This morning Hugh Hewitt posted on his blog a “Memo to Evangelicals” from Mark DeMoss. DeMoss makes a fairly strong case why the GOP should choose Mitt Romney rather than Rudy Giuliani or one of the other candidates.
An Illustration of Eisegetical, Manipulative Evangelism
I was reminded of this tract today while re-reading George Mish Marsden‘s Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism: 1870-1925 (2d ed.; New York: Oxford, 2006), p. 100. (It also occurs on p. 100 in the 1980 edition.) I spent a while searching for an image of it and finally found one on Timmy Brister’s blog.
Although no doubt well intentioned, this tract illustrates (1) evangelism that is both eisegetical and manipulative and (2) yet another reason that theology matters.
Minnick: “Theology Matters”
I benefited immensely in 2003 from these two four-page articles by my former pastor, Dr. Mark Minnick:
The two PDFs above occur in the middle of the Sept./Oct. and Nov./Dec. 2003 issues of Frontline. These two articles condense Minnick’s outstanding four-part sermon series:
- Theology Matters (7-20-03)
- Theological Accountability (7-27-03)
- Theological Definition (8-10-03)
- Assessing Theology (8-17-03)
Carson on Ezekiel 1-3
This new article is available as a PDF:
D. A. Carson, “Excerpts From A Sermon: The Call of the Prophet in Declining Time: Ezekiel 1–3,” The Spurgeon Fellowship Journal (Fall 2007).
Highlights:
“Now what is vital for us, in the opening chapters, is the nature of God’s call on Ezekiel’s life. For God does not call all prophets in exactly the same way.”
Review of Yarbrough’s “The Salvation Historical Fallacy?”
Yarbrough, Robert Wayne. The Salvation Historical Fallacy? Reassessing the History of New Testament Theology. Edited by Robert Morgan. History of Biblical Interpretation Series 2. Leiden: Deo, 2004. xiv + 402 pp.
1. Introduction
Yarbrough is a NT professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he serves as chair of the NT department. The Salvation Historical Fallacy? (henceforth SHF) builds on Yarbrough’s “The heilsgeschichtliche Perspective in Modern New Testament Theology” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Aberdeen, 1985; xiii + 520 pp.), incorporating two additional decades of research (cf. many of the articles in Yarbrough’s Curriculum Vitae).
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Review of Harrisville’s and Sundberg’s “The Bible in Modern Culture”
Harrisville, Roy A. and Walter Sundberg. The Bible in Modern Culture: Baruch Spinoza to Brevard Childs. 2d ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. xiii + 349 pp. $35.00.
Harrisville and Sundberg (henceforth, HS) are professors at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Harrisville is professor emeritus of NT, and Sundberg is professor of church history. This second edition updates the 1995 edition, subtitled Theology and Historical-Critical Method from Spinoza to Käsemann, by slightly revising the pervious chapters and adding new ones on Schlatter, Ricoeur, and Childs.
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Review of Neill’s and Wright’s “The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1986”
Neill, Stephen and Tom Wright. The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1986. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. 464 pp. $39.95 paper.
Stephen Neill (1900–1984) was a missionary, Anglican Bishop, professor, and linguist, and N. T. Wright (b. 1948), who earned his Ph.D. from Oxford in 1980, is now the famous and influential Bishop of Durham. The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1986 (henceforth, INT) attempts to summarize the major people and events in the vast field of NT interpretation over a 125-year period. Neill’s first edition, which was the outgrowth of his Firth Lectures at the University of Nottingham in 1962 (p. ix), was published in 1966 and covered one hundred years of NT interpretation (1861–1961). Neill began updating INT for its second edition, but he died before completing it. He did, however, discuss the second edition with Wright, who edited Neill’s work (chapters 1–8, pp. 1–359) and replaced Neill’s previous conclusions with a final chapter that accounts for twenty-five more years of NT interpretation (pp. 360–449). The subject matter is almost exclusively British with some discussions of significant advances elsewhere (e.g., Germany), so the volume could be appropriately titled The Interpretation of the New Testament in Britain from 1861 to 1986.
Imminency and Inerrancy
After praising J. Christiaan Beker, Buz Meyers brashly asserts,
Nevertheless, the apostle Paul and other members of the first generation were wrong about the timing of the Parousia. Christ did not return, and the End did not arrive as was expected. This embarrassing miscalculation on the part of the early Church may help to explain in part why the apocalyptic dimension of the NT has not been fully appreciated until relatively recently. Doctrines of biblical inspiration and infallibility may have encouraged overlooking or ignoring NT passages that speak about the Parousia’s arrival in the near future. Errors with regard to the timing of the Parousia, however, have allowed later interpreters to question the certainty of the Parousia’s arrival as well and then dismiss the Parousia altogether. In other words, because the Parousia did not occur when it was supposed to, it probably will never happen, so why consider the Parousia at all? The apostle Paul’s thinking, however, demonstrates that a change in the timing of the Parousia need not undermine the certainty of its coming. . . . [A]lthough Paul may have changed his mind about whether or not he would be alive at the Parousia, Paul never gives up hope in Christ’s future return.
– Charles D. Myers Jr., “The Persistence of Apocalyptic Thought in New Testament Theology,” in Biblical Theology: Problems and Perspectives: In Honor of J. Christiaan Beker (ed. Steven J. Kraftchick, Charles D. Myers Jr., and Ben C. Ollenburger; Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), pp. 212–13 (bold emphasis added).
So Jesus’ coming really isn’t imminent, nor is the Bible inerrant. But even though Paul was way off on the timing bit, we can take comfort that he really was right that Jesus will actually return someday. What a blessing.
Is it possible to hold both the imminency of Jesus’ second coming and biblical inerrancy? I believe it is. Responding to a bold assertion similar to Buz Myers’ above, John MacArthur writes,