Hey all, I’m going silent for a few days while I hammer out the final touches on a totally revamped design for the blog. I’m moving it to my new url, and I’m taking the time to do some cleanup. Expect to see a post here announcing the launch of my new blog, with the new website, by the end of this week, hopefully.
Tag: blog
4000, 560, and 3
Warning, this is a self-serving, post. Read at your own risk…
I just realized I recently went over the 4,000 comments mark. My review of O. Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God, created a pingback on one of my older posts back on 11/10 and that was #4,000. Then, on 11/13, David Kjos, the Thirsty Theologian, started the fifth milleniad of comments around here. I hit the 2,000 comment mark back in August of 2007, so the second 2,000 comments came in much quicker than the first.
This is also my 560th post, and this last month marked the completion of three full years of blogging. My actual blogiversary is 10/9; but I only added one more post that month, and two in November 2005. I really didn’t start blogging until December 2005, and today is the anniversary of the posting of “My Story”. That post now has 105 comments.
I’d been meaning to blog about my 3rd blogiversary, so today’s a good day to do that, especially since Jamsco mentioned today was his 501st post. (He’s gonna catch me for sure).
All of this just to say “I’m three!” No, the blog’s three, me, well…..
Beginning with Moses
I just added a new blog to my blogroll. Beginning with Moses is an excellent resource for all things Biblical Theology, with an emphasis on redemptive historical hermeneutics. The beginningwithmoses.org website houses lots of articles on various topics, majoring on Biblical Theology, primarily. And the blog provides updates re: new articles on the site, and etc.
One of their recent posts was on Song of Solomon. I haven’t taken the time to read the whole 70 page paper, but the conclusion resonates with me. In a previous post, The Gospel According to Solomon, I argued that the Song should be interpreted in light of Christ and the Church. The post at BeginningwithMoses, agrees.
This may not be currently popular in academia (see Vern Poythress’ comments to the same in this post), but I believe it is the correct emphasis for our interpretation.
Go check out Beginning with Moses, the blog and the site, and it will be worth your time.
Bob's Blog Finds: The Apostolic Hermeneutic
In my blog finds I highlight some of the best articles I’ve found online recently. You can see all my blog finds (courtesy of Google Reader) in the sidebar.
It’s been a long while since I posted a Bobspotted Blogroll post. With Google Reader, it’s easier to share my posts one by one. Rather then abandon the blogspot idea altogether, I plan on posting Blog Finds posts where I share articles or links one at a time. This will allow more interaction from you, my readers, and I hope it will serve my blog readers well.
Proponents of Biblical Theology, particularly those who hold to redemptive historical hermeneutics, often speak of the apostolic hermeneutic. We see how the Apostle’s interpreted the OT Bible and draw lessons for how we should interpret it as well.
Now this approach is often misunderstood or even maligned by other Bible scholars, particularly dispensationalists. R. Scott Clark addresses this issue in an excellent post (actually a re-post) at his Heidelblog. I’ll provide some excerpts and encourage you to read the excellent post for yourself. He provides book recommendations for where to pursue this hermeneutical approach further, too.
It’s isn’t that complicated. Pay close attention here: The Apostolic hermeneutic is to see Christ at the center of all of Scripture. We’re not reading him into Scripture. We’re refusing to read him out of it. There, I said it. That’s what it is. Perhaps the reason our dispensational friends cannot see it is because they are blinded by their rationalism. They know a priori what the organizing principle of Scripture must be and it isn’t God the Son, it’s national Israel….
Yes, Reformed folk (and others) have been reading the bible like this for a very long time. The earliest post-apostolic Christians, in contrast to the Jewish critics of the Christian faith, read the Bible to teach a unity of salvation organized around Jesus Christ. The entire medieval church read the Bible this way as did the Reformation and post-Reformation churches….
What method do we use? It’s grammatical and historical! It reads the Old in the light of the new. It doesn’t set up arbitrary a priori‘s about what can and can’t be. We don’t begin with an unstated premise, “All reasonable people know p.” We don’t think that any uninspired hermeneutic (system of interpretation) is superior to Paul’s or James’ or Peter’s.
One need not be inspired to read the Bible the way the apostles did. I’m not even sure it’s proper to say that their hermeneutic was inspired. We confess that Scripture is inspired, but was their way of reading Scripture inspired? I doubt it. As John Frame used to ask in class, were the apostolic grocery lists inspired? No. Can we observe how they read Scripture and imitate it? Yes….
Read the rest of the post for yourself. And let me know what you think of it.
Free from the Box
For a while now I’ve been meaning to highlight a new blog. Free from the Box is a great blog offering help to those in extreme fundamentalism. The authors seek to create a place for those still on the inside to explore issues and find help. They take pains to make sure we know they are not against independent Fundamental Baptists by any stretch. They stand against some extremist errors which characterize some but not all IFB churches.
Besides their blog, which is one of the best such blogs I know of, they also have an online forum. They will not tolerate unChristian and rude behavior as one often finds in other fundamentalist forums (I’m thinking FFF). So their forums offer hope for a civil and friendly environment where we can duke it out in a good fundamentalist way 😉
I’d encourage you to read some of what they have to say, especially if reforming fundamentalism is one of your goals or interests. This link won’t mean much to many of my readers, but for some of you, it will be a blessing. And you can be a blessing by leaving a friendly note at their site, or by joining the forums.