all Christian teachers in the following is a way to apply the fortunes of Christianity in the classroom as a Reformed heart sees it.

The Challenge Stated

Christian schools face such a grave responsibility to families, to local churches, to their communities, and to the body of Christ that they should be ever mindful of God’s approving or disapproving eye upon the service they render. Does our service reflect this mindfulness? If not, what does that say about us? What does it say about our beliefs?

Can Christian theology contribute anything valuable at all to educational theory & practice? Christian schools, along with public schools, inevitably impact individual lives and the culture at large. Therefore, Christian educators should give serious thought to how they carry out their calling and consider in what ways the fortunes of a Christian worldview can enrich their understanding and appreciation of the teaching profession.

As though this self-reflective process in itself weren’t challenging enough with all the busy-ness of our duties in the school year, there is another fundamental challenge that touches on everything we do as teachers in Christian schools. It is one that should be resolved, but too often isn’t, before the school year starts and certainly before a teacher steps into the classroom. It is both heavenly and earthly. It is at once existential, epistemological, and every day.

The greatest challenge of Christian Education is this: To recognize that there is a unifying principle that not only sustains us through the vicissitudes of our task, but gives rich and lasting meaning in the joys we take part in as well. Reformed theology provides that unifying principle because it invests all of life with a radically scriptural “God significance.” God, undoubtedly, looks upon us approvingly when we seek His glory in all the areas of education by recognizing His significance in those areas.

It should come as no surprise that God has an “opinion” on educational matters.

In ancient biblical times, education was familial in most cultures. God’s people were given the mandate to teach their children His statutes, commandments, and His mighty acts and judgments. They were commanded to fear God and to serve Him in love and gratitude for His mercy and grace upon them. Since God was their Creator, Redeemer, and Deliverer from bondage, the Israelites were expected to wholeheartedly devote themselves to their covenant God. Commitment and allegiance to Him alone were their ultimate responsibility. The Israelites were to shun false gods and do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD.

By contrast, the inhabitants of the Promised Land did not serve the true God. Their education, no doubt, prepared their children and youth for a productive, independent adult life in some trade, skill, or profession. However, their whole lives were lived in the context of the great sin of recalcitrant unbelief in the one true God. Their devotion was to falsehood and their activities, “religious” or otherwise, were inextricably connected to their ultimate commitment to false gods. It is no wonder God regarded not only their religious practices (Prov. 15:8), but their mundane activities (Prov. 21:4) as sin.

Despite appearances, the crown rights of God reach to everyone and everything. In light of this, the Israelites mission is understandable: to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan because there could be no integration between a people of Truth and a people of falsehood. There could be no neutrality among the two people groups in the issues of life, especially with respect to education since education is the medium through which truth or error is transmitted on life’s issues.

We, however, are not in ancient biblical times or lands. Ours is an increasingly crumbling post-Christian, relativistic era. Although our mandate is not the conquest of Canaan, are we not called to be a peculiar people unto our covenant God? If we teachers are not mindful of what God approves of or disapproves of in matters pertinent to education, how can the service we render in our Lord’s name and under the banner of Christian Education be authentic? That would be like an Israelite fashioning an idol and devoting himself to it in thought, word, and deed as a Canaanite might do and considering it no big deal!

What, then, is special about the service we render in the midst of our shattered and decaying culture?

To be continued in Part 2!

Take up and listen to Episodes 1 and 2 of Urban Puritano

The Challenge of Christian Education: A Reformed Perspective, Part 2

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 20:09:13 GMT

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Is Christian Education unique?

Many things make Christian education unique. As Reformed thought sees it, and as my focus will be, the applicability of God’s Word to all areas of knowledge is of paramount significance and a singular feature of Christian Education . My focus will be to just scratch the surface on the applicability of God’s Word to a couple of areas of God’s world.

