Theology Blogs

by Phil Johnson

(click image for more info)



This Is Where I Was Yesterday



hour 1 | hour 2

. . . and I'll see you at Grace Church Sunday morning.

Here is my handout for my paper at this year's SBL Annual Meeting:

Dating the crucial sources in early Christianity (Handout)

Recently the USCCB published the results of a Zogby Poll regarding Catholic attitudes toward illegal immigration (http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2008/08-181.shtml). While I do, indeed, agree with some of the issues that the Bishops take up (path to citizenship, humane treatment of illegal immigrants, allowing them to see their families as a matter of prudence and common decency/good manners), I take issue with the Bishops on the matter of securing our southern border. To me, as a man who has actively defended our country, it is nothing less than a matter of good security to raise a fence or wall. The purpose in doing so isn’t to keep Pedro the migrant worker out, but rather to keep foreign fighters (Al-Qaeda, etc) out. As it stands now, our southern border is extremely easy to breach, thus allowing jihadists the opportunity to bypass all our ICE screening measures and illegally enter the US through the deserts of the American SW. This will one day present a problem in the form of a terrorist attack, and only then will Americans ask why we didn’t secure the border.

I also take issue with the methodology of the poll. The Bishops put forth this poll as under the label Catholic, when we can’t be sure that those polled are truly Catholic. As GW Rutler once said, “Merely declaring oneself Catholic doesn’t make it so.” Do these self-professed Catholics know what the Church teaches? Do they believe and follow the Church’s dogmatic teachings? Or are they like I was a few short years ago (literally), not knowing the difference between mortal and venial sin? My point isn’t to attack those who participated in the poll. It is to say that the group polled needs to be further broken down for the purpose of analysis.

Nicholas

How are we doing in fulfilling and living our primary purpose? The chief end to which God has called us?

Q: What is the chief end of man (i.e., man's primary purpose)?
A: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
(I Cor. 10:31; Rom. 11:36; Ps. 73:24-26; Jn. 17:22, 24)

A great treatment on this is Thomas Watson's Man's Chief End, in his work A Body of Divinity (Banner Of Truth, 1984).

See also Thomas Boston's Of Man's Chief End and Happiness.

From the Valley of Vision (Banner of Truth, 1988)

Here is the second half of my interview with Don & Ryan Clark from the band Demon Hunter.

Don and Ryan will be premiering their new, feature length documentary about Demon Hunter called "45 Days" at Mars Hill Church Ballard Campus this Friday, November 21st at 7pm. The evening will include an acoustic performance of some of their songs and is free.

For more information go to the Mars Hill Ballard site.
<!--break-->

by Dan Phillips

Offensive title, eh? What do you figure this post will be about? About racism? About how we shouldn't still see ourselves as slaves of sin, but as free men? About how slaves get into a slave-mindset that's hard to break, like men who've been in prison for decades?

Actually, it's about going to church — and many other things.

In Why you need to be in a church this Sunday, I laid out an inductive, cumulative case for why anyone and everyone who names Jesus as his Lord must involve himself, in person, in a "local assembly of believers where pastors lead, the Word is preached, the ordinances are observed, and discipline is carried out."

Much of the response was positive, personal, heartfelt. Then there were scattered demurrals. Two had in common that they refused to interact with the Biblical content of the post — which is to say, with just about all of the post. Both hate Biblical teaching about authority and submission. As I showed, that means they hate the institution of God, and reject Him (Romans 13:1-7). Thus there really isn't much to discuss, beyond pleading with them either to repent or toss off the false name of "Christian."

I might summarize the other "But's" and critiques in that meta and elsewhere — many of which were doubtless well-meant — thus:

• But I've had bad church-experiences (accompanied by many and varied details and stories)!
• But it's hard to find a good church!
• But it's hard for me to be with people!
• But churches sometimes aren't friendly and welcoming!
• But I've had really, really bad church-experiences (accompanied by many and varied details and stories)!
• But I've known bad and abusive and lame and inept and unfit pastors!
  
• But that's just barking out commands and duty, not explaining how it's really good for me!
• But God just hasn't led me to a church; just to the internet!
  
• But the churches around here aren't all that good!
  

Now, I'll be candid with you, shall I? At first scan, that looks like a fairly diverse list of eight or nine different reasons, doesn't it? And you're thinking, "Yikes, if he responds to every one, this is going to be a long, long post."

But no. I can roll them all together, and deal with them all in one. Every one of these excuses, though presented in great deal and with great conviction, shares the very same fatal flaw.

