Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Andy Naselli

What do cessationists and continuationists have in common?

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Kevin DeYoung, The Holy Spirit (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), pp. 21–22:

Those Controversial Gifts

I would be remiss in talking about spiritual gifts if I didn’t say something about the debate over the “miraculous gifts.” On the one side are cessationists, who claim that some of the gifts, such as tongues and prophecy, ceased after the apostolic age. They contend:

  1. The miraculous gifts were needed only as authenticating signs for the initial establishing of the gospel and the church.
  2. First Corinthians 13:8–10 says that prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will cease “when the perfect comes.” A minority of cessationists contends that the “perfect” came with the completion of the Bible.
  3. Revelatory gifts such as tongues and prophecy undermine the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.
  4. The miraculous gifts we see today are not analogous to the gifts exercised in the New Testament.

On the other side are continuationists, who claim that all the gifts are available today. They argue:

  1. Without a clear word to the contrary, we should assume all the gifts are still in effect and earnestly desire them (1 Cor. 14:1).
  2. The “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13 refers to the return of Christ, not to the close of the canon (and, it must be pointed out, many cessationists accept this exegesis, too, but draw different conclusions).
  3. Revelatory gifts do not have the same authority as Scripture. They must always be tested.
  4. Whether or not the gifts are identical with the first century, we should welcome the Spirit’s work in our midst.

I believe both sides have come to see that they agree on more than they once thought. They agree that: [Read more…] about What do cessationists and continuationists have in common?

KJB

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This 90-minute film releases in the United States today: KJB: The Book That Changed the World.

Jenni and I enjoyed watching it last week.

  • The film focuses on the intriguing politics behind the making of the KJV.
  • It’s superbly narrated by John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli the dwarf in The Lord of the Rings.
  • The acting is well done.
  • It includes two brief commentaries by Carl Trueman.

Here’s a three-minute preview:

Do the TGC Council Members Agree on the Creation-Evolution Issue?

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Andrew M. Davis, Creation (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 12 (numbering added):

The stakeholders of The Gospel Coalition are not on the same page with respect to all the details, but all of us insist

  1. that God alone is self-existing,
  2. that he is the creator of all,
  3. that he made everything good,
  4. that Adam and Eve were historical figures from whom the rest of the human race has sprung, and
  5. that the fundamental problem we face was introduced by human idolatry and rebellion and the curse they attracted.

The reasons for holding such matters to be nonnegotiable are bound up with many passages of Scripture, not just the opening chapters of Genesis. For example, Paul tells us that God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).

You can hear Andy Davis preach on Genesis 1–3 in his series on Genesis.

Beginning with God

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Why does The Gospel Coalition’s Confessional Statement begin with God instead of Scripture or epistemology?

D. A. Carson (who drafted the statement) and Tim Keller explain in Gospel-Centered Ministry (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 6:

We also thought it was important to begin our confession with God rather than with Scripture. This is significant. The Enlightenment was overconfident about human rationality. Some strands of it assumed it was possible to build systems of thought on unassailable foundations that could be absolutely certain to unaided human reason. Despite their frequent vilification of the Enlightenment, many conservative evangelicals have nevertheless been shaped by it. This can be seen in how many evangelical statements of faith start with the Scripture, not with God. They proceed from Scripture to doctrine through rigorous exegesis in order to build (what they consider) an absolutely sure, guaranteed-true-to-Scripture theology.

The problem is that this is essentially a foundationalist approach to knowledge. It ignores the degree to which our cultural location affects our interpretation of the Bible, and it assumes a very rigid subject-object distinction. It ignores historical theology, philosophy, and cultural reflection. Starting with the Scripture leads readers to the overconfidence that their exegesis of biblical texts has produced a system of perfect doctrinal truth. This can create pride and rigidity because it may not sufficiently acknowledge the fallenness of human reason.

We believe it is best to start with God, to declare (with John Calvin, Institutes 1.1) that without knowledge of God we cannot know ourselves, our world, or anything else. If there is no God, we would have no reason to trust our reason.

Heroes of the First Centuries: Children’s Books by Sinclair Ferguson

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Sinclair Ferguson is writing a series of children’s books called “Heroes of the Faith.” The first three books highlight heroes of the first centuries:

Click the images above for more information, including

  • sample PDFs,
  • descriptions of each book, and
  • Ferguson’s “personal word to parents” about his new series.

I read these three books to my 2.75-year-old daughter last week, and she enjoyed them (and has kept asking me to read the story of Polycarp to her again). But she got restless while I read them because there are a lot of words on each page and the prose is more at the level of elementary-school children.

Each book ends with a timeline that lists heroes of the faith that Ferguson apparently plans to write books about: [Read more…] about Heroes of the First Centuries: Children’s Books by Sinclair Ferguson

Thriving at College

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When I read this practical book a few weeks ago, I thought, “This is the perfect high school graduation gift. And it would also benefit college students, parents, professors, and pastors.”

Alex Chediak. Thriving at College: Make Great Friends, Keep Your Faith, and Get Ready for the Real World! Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2011.

Westminster Books is running a sale that ends on April 5:

  • $7.50 for the first copy (50% off)
  • $9.00 for each subsequent copy (40% off)

About forty people have endorsed it, including Randy Alcorn, David Dockery, Rick Holland, Al Mohler, Chris Morgan, Leland Ryken, Sam Storms, and Bruce Ware.

Chediak, associate professor of engineering and physics at California Baptist University, is the author of With One Voice: Singleness, Dating, and Marriage to the Glory of God and editor of Five Paths to the Love of Your Life. [Read more…] about Thriving at College

Reading the Church Fathers

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Michael A. G. Haykin gives six reasons that we should read and study the church fathers (Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church [Wheaton: Crossway, 2011], 17–28):

  1. For freedom: “[S]tudy of the Fathers, like any historical study, liberates us from the present.”
  2. For wisdom: “[T]he Fathers can provide us with a map for the Christian life.”
  3. To understand the New Testament: “We have had too disparaging a view of Patristic exegesis and have come close to considering the exposition of the Fathers as a consistent failure to understand the New Testament.”
  4. Because of bad press about the Fathers: “[T]hey are sometimes subjected to simply bad history or bad press.”
  5. As an aid in defending the faith: “The early centuries of the church saw Christianity threatened by a number of theological heresies: Gnosticism, Arianism, and Pelagianism, to name but three. While history never repeats itself exactly, the essence of many of these heresies has reappeared from time to time in the long history of Christianity.”
  6. For spiritual nurture: “The study of the church fathers, like the study of church history in general, informs Christians about their predecessors in the faith, those who have helped shape their Christian communities and thus make them what they are. Such study builds humility and modesty into the warp and woof of the Christian life and as such can exercise a deeply sanctifying influence.”

So where should you start? Haykin suggests some books in Appendix 1 (157–58, bullet-points added):

Reading the Fathers: A Beginner’s Guide

[Introduction]

Where does one begin reading the Fathers? Well, first of all, I would start with two tremendous secondary sources:

  • Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (Yale University Press, 2003) and
  • Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Penguin, 1993).

Together these will provide an excellent orientation in terms of the history of the Patristic era (Chadwick) and the spirituality of the Fathers (Wilken). [Read more…] about Reading the Church Fathers