Category: Bible

On My Doorstep: The Temple & the Church’s Mission by G.K. Beale

~ Bob Hayton

I was pleased to find a book on my doorstep last week.   Adrianna Wright from InterVarsity Press was kind enough to send me a backlisted title: The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (New Studies in Biblical Theology) by G.K. Beale.

I’ve been wanting this book for some time now.   A few years back, I  took a course in Biblical Theology from The Bethlehem Institute.   We  used IVP’s New Dictionary of Biblical Theology and Graeme Goldsworthy’s intro to Biblical Theology, According to Plan (IVP), as texts (both are phenomenal books by the way).   My instructor also highly recommended this book.   Then, when I read Beale’s recent book, The Erosion of Inerrancy (Crossway), a whole chapter was devoted to the theme of the cosmic temple idea.   That plus having recently finished John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One (IVP) made me very eager to get this book.

The Temple and the Church’s Mission traces the theme of “the dwelling place of God”.   Beale argues that Eden was a cosmic temple modeled after the heavenly abode of God.   All future temples were modeled after Eden, and Rev. 21-22’s “new heaven and new earth” are expressly a renewed Edenic temple-city which fills the whole earth.

From what I’ve read and heard of the book already, it promises to be an insightful and rich read.   I look forward to jumping into the book in the near future.

Quotes to Note 13: Frank Thielman Summarizing Ephesians

~ Bob Hayton

In the last several months, I’ve been working my way through Frank Thielman’s Theology of the New Testament (Zondervan). It is the most readable and enjoyable discussion of theology I have ever seen. I’ll be reviewing it in the near future, but on this Sunday morning I thought I’d share the conclusion to his chapter on Ephesians. May this warm your soul as it did mine.

In an effort to encourage dispirited Christians in southern Asia, Paul has reminded them of God’s plan for the universe and of the critical place of the church in that plan.   His letter paints a picture of a new creation in which the invisible and hostile forces of the heavens lie conquered beneath the feet of Christ.   In this picture, a church that consists of both Jews and Gentiles sits alongside the risen Christ in the heavens, sharing his triumph.   This is the goal, Paul says, toward which God is moving the universe–to sum up all things in heaven and on earth in Christ.

Before “the times” reach this “fulfillment,” however, the hostile cosmic powers continue to wage war against the church, and so Christians must clothe themselves in an armor that will be able to resist their onslaught–truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, and salvation.   By standing united with one another in this armor, they will make “known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” God’s “manifold wisdom” in reconciling Jews and Gentiles to form one new human being through the gospel.   The church will therefore proclaim to these hostile powers that in the death, resurrection, and heavenly session of Christ, God has defeated their efforts to frustrate his purpose in creation.

The church plays a critical role, therefore, in God’s plan to bring the times to their fulfillment by summing up everything in Christ.   They are the new humanity that replaces the old, disintegrated humanity, and they are the evidence  that  God’s plan to sum up everything in Christ is rapidly coming to its end.   The church in Roman Asia should take heart that God, in his great love and rich mercy, has done so much for them.   They should pursue with renewed zeal their vocation to stand strong and united against the devil and his realm as God brings his cosmic purposes to their glorious end. (pg. 407)

“CrossTalk: Where Life and Scripture Meet” by Michael Emlet

~ Bob Hayton ~ 9 Comments


Author: Michael R. Emlet
Publisher: New Growth Press
Format: softcover
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 212
ISBN: 9781935273127
Stars: 5 of 5

In today’s world, Biblical illiteracy is becoming widespread. Even in America, one will find people without any knowledge of even the most basic Bible stories. The evangelical church doesn’t fare much better, unfortunately. While the average church-goer is familiar with Bible stories and even Bible trivia, they are often unable to connect the Bible’s message to the real, every-day problems life throws their way. As a result, the Bible stays tucked away on a dusty shelf, while the latest self-help book lies half-read on the nightstand.