Every one of them views
the Christian life
as a process of
negotiation.

That is, among the demurrals, there wasn't one serious and honest attempt to counter the Biblical case. It was tacitly accepted by most that the Bible indeed does paint us into that corner: God says that He expects us to be involved, in-person, in a local assembly. God said it, yes... but!

Now this sort of thinking is perfectly appropriate, if God and we are peers.

But it is wholly inappropriate if God is our Lord, and we are His slaves.

What is the tenor of our relationship, as depicted in Scripture?

"If you love Me" — what? "If you love Me, you will give Me a shot at convincing you that My way is in your best interests?" Is that how you read? Or is it not, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15)?

"This is love for God that we" — what? Is it "that we wait until we feel led, and find it easy and stress-free and effortless, to give the nod to His suggestions"? Or is it not "that we keep His commandments" (1 John 5:3)?

Is the person called to Christ as a freeman Christ's peer, His debating opponent? Or is he not Christ's slave (1 Corinthians 7:22).

Are we to keep the parts of our body as our own, to use at our convenience and according to our preferences? Or are not rather we to present them all as "slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification" (Romans 6:19) — which would include getting them to church, whether it was convenient and easy or not?

And if it be countered that we are not merely slaves, but also sons, I'd have more questions. Is a son his father's peer? Or does a son not owe his father honor and obedience (Deuteronomy 21:18; Malachi 1:6; Colossians 3:20)? If so with our earthly fathers, is it not much more the case with our heavenly Father (Hebrews 12:9)?

Look, this is a crucial point, whether we're talking about church attendance, or doctrine, or marriage, or any other area of Christian living. When we respond to Divine commandments with a "But" or a series of excuses, we echo the Serpent, and treat God as our peer — or our inferior.

This is not thinking like a slave. And make no mistake: if we are not slaves of God, then we are slaves of sin (Romans 6:15-23). But we are slaves!

So here's where the rubber meets the road: what do you do when faced with a clear commandment, with clear teaching of Scripture, that crosses your will? Today, it just happens to be the fact that you need to be involved in church, learning and growing, serving and submitting and accountable.

Tomorrow it will be how you treat your spouse, or whether you keep your pants/dress on, or whether you keep your hand out of that guy's pocket, or whether you keep your fingers from around his throat, or whether you deny or fudge that unfashionable doctrine.

You see? It's all one. Jesus is Lord, or we are. If we are, He isn't; if He is, we aren't.

You and I need to think like a slave; and not only a slave, but a crucified slave, who has died to his old master, and come to life for another.

Then you and I take our truckload of excuses and rationales and dodges and rationalizations, we say "Yep, I'm going to need help," we take them and ourselves to the Cross, we count ourselves dead to them, we plead for the enabling grace of God...

...and we obey.

Here's the practical key, then: move the "but."

Until now, it has been: "God says to obey, but I have these excuses/challenges/difficulties." And so you don't start. The issue is still whether to obey. This thinking ill-befits a slave, much less a son.

From now on, it must be "I have these excuses/challenges/difficulties, but God says to obey." And then you start. Now, the issue is not whether, but how. This is thinking like a slave, and thinking like a son.

Move that "but."

Then move yours.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post on Surviving SBL. It was in response to a request from Sean Winter who was, at that time, a newcomer to the meeting. This year I have had a couple more requests for my own tips about surviving the meeting, so I thought I would revisit and revise the original post, but now under the heading "enjoying" rather than "surviving" SBL. I am one of those for whom SBL is both duty and joy.

(1) Beer and Good Company: Find people you like spending time with (and who like spending time with you, I suppose!) and your experience will be ten times more enjoyable than otherwise. I have heard some people say that they find the SBL a bit of a maze and rather overwhelming. I have never found that, and perhaps because I have been lucky enough to spend time with people whose company I greatly enjoy. The intellectual stimulation will often come more from those small gatherings with friends over a beer than it will at the sessions.

(2) Choose Sessions Carefully: Don't be over ambitious about how many sessions you can get to. I used to treat the SBL a bit like the way I used to treat the Christmas Radio Times and TV Times when I was a child. I used to fill every moment in the day with telly, allowing just little slots for five or ten minute "breaks" in viewing. SBL sessions, though sometimes enjoyable, are no Christmas TV, and you can get conferenced out.