The Educational Antithesis

Christian schools are not in the business of producing citizens for the benefit of the state. We aren’t teaching to prepare students for a career, to insure a robust national or world economy, or even to promote human rights. The values we hold or desire to pass on are not personal peace and affluence. Nor does it involve the ever changing “common good.” The purposes for which Christian Education exists and the reasons for which we teach in such schools transcend this world (but without ignoring it, of course).

Four words sum up the purpose for Christian education and the reason we work as teachers in a Christian school: the glory of God .

The glory of God should find full expression in all we believe and specifically in all we teach. This emphasis is all- encompassing, for as Reformed theology maintains, the whole world—things visible and invisible—is “the theater of God’s glory.” With the Bible as our guide and through the discerning theological eyes of faith, we seek to discover how and why God and His Word apply to everything from visible things like the manifold wonders of creation and providence in history to invisible things like the many facets of Truth in places we never would have thought look for them (much less find them!) such as in mathematics.

This uniquely Christian emphasis highlights for the student the Christian basis for unity in truth and life.

The only question is, “ Will Christian schools take the time and expend the effort to discover what is already present within the subjects we teach, namely, a radically scriptural God significance? ”

I think that as an academic community, the Christian school should aspire to echo Abraham Kuyper’s thought on the all encompassing Lordship of Jesus Christ: “There is not a square inch on the whole plain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord over all, does not proclaim, ‘This is Mine!’”

Christian teachers at their best, carry out their duties in worshipful awe of God’s presence in every realm of knowledge. This is what invests our vocation with meaning. This is what unifies God’s Truth with our lives. We are co-laborers with Him, standing before students and proclaiming, “This subject matter is His!” Non-Christian thought can’t even begin to approximate what we have in God’s Truth and the foundation it provides for unity with all of life.

So, what do we have?

A distinctly Christian education doesn’t offer, as Reformed philosopher Cornelius Plantinga writes, “an education-as-usual…with Bible classes tacked on, or education-as-usual with prayers before class…No, a solidly built Christian [school] will rise from its faith in Jesus Christ and then explore the height and depth, the length and breadth of what it means to build on this faith…for a lifetime of learning and work within the kingdom of God.” Quoting approvingly from the Puritan founders of Harvard, Plantinga writes, “a topnotch Christian…education in the 21st century ‘will lay Christ in the bottom.’ ”1

The applicability of the truth of Christ’s Word must be seen at the core of Christian Education and flow throughout everything we teach by lesson and life . A thin veneer of Christianity will not do. A thin veneer of Christianity over education is nothing more than education-as-usual with Bible and prayer tacked on. Christian teachers, above all, should not put limits on God by thinking that God only applies to Bible or ethics, but not to other subjects.

Let the believer who limits God to a select realm of knowledge bear the burden of demonstrating for all, including God, that He is bound to only those territories of truth! This is dishonoring to God, His truth, and His all-encompassing Lordship.

Godless Education

I’ll begin to flesh out how a Christian view of education is unique and distinctive by contrasting it with a non-Christian educator’s words on education. Although she is not operating from a Christian faith reference point, I think her words vividly illustrate with great force to Christian educators the contrast that necessarily exists between what passes for professional motivation and nourishment for non-believers and believers.

In an article entitled Food For Thought , Kristen Olsen Lanier writes: “Good, thoughtful work in schools…work that occurs too infrequently… helps individuals… [look] at real, profound questions of human existence and assumes that children can wrestle with these issues – that their minds will be enlarged and made muscular by such struggles…” These words are commendable if their meaning were invested with biblically informed assumptions including a Christian view of creation and human nature created in God’s image. As it is, they are not and their deficiency comes out all the clearer. The one issue that Lanier builds her commentary on good, thoughtful school work around is “the complex problem of holding two remarkably contradictory ideas in your mind at once, without resolving the dilemma on either side.”2 This, it would seem, is a virtue to Lanier.

