Musings of a Former Fundamentalist (IFB) Renewed by Reformed Theology
I thought I’d start out my blogging this year with something fun. I’ve been shown this video clip a few times now, and I thought it would be great to share it with you all.
Shai Linne is a Christ-centered, reformed rapper. The lyrics to this song will challenge and encourage you. I encourage you to give it a try, you’ll find that holy hip hop isn’t so scary. Especially the variety that Shai Linne and Timothy Brindle and company dish out. Check out their label: Lampmode Records.
When I came across Alex Chediak’s post on Michael Horton’s new book: Christless Christianity, I had to wonder if this is not primarily to blame for Ray Boltz’s fall. In so many ways, American Christianity has become a man-centered mess. I started (not sure if I totally finished it) a series on this issue in the past, you can find my last post here (which links to all the posts in the series).
Look to my Vodpod widget on my sidebar and watch the 5 minute video clip of Horton explaining why he thinks American Christianity has become Christless. This is a book that’s now at the top of my wish list!
Dr. Vern Poythress of Westminster Seminary is an ardent advocate of Redemptive Historical interpretation. He recently contributed History of Salvation notes for the forthcoming ESV Study Bible. Crossway just released his article, Overview of the Bible: Survey of the History of Salvation, included at the front of the ESV Study Bible. I’d encourage everyone to read that brief article (3 1/2 pdf pages). Succinctly yet powerfully, Poythress covers the whole gamut of how the Bible works together as a whole in recording the History of Salvation, and highlighting the glory of Jesus Christ, our Savior.
The ESV Study Bible blog, points out a recent interview of Vern Poythress at the Beginning with Moses blog. I’ve read the first two parts, but the third is due on Monday. The questions and answers there are also worth your time. I especially like how Poythress concludes the second interview post:
It is not fashionable nowadays, but I confess that I do believe that every passage, and even every word, of the OT reflects Christ.
I’d encourage you to check out what Poythress says in connection with this claim. The whole of Scripture really is Christo-centric. Poythress’ notes are one of the main reasons I’m so excited about the new ESV Study Bible, by the way. In treating the Bible academically, we run the risk of forgetting that it is a living Book. We need to think when we read it, yes. But we also need to listen to the Holy Spirit. We can easily miss the forest for the trees, and Vern’s Salvation History notes will remind us of the major themes of Scripture as we battle over the meaning of each individual passage therein.
One last note: Poythress has many articles and even book available online for free at the website he jointly shares with his friend John Frame. Check out www.frame-poythress.org for some great, freely available, Christ-centered resources.
Not long ago, I passed along a recommendation for a new Bible Storybook called, The Jesus Storybook Bible. I called it a “storybook for preachers“, and explained why a Christ-centered Biblestory book could help many a preacher.
Well, I came across an excellent and informative interview of the author, Sally Lloyd-Jones about this book over at Eucatastrophe. I’m going to post a few excerpts here, and encourage you all to go read the interview. And more than that, you’ve got to get the book. I did, and I’m loving it. You can expect a review of it before too long.
I found it so moving when I started to discover how the Old Testament is basically one long record of failure””the failure of God’s people time and time again to live rightly, to rescue themselves””and that the stories in the Old Testament are all getting us ready for the One who is coming. They are all signposts to the True Hero, the True King, the True Prince, the True Servant, the greater David, the greater Daniel. The Rescuer.
As a child, I thought the Bible was packed with rules you had to keep (or God wouldn’t love you) and heroes setting examples you had to follow (or God wouldn’t love you). I thought, in short, that the Bible was all about me and what I should (or shouldn’t) be doing. Until I read a Story.
It’s the Story running like a golden stream underneath all the other stories in the Bible: the story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. Suddenly, I realized the Bible wasn’t about me and what I should be doing at all. It was about God and what he had done. And it changed everything…
It sounds strange, but the consistent reaction from many adults is that it makes them weep. (I think that’s good? Hope so!) Parents are reading it to one another as their devotional before bed. Pastors are using it to help them with their preaching. I heard someone call it, “the storybook for preachers” [she might be referring to my blogpost here!!].