(3) Be a Tart: Don't feel obliged to stay for the whole of each two-and-a-half hour session that you go to. Several times I've got stuck in the world's most boring papers by accident because I was interested in the paper just before it or just after it. Once, I attended a paper in a packed room, over 100 or so in the audience, but I did not make a sharp enough exit when it had finished. I got stuck listening to the next paper with four other people and felt so sorry for the guy presenting that I felt obliged to stay and feign interest. Unlike the British New Testament Conference, where one is encouraged to be loyal to one seminar throughout the conference, you are allowed to be a complete tart at the SBL.

(4) Burning the Candle at Both Ends: Try not to burn the candle at both ends, socializing until late and then getting up before the crack of dawn for a breakfast meeting. I am talking to myself here. I walk round the SBL perpetually exhausted because I don't have the discipline to go to bed early when I have to be up early. Every year I tell myself not to arrange breakfast meetings, or get invited to them; every year I end up with breakfast meetings each day. I've done it again. Bummer.

(5) Budget beating breakfast buffets: To develop some advice from an older blog post, here's a tip for those at SBL on a budget: get to one of those great American breakfast buffets and eat to your heart's content. Don't be put off by earnest looking professor types who only visit the buffet once. Keep going for as long as you can. Eat so much that you won't want lunch. You can then make it through to the evening when you'll be just peckish enough to enjoy something else. In fact you might even be invited to one of those evening receptions where there is a lot of food. On days like that, you have only had to buy breakfast and the budget is looking healthier than it might have been.

Birmingham never gave me enough to travel, and so troughing my face at breakfast was my standard survival strategy. And the American breakfast buffets are great, though for Brits it can be a little off-putting to see Americans putting their fruit on the same plate as their sausage and bacon, or worse, putting corn syrup on their scrambled egg. So Brits abroad may need to avert their eyes. There is also an unappetizing pastey coloured concoction called "grits", which is to be avoided.

(6) Getting to Receptions: Receptions are a great way of meeting people, and can be fun. They are held by publishers, universities and others and are often generous in their invitations, and it is good, once again, to be a tart. There are signs, though, that the seven years of plenty may be coming to an end. This is the first SBL meeting since the split with AAR, the credit crunch is biting and universities and publishers are all feeling the squeeze. Several publishers no longer hold receptions and several universities have pulled the plug too. My guess is that there we will some cash bars instead of free bars, and less food at the receptions that remain.

(7) Presenting Papers: Regular readers will know that I have outspoken views on this topic, but I continue to be amazed by the lack of investment that many make in presenting their papers. The gist of my concern is this: far too many people simply read their paper out verbatim at SBL sessions in the most inarticulate way imaginable, often with no attempt to communicating with the audience. A particular problem is speed-reading. People write their fifteen page screed and have a bloody-minded determination to read through the whole lot if it kills them, whether or not it fits into the time. This is a particular problem with graduate student papers, and it is related to nerves. My advice: practise your paper beforehand and think about issues like pausing, breathing, adding light and shade and varying your intonation. I never cease to be amazed, though, to see seasoned scholars completely unable to time a paper, selfishly praying on the good will of the chair and the other presenters. This is really elementary stuff -- overrunning on a paper is egotistical and unprofessional. If you are chairing a session, be ruthless -- the presenter who is unable to time their own paper does not deserve your compassion. I feel like having a longer rant on this, but perhaps I'll save it for my conference thoughts.

(8) Seeing the city: It is very easy to spend several days in a city and not see the city. It's really worth taking some time out to see the city, especially a city as fine as Boston. Too many of my SBL memories merge into one because I spent 95% of my time on the inside of hotels and convention centres. Actually, my hope this year is that I might bump into Doctor Who. Meeting in the same city and at the same time this year is the New England Fan Experience, at which Peter Davison (the fifth doctor) is a special guest. It would make my day to meet him.

Tuesday afternoon C.J. recorded an interview with Dr. Jerry Bridges, author of so many excellent cross-centered books like The Discipline of Grace and The Gospel for Real Life. I’ll let you know when the audio is posted online.

It was humbling to sit in the studio and listen to them talk about the importance of the cross. When it comes to learning what it means to live a cross-centered life, God has more effectively used no two living authors in my life than C.J. Mahaney (on the left) and Jerry Bridges (on the right). Sitting in the studio and listening to these men talk about the cross ranks as one of my life’s highlights.

A friend snapped this photo during the recording.