She charmingly illustrates the dilemma with an anecdote about having to buy a live mouse to feed it to her son’s new pet snake! What an uncomfortable decision. Parents can especially sympathize with her situation. In considering the issue at the pet store with her children, Lanier mused that while it is “good and important to care about individual mice, to think that the life of a mouse is important” it was also good for them to purchase a live mouse to use as food for their snake. Apparently, one good cancelled out the other good. This contradiction was tolerated because of the “certain knowledge that things must eat each other in order to live…” Little comfort for the mouse!

The real issue is not animal survival, but the value she places on holding to contradictions. She calls holding to two mutually exclusive thoughts “[holding] on to both the snake and the mouse.”

Charming, but wrong.

Her solution to have children’s minds strengthened by profound questions of human existence disappoints. It must because it does not start with God’s Word. Lanier prescribes that children (and by implication all people) resolve life’s profound questions through a process of “holding two contradictory ideas at once.” Instead of enlarging minds, it impoverishes them and makes education the presentation and the propagation of the irrational.

But all this is really illustrative of the intellectual struggle, the educational antithesis, between Christianity and all non-Christian thought. Anything can constitute a valid perspective if revelation from God is not the foundation of knowledge. Since present non-Christian thought leaves little room for absolute truth (except for the truth that there is no absolute truth!), it is perfectly acceptable to hold on to two mutually exclusive positions. One position is as good as the other. From a non-Christian standpoint anything goes intellectually (and for that matter, morally!) – even contradictions .

This is definitely not commendable for Christian educators, but from Lanier’s perspective it is worth lamenting that more schools don’t have “sufficient confidence in children that they will ultimately understand and be enriched by such messiness.” Teachers and children can only be malnourished on such Food For Thought . At best, from a Christian perspective, her view is naïve. It expects rational beings to see the profound issues of life through the lens of the irrational – contradictions – and to live with them.

The irony of it all is that what she advocates is already being practiced pervasively and systematically. What she laments as infrequently taking place happens all too often. That’s part of our society’s problem!

Doesn’t experience show that children have wrestled with profound questions of human existence and have been guided to embrace the lack of objective unity between what has been inculcated into them from K – 12th and what is expected from them? Doesn’t experience show that the best non-Christian instructors can do is offer an education that yields either candy coated despair on the one hand or candy coated delusions on the other hand?

I don’t mean to suggest that only Christian learners develop academic competencies. That would be ridiculous. What I am suggesting is that only through a Christian worldview can teachers and students make sense of it all. That is, only a distinctly Christian education yields a rational foundation for all truth and its unity with their lives.

To be continued in Part 3...

Tk Take up and listen to Episodes 1 and 2 of Urban Puritano e

Three Reasons Christian Parents Should Consider Christian Education

Mon, 30 May 2022 14:41:21 GMT

There are many motivations for Christian parents to choose some form of Christian Education.

It's hard to pick just one. Here are three:

the foundational, the practical, and the curricular motivations.

Foundationally, the education of children is the responsibility of parents. This is by God's mandate. The covenant responsibility in the Old and New Testament for believing parents is to teach the children. In our American culture, no matter language or background, Christians by and large delegate this responsibility by instinct to their local public school.

I don't judge Christian parents for doing this by default and in a non-reflective, habitual, and customary way. There are some Christian parents, however, that have a somewhat thought out pious motivation for sending their kids to public school: to be a presence of salt and light in the public school system. I have even heard many Christian parents of public school students look down on Christian homeschool parents (or parents of students in Christian school) because they are not a presence of salt and light in the public school system.

This is simply erroneous thinking. The supposed motive is "missionary." Children, however, are not missionaries. Their parents are not missionaries. No evangelism can take place in the public schools as a matter of policy. Let that sink in. The gospel is not welcome in the public schools.

Really, let that sink in.