And of course families are reading it together. Teenagers and college students have told me they are enjoying it. I heard from one dad that his young boys listen to each of the stories and as they near the end of each story, they whisper just one word: “Jesus.” I couldn’t ask for a better response. May all of us to be whispering his name in all the stories of our lives!
Be sure to read the entire interview!! (The comments discuss the Christ-centered treatment of the Old Testament in more depth.)
My friend Nathan Pitchford was recently made a contributor to Monergism.Com‘s Reformation Theology Blog! In his first post, he dealt with an issue concerning which he has written a book (he is currently seeking to get it published). It is an issue which is very important to our understanding of Scripture–the topic of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation. Everyone has a hermeneutic, whether or not they can spell the word, or know what it means.
Evangelicalism today largely favors the use of a literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutic. This approach takes each word in its normal sense unless the context or grammar demands otherwise. It also takes into account the historical setting of the author, book, and audience, in making interpretative decisions.
Nathan argues that this was the approach of the Reformer’s, yet with one important extra feature. The Reformer’s interpretive approach focused on finding how every passage of Scripture centered on Jesus Christ. They viewed the Bible as a unified whole, presenting one story–God’s redemption of fallen man.
Nathan points out that the literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutic has been used due to the influence of the Enlightenment and subsequent liberal theology, to stress a naturalistic approach to the text. Nathan contrasts the two approaches to Scripture prominent today as follows:
“What exactly do I mean when I say that many evangelicals demonstrate ‘a basically un-Christian reading of much of the Old Testament’? Simply put, I mean they employ a hermeneutic that does not have as its goal to trace every verse to its ultimate reference point: the cross of Christ. All of creation, history, and reality was designed for the purpose of the unveiling and glorification of the triune God, by means of the work of redemption accomplished by the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The bible is simply the book that tells us how to see Christ and his cross at the center of everything. It tells us who God is by showing us the person and work of Christ, who alone reveals the invisible God. If we do not intentionally ask ourselves, ‘How may I see Christ more clearly by this passage,’ in our reading of every verse of scripture, then we are not operating under the guidance of Luther’s grammatical-historical hermeneutic. If we would follow in the steps of the reformers, we must realize that a literal reading of scriptures does not mean a naturalistic reading. A naturalistic reading says that the full extent of meaning in the account of Moses’ striking the rock is apprehended in understanding the historical event. The literal reading, in the Christ-centered sense of the Reformation, recognizes that this historical account is meaningless to us until we understand how the God of history was using it to reveal Christ to his people. The naturalistic reading of the Song of Solomon is content with the observation that it speaks of the marital-bliss of Solomon and his wife; the literal reading of the reformers recognizes that it has ultimately to do with the marital bliss between Christ and his bride, the Church. And so we could continue, citing example after example from the Old Testament.”
The approach Nathan advocates, is called a “redemptive historical approach” by Reformation Theology Blog, and others. Nathan gives six reasons why an approach which “does not see Christ at the center of every verse of scripture does not do justice to the Reformed worldview.” They are:
1. A naturalistic hermeneutic effectively denies God’s ultimate authorship of the bible, by giving practical precedence to human authorial intent.
2. A naturalistic hermeneutic undercuts the typological significance which often inheres in the one story that God is telling in the bible (see Galatians 4:21-31, for example).
3. A naturalistic hermeneutic does not allow for Paul’s assertion that a natural man cannot know the spiritual things which the Holy Spirit teaches in the bible — that is, the things about Jesus Christ and him crucified (I Corinthians 2).
4. A naturalistic hermeneutic is at odds with the clear example of the New Testament authors and apostles as they interpret the Old Testament (cf. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, Paul’s interpretations in Romans 4 and Galatians 4, James’ citing of Amos 9 during the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, the various Old Testament usages in Hebrews, etc.).
5. A naturalistic hermeneutic disallows a full-orbed operation of the analogy of faith principle of the Reformation, by its insistence that every text demands a reading “on its own terms” .
6. A naturalistic hermeneutic does not allow for everything to have its ultimate reference point in Christ, and is in direct opposition to Ephesians 1:10, Colossians 1:16-18, and Christ’s own teachings in John 5:39, Luke 24:25-27.
Be sure to read his entire article!