      

Contextualization and church planting aren't anything new. These have been practices of the missional church for centuries, and in comparison to what is passed off as contextualization today, our early planting fathers put us to shame. Consider Gregory the Great and his partner Augustine of Canterbury (not St. Augustine of Hippo).

Gregory & Augustine

Gregory the Great (540-604) was the perhaps the most influential bishop of the 6th century. Some have argued he was the first pope, in which case he would not have been the best bishop. All this is debated. Nevertheless, Gregory would have made a great church planter, but instead, he was a kind of church planting coach. Gregory sent missionaries to Britain to “make the Angles into Angels". His choice emissary was Augustine of Canterbury, who, with 40 monks, set up mission base at in England. Like many of his Celtic predecessors, Augustine realized the strategic value of having a mission training and sending center among his target people. I'm willing to bet it was much better than most "church planting residencies" we have today. Why? He had better missiology, better contextualization.

Principles for Better Contextualization

Augustine implemented the great missiology he received from Gregory. That missiology, as Tim Tennent has pointed out, can be summarized with three words: Adaptation, Gradualism, and Exchange.

• Adaptation - Adopting a cultural form for Christian purposes. In Augustine's case, he adopted heathen temples and turned them into church buildings. Gregory wrote to him: "Detach them from the service of the devil and adapt them for the worship of the true God." Many Christian leaders and Christians would frown on using a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall for a church building because their conception of church is so narrowly conceived. Since my first day in Austin, I began praying that God would give us the abandoned male strip joint called La Bare for our church. We are currently meeting in a downtown theatre where we frequently pick up beer bottles off the floor before people arrive. The bathrooms are covered in graffiti and smell terrible, but the aroma of Christ fills the Hideout Theatre every week and is slowly changing that part of the city. Not only have we detached the theatre from less than admirable ends, we have also boosted sales in the adjoining coffee shop, ministered to the homeless outside, and adapted the space for the worship of the true God. Adaptation isn’t about being cool; it’s about adopting cultural forms, creating common cultural space for mission, and using these forms for Christ-honoring purposes.




• Gradualism - Implementing Christian ideals slowly, recognizing that individuals are undergoing an entire worldview shift. Don't expect radical holiness from your new converts. If they have embraced Christ but still smoke pot or occasionally drink too much, don't beat them up for their behaviors. Instead, shepherd their hearts, lead them into the gospel, and allow their inner joy to transform their outer joys. Gregory wrote: "If we allow them these outward joys, then we are more likely to find their way to the true inner joy... It is doubtless impossible to cut off all abuses at once from rough hearts, just as a man who sets out to climb a high mountain does not advance by leaps and bounds, but goes upward step by step and pace by pace." Allow for the gradual transformation of the gospel, especially in post-Christian contexts. What you think is normative holiness, probably isn’t the norm. It’s not about leaps and bounds, but steady advance in grace.




• Exchange - Creating an entirely new cultural form in exchange for an existing idolatrous one. It is one thing to use pagan temples for church buildings, it is quite another to participate in pagan sacrifices. For example, if your people consistently go to happy hours to get wasted and have a social life, create a more God-honoring context for socializing. Gregory wrote: "People must learn to slay their cattle not in honour of the devil, but in honour of God and for their own food..." Acts 29 and The Resurgence have done a really good job of stimulating community through media. Just consider The City, Mars Hill Church's networking site, and The Resurgence’s videos and blogs. Create new cultural forms and exchange them for sinful ones for the sake of the gospel.

<!--break-->

by Frank Turk

Briefly today as I am travelling for work and am frankly worn out:

So God loves the church, and He's coming with the fuller's soap to make sure she's clean and pure. Now, how does that line up with my classic rephrase, "Be in the Lord's house on the Lord's day with the Lord's people," replete with some pointed barb about your personal foibles intended for your own good?

Isn't the sort-of logical conclusion of my points here that church on Sunday is the end unto itself, and good for you for being there and doing that? You know: if you listen to Michael Horton talk about it, you might think that Sunday is the end-all of the Christian life.

Fortunately for me, I'm not saying that or implying that at all. In fact, I'd say this: the assembly on Sunday is not the end of Christian life but in fact the beginning of Christian life.

Listen: I "get it" that not every pastor is a Tad Thompson, a Lance Quinn, or even a Timmy Brister -- let alone a MacArthur, Piper, Dever, or what-have-you. But let me say this plainly: you're no Golden Apple yourself. I'm no bronze ikon of the Christian faith. But that's actually the problem, and the solution is not hiding in your personal fortress of solitude hoping that the golden age of the church will somehow "return".