In contrast, the gospel is believed, explored, communicated, and taught in the home and Christian School. The antithesis between secular progressive education and Christian education is explicit and implicit. Why find fault with Christian parents for simply recognizing that one framework is superior and one is deficient before the eyes of God?

Now, this is a big country. Not all communities where schools are found are created equal. There is still a definite presence of faithful believers who are public school teachers, administrators, and principals. Thank God for that! The likelihood of drag queen events and transgender indoctrination is lessened where Christian professionals in the public school system are found.

But make no mistake about it. Many of these same Christian public school staff are parents who choose to have their own children educated elsewhere than in the public schools.

If the issue was solely about effectively teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, our country would be better off. Schools would produce stellar scholars. Secular education, however, functions in a system and is practiced by a majority of teachers who do not view human nature for what it truly is. And the results, both academic and moral, are dismal throughout this big country.

After all, the majority of public school teachers operate under presuppositions that lead to a myriad of anti-christian teachings that inevitably undermine what Christian parents desire for their children. Despite many local schools scattered throughout this big country being blessed to have many Christian administrators and teachers within them, this is not generally the case.

The seeds planted by secular, anti-christian teaching are as real as the seeds planted by Christian parents or Christian teachers. They will have definite consequences. This is inevitable. But it is one thing to hope the bad consequences don't become reality and another thing altogether to aim for it. Secular education aims at anti-christian consequences whether you like it or not.

Practically: First, the problem. Many Christian parents consider the challenges of homeschooling and even christian schools outweigh the benefits to most Christian parents. It is inconvenient financially and professionally/vocationally for the parent(s).

Unfortunately, this is where Christian parents leave the issue. “It isn't practical. I can't afford it.” This is a true shame and shows how much Christians lack a gritty faith nowadays. Christians of the past, in cultures less affluent than ours and during more dangerous times, educated their kids more effectively, more culturally, more spiritually than all of us nowadays and with a fraction of our resources or technology.

When you think about it, however, the long game is more practical than whatever short term inconveniences choosing Christian Education may involve. In both academic and moral/spiritual outcomes, Christian parents have the power to bless their children.

Teaching is not rocket science. But if more believers pooled their resources, delegating our children's education would not be as challenging. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Apart from homeschool, private Christian Schools, Classical Christian schools, co-opts are possible models for the successful implementation of Christian Education.

The third and last reason for Christian parents to choose Christian Education is the issue of Curriculum. There is a definite difference in the significance of the various subject matter taught to kids either from a pro-christian perspective versus an anti-christian perspective. It's comparable to a person who needs glasses (a christian education) to see correctly versus a blind person who needs new eyes (a secular humanist public education)! Yes, there really is a unique stamp provided by Christianity to the content of educational curriculum.

Most believers don't care about the relevance or applicability of biblical, special revelation to "general revelation". They follow the herd of unbelievers in thinking that many educational matters are religiously neutral. This is not the case. As Gordon H. Clark observed, "The school system that ignores God teaches its students to ignore God and that is not neutrality. It is the worst form of antagonism for it teaches that God is not relevant to the world or their lives" (paraphrased from A Christian Philosophy of Education).

Every square inch of creation is only rightly understood as seen with the lens of Christ. You know how there is in theology "Seeing Christ in All of Scripture"? Well, there is a parallel truth in the realm of creation. Jesus declares that every square inch of creation is "Mine!" Like it or not, there is a Trinitarian God significance to the universe and all that is therein, whether visible or invisible.

The subjects of study that make up an educational curriculum are both down to earth and transcendent. Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Math, Morals are all interconnected and informed by the Triune God of Scripture and display an objective unity between His Word and His world.

Bottom Line: So, the issue of the education of believing children is one of great spiritual importance. It is a tough, yet worthwhile, path of faith parents take in testifying, communicating, teaching, promoting, and glorifying the Sovereign God in all educational matters for the good of their children.

For more on this topic, check out Episodes 1 and 2 or Urban Puritano Podcast.