Michael Emlet addresses this problem head on in his new book, CrossTalk: Where Life and Scripture Meet. The book explains how to understand and apply the Bible to the problems of life. Along the way it deals with questions of nature and interpretation: What is the Bible all about? How do we interpret the Bible? What are the real nature of life’s many problems? How should we understand these real life situations?

The book opens by explaining the concept of ditches and canyons in relation to the Bible. Some passages have a relatively simple connection to our modern day life. The separation from the original world and context of the Bible to today is comparable to a shallow ditch. Other passages seem, in contrast, like canyons. It is hard to visualize any kind of contemporary application from the endless genealogies of 1 Chronicles or the bloody conquest of Canaan. Functionally, this leaves many Christians with an abridged Bible. Ditch passages resonate with us and, “in practical terms, we end up ministering with an embarrassingly thinner but supposedly more relevant Bible” (pg. 16). Of course, the Bible wasn’t given to us in such an abridged manner. In fact, upon closer examination of several passages, Emlet shows how the ditches are actually wider than they seem, and canyons may not be quite so deep.

The next 2 chapters discuss what the Bible is and what it isn’t. For me, this was the best part of the book. Emlet confronts several popular misconceptions of Scripture. The Bible is not primarily a book of Do’s and Don’ts. It is not a book of timeless principles for the problems of life. The Bible is not primarily a casebook of characters to imitate or avoid. It is not primarily a system of doctrines. In all of this, Emlet emphasizes that for too many, the Bible has become Gospel-deficient! “You could talk about how to discipline your child…, draw encouragement from God’s presence as you start a demanding new job…, emulate David’s courage…, and discuss predestination…, without ever referring to the coming of the kingdom in Jesus Christ or encountering him yourself! Shouldn’t the life, death and resurrection of Christ have some practical connection to disciplining children, God’s presence, living with courage, and the doctrine of predestination?” (pg. 37-38). The Bible is a story — “The Story”. It’s chapters include creation, fall, and redemption. It’s main character is Jesus. It is all about Him!

Emlet draws important implications from this understanding of what the Bible is. We should read it back to front and front to back. Using a bigger Bible, results in a richer ministry. God’s mission is central. Our lives should be lived bidirectionally. Interpretation and application should be a community (church) affair.

The next few chapters address the story aspect of life. The bits and pieces of life, which are so easy to diagnose and correct, actually have a “narrative skeleton” on which they hang. These pieces “add up to a cohesive whole”. “Despite (their) diversity… certain patterns can be discerned. Life histories are going somewhere” (pg. 65-66). In light of the True Story, our lives are a combination of competing stories. Focusing too narrowly on individual aspects of one’s life may ignore the larger picture of what God is doing, and where the real battle is.

We are fallen people. But created in God’s image, and redeemed by Christ, we are simultaneously saints, sufferers and sinners. It is important to provide hope to those we minister to. “Ministry to others is much more than correction or reproof. It is also encouragement…, vision-casting, and hope-building” (pg. 95).

The final chapters of the book apply the approach to two case studies. “Tom” and “Natalie” present challenging life situations and varying degrees of understanding Scripture. Michael Emlet models how to apply Scripture carefully from a variety of texts (both ditches and canyons) to their life stories. This fleshes out the book’s message and offers a practical explanation for how this perspective to the Bible and people works out. Emlet takes pains to emphasize that this isn’t an exact science, nor is ministry only to be performed by people who have everything figured out. You will learn and grow, and the more you do, the better able you will be to connect the Bible to life, and the more impact you will have on people’s lives.

The book covers a lot of ground as it seeks to explain how to approach Scripture and how to approach people. Both skills are needed. “In ministry we are reading two ‘texts’ simultaneously, the story of Scripture and the story of the person we serve…. Reading the person without reading the Bible is a recipe for ministry lacking the life-changing power of the Spirit working through his Word.” (pg. 90)

I appreciated the immense practical value of this book. I can’t think of a more important topic for Christians to study. We need to minister to our own selves and speak the Word into the lives of those around us. Readers will find the book laid out in a helpful way, and very easy to read. Discussion questions after each chapter make the book ideal for group studies.