The only "return" we are looking forward to is the return of Christ -- and we are actually looking for it: we want it, we believe it will be universe-changing. But until then, we are gifted with a Gospel which is good news, a savior who is like us in every way and who knows what we need, and He has given us the church. I'm tempted to say "such as it is", but the fact is that it is the same as it ever was, just like Corinth, just like Anitoch, just like Thessalonica (that's the city which rejected Paul, unlike the Bereans), just like Ephesus. So "such as it is" is actually "such as God has given it to us".

And if you think of the church as "they", let me say plainly that this doesn't bode well for you. The church ought to be a "we" if you are a believer.

And they can't possibly be worse if you joined with them. In fact, it might improve both of you -- especially if you personally keep the Gospel in mind.

Prolly won't get back to the comments until after dinner tonight. Carry on.

I leave tomorrow for the east coast - specifically, Providence, RI, for the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and the Near East Archaeological Society (NEAS). Those conferences are followed by that of IBR (Institute for Biblical Research), ASOR (American Schools of Oriental Research), and the big one, the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). If you want an idea of what goes on at these sorts of meetings, you can check out the ETS program and search the SBL online program.

I hope to get some pictures for the blog and to blog about some of the sessions (including my own).

Technorati Tags: ASOR, conferences, ETS, IBR, NEAS, SBL

I leave tomorrow for the east coast - specifically, Providence, RI, for the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and the Near East Archaeological Society (NEAS). Those conferences are followed by that of IBR (Institute for Biblical Research), ASOR (American Schools of Oriental Research), and the big one, the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). If you want an idea of what goes on at these sorts of meetings, you can check out the ETS program and search the SBL online program.

I hope to get some pics for the blog, and to blog about some of the papers I hear (and the one I read).

Technorati Tags: ASOR, Conferences, ETS, IBR, NEAS, SBL

I think the highlights of the last few articles are page 134 (3rd page of the PDF) from “The Ordinary Nature of Alien Abduction Memories” and pages 140-141 (pp. 2-3 of the PDF) from “The Construction of Space Alien Abduction Memories.”

The former details the very small percentages of those who experience at least four of Jacobs’ five “abduction events” and how the small percentage (2%) can be accounted for by equally rare but less spectacular explanations. This points to the need among abduction researchers to provide some form of corroborative evidence that rules out the alternative explanations. Only then can ANYTHING out of the “terrestrial” range of possibilities be entertained with coherence.

The latter deals with how humans can indeed construct false memories. Especially interesting is the role of hypnosis in the formulation of those false memories, since abductions are overwhelmingly “remembered” under hypnosis.

On the other hand, I haven’t seen any of these researchers deal with physical evidence of some physical event (e.g., marks on the body). The phenomenon of luminescence on the body discovered by Derrel Sims of course came along much later than these articles.

Here are the next two articles:

6. Escaping the Self or Escaping the Anomaly? By: Hall, Robert L.. Psychological Inquiry, 1996, Vol. 7 Issue 2, p143, 6p; Abstract Focuses on the article ‘Toward an Explanation of the UFO Abduction Phenomenon: Hypnotic Elaboration, Extraterrestrial Sadomasochism, and Spurious Memories,’ by Leonard S. Newman and Roy F. Baumeister, which appeared in the April 1996 issue of the journal ‘Psychological Inquiry.’ Newman and Baumeister’s explanation for claims of UFO abductions; Factors that lead to the development of false memories.

7. When Explanations Fail: Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology. By: Hull, Jay G.. Psychological Inquiry, 1996, Vol. 7 Issue 2, p149, 3p; Abstract Presents comments on the article ‘Toward an Explanation of the UFO Abduction Phenomenon: Hypnotic Elaboration, Extraterrestrial Sadomasochism, and Spurious Memories,’ by Leonard S. Newman and Roy F. Baumeister, which appeared in the April 1996 issue of the journal ‘Psychological Inquiry.’ Lack of internal coherence in Newman and Baumeister’s explanation for claims of UFO abductions.

Technorati Tags: abductions, alien abductions, psychiatry, psychology

I’ve noted on Coast to Coast AM and other shows that there are scientists out there that do NOT think the bigness of the universe improves the odds of there being intelligent ET life. One book that makes that point is Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe.  Now astronomer Hugh Ross addresses the same question in a new book profiled on the Colliding Universes blog.

Technorati Tags: ET Life, extraterrestrials, Hugh Ross, Rare Earth