I can’t recommend this book more highly. The “whole Bible” , redemptive-historical approach to Scripture that is explained is life changing. The pattern for personal application of Scripture for use in ministry to others will multiply that change exponentially. You need to get this book!

Michael R. Emlet, practiced as a family physician for twelve years before becoming a counselor and faculty member at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation. His responsibilities for CCEF include counseling, teaching, directing the CCEF Counseling Internship program, writing, and speaking. He is the author of many counseling articles and the booklets, Asperger Syndrome, Angry Children: Understanding and Helping Your Child Regain Control, Help for the Caregiver: Facing the Challenges with Understanding and Strength, and OCD: Freedom for the Obsessive Compulsive. Dr. Emlet received a M.D. From the University of Pennsylvania and a M.Div. From Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA. He resides near Philadelphia with his wife and two children..

Disclaimer: this book was provided by the publisher for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Westminster Bookstore, Amazon.com, and direct from New Growth Press.

A.T. Robertson on Textual Variants

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

Today it is common to speak of four hundred thousand variants to the Greek New Testament. Agnostic scholars like Bart Ehrman, like to stoke the fires of public mistrust in the Bible by pointing out the “textual corruption” of the New Testament. Closer to home, “King James Version-Only” advocates like to emphasize the differences between the Greek text behind the King James and that behind modern versions.

What are we to say to this? How shall we respond to the valid claim that there are thousands of textual variants? Indeed there are hundreds of thousands!

A.T. Robertson, a Greek scholar extraordinaire and author of a classic 1450 page advanced Greek grammar, can help us in this regard. In the introduction to his book An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman, 1925), he clearly explains what textual criticism is and why it is needed. He then goes on to discuss the condition of the New Testament with regard to its textual purity. I offer an extended quote below, that I trust will prove useful. He is writing in 1925, so many more variants are known today, but the general principles he explains and the viability of all such variants hold true. You can read his entire book online at archive.org.

…the current New Testament text must be adjudged, in comparison with a well printed modern book, extremely corrupt.

On the other hand, if we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must render the opposite verdict, and declare it to be marvelously correct. Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied,–a care which has doubtless grown out of a true reverence for its holy words,– such has been the providence of God in preserving for His Church in each and every age a competently exact text of the Scriptures, that not only is the New Testament unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use, but also in the abundance of testimony which has come down to us for castigating its comparatively infrequent blemishes. The divergence of its current text from the autograph may shock a modern printer of modern books; its wonderful approximation to its autograph is the undisguised envy of every modern reader of ancient books.

When we attempt to state the amount of corruption which the New Testament has suffered in its transmission through two millenniums, absolutely instead of thus relatively, we reach scarcely more intelligible results. Roughly speaking, there have been counted in it some hundred and eighty or two hundred thousand “various readings”–that is, actual variations of reading in existing documents. These are, of course, the result of corruption, and hence the measure of corruption. But we must guard against being misled by this very misleading statement. It is not meant that there are nearly two hundred thousand places in the New Testament where various readings occur; but only that there are nearly two hundred thousand various readings all told; and in many cases the documents so differ among themselves that many are counted on a single word. For each document is compared in turn with the one standard, and the number of its divergences ascertained; then these sums are themselves added together, and the result given as the number of actually observed variations. It is obvious that each place where a variation occurs is counted as many times over, not only as distinct variations occur upon it, but also as the same variation occurs in different manuscripts. This sum includes, moreover, all variations of all kinds and in all sources, even those that are singular to a single document of infinitesimal weight as a witness, and even those that affect such very minor matters as the spelling of a word. Dr. Ezra Abbot was accustomed to say that about nineteen-twentieths of them have so little support that, although they are various readings, no one would think of them as rival readings; and nineteen-twentieths of the remainder are of so little importance that their adoption or rejection would cause no appreciable difference in the sense of the passages where they occur. Dr. Hort’s way of stating it is that upon about one word in every eight various readings exist supported by sufficient evidence to bid us pause and look at it; that about one word in sixty has various readings upon it supported by such evidence as to render our decision nice and difficult; but that so many of these variations are trivial that only about one word in every thousand has upon it substantial variation supported by such evidence as to call out the efforts of the critic in deciding between the readings.

The great mass of the New Testament, in other words, has been transmitted to us with no, or next to no, variation; and even in the most corrupt form in which it has ever appeared, to use the oft-quoted words of Richard Bentley, “the real text of the sacred writers is competently exact; … nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost… choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, cut of the whole lump of readings.” If, then, we undertake the textual criticism of the New Testament under a sense of duty, we may bring it to a conclusion under the inspiration of hope. The autographic text of the New Testament is distinctly within the reach of criticism in so immensely the greater part of the volume, that we cannot despair of restoring to ourselves and the Church of God, His Book, word for word, as He gave it by inspiration to men. [pg. 12-15, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament] (emphasis mine)

— cross posted from my team KJV Only blog

“Using Old Testament Hebrew in Preaching” by Paul Wegner

~ Bob Hayton

UsingOTHebrewAuthor: Paul D. Wegner
Publisher: Kregel
Format: softcover
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 166
ISBN: 9780825439360
Stars: 5 of 5

One of the most bewildering aspects of biblical studies is the study of ancient languages like biblical Hebrew and Greek. In some circles using Hebrew or Greek is frowned on. In many it is a necessary evil. The aspiring pastor must prove he can pass a few semesters of the languages. After this, he will likely use Greek sparingly and Hebrew not at all. In our day and age, however, there is a proliferation of bible study tools available to bring the wealth of language learning to the fingertips of even interested lay students. There is no excuse for a pastor to not grapple with the original text to some degree.

Paul Wegner has provided a tool to help out busy pastors and once-upon-a-time Hebrew students. His new book Using Old Testament Hebrew in Preaching: A Guide for Students and Pastors explains just how to put even a beginning level of Hebrew to use in preaching and studying the Bible.

The book is laid out very simply, and is designed to be a tool in itself. It starts with an explanation of why Hebrew study matters, and why pastors should take pains to try and use it. Wegner goes on to discuss the tools that are available to help use Hebrew. He compares software programs, Hebrew grammars and other study aids. The book proceeds to discuss how to study a passage using exegesis, literary analysis, theological analysis, and application. Wegner then goes on to explain how to put it all together and prepare an OT sermon. He illustrates just how to do this. The book closes with a discussion on various ways of keeping Hebrew language study fresh, and includes several appendices as aids in their own right.

The book is written in a simple and straightforward style, which makes it accessible to students of all levels of proficiency in Hebrew. Even those with no knowledge of Hebrew would benefit from this book as they plan on pursuing some kind of training in the language.

I learned several helpful things to benefit my own study of Hebrew. Structural analysis of Bible passages is apparently easier with Hebrew than Greek. (This gives some hope!) I also learned to be wary of older Hebrew study tools which prize etymology too much, specifically Brown, Driver and Brigg’s lexicon. Modern study has shown the history of words does not always impact their meaning at a given time. On that note, the study of Hebrew nouns is going to be most beneficial and rewarding. This is different than Greek, where verbs are key. The book also includes an excellent list of recommended scholarly and lay commentaries for each OT book.

I can’t recommend this little book enough. If you have studied Biblical Hebrew or if you think you will (or you should), you would be blessed in having this book.

Paul D. Wegner is professor of Old Testament at Phoenix Seminary and is the author of three books, Bible Introduction: The Journey from Texts to Translations; A Student’s Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible; and An Examination of Kingship and Messianic Expectation in Isaiah 1-35. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, Institute for Biblical Research, Society of Biblical Literature, and Tyndale Fellowship.

Disclaimer: this book was provided by the publisher for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Amazon.com or direct from Kregel.