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Urban Puritano • Jul 29, 2022

A Confessional Calvinist Approach to Biblical Interpretation: Butchers, Biblicists, or Bereans? Part 4

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The Unity and Diversity of Scripture


      The fourth and final interlocking link in the chain of foundational hermeneutical assumptions is the
Unity and Diversity of Holy Writ. The Bible is not, despite what unbelievers say, a mishmash of contradictory fables. Definite unity is rightly perceptible throughout its diverse pages. 


      There is a discernible cohesion in the midst of the diverse texts within Scripture. In fact, what emerges for the responsible interpreter as he applies “a due use of the ordinary means” to the Bible is what the Westminster Confession says is “ the consent of all the parts” (WCF, Chap. 1, sec. 5).


Chronological Analysis and Logical Synthesis


 
    There are two ways we can apprehend the unity and diversity of Scripture. One way is through the history of redemption. The other way is through systematic theology. The former, also known as Biblical Theology, focuses on the chronological unfolding of God’s revelation to His people in history. The latter, Systematic Theology, focuses on the logical ordering of revelation into a system of doctrines. 


 
    These work together as bifocal lenses allowing the interpreter to appreciate both the redemptive historical forest and the systematic theological trees. Neither at the expense of the other. In fact, roughly speaking, Biblical Theology traverses the History of Redemption via the Analogy of Scripture while Systematic Theology views each of the parts of Scripture via “the general tenor of God’s Word” according to the “Analogy of [the orthodox] Faith (as Benjamin Keach stated in in his helpful work called Tropologia).


    The present series of blog posts can only scratch the surface concerning the organic unity found within the diversity of God’s Word. Consider the history of redemption. Scripture wonderfully and dramatically displays its organic and progressive unfolding, much like the planted bulb emerges from the ground as a growing bud and in the fullness of time blossoms into a beautiful tulip!
The tulip can no more disparage the bulb than systematic theology can disparage biblical theology. Or vice-versa.


Christ-ward Because Christ-centered


      To use another figurative illustration, “[all] the books of the Bible have their binding center in Jesus Christ. They all relate to the work of redemption and the founding of God’s kingdom on earth” (Berkof, Principles, p.53). Thus, just as the pages of your Bible make contact with and are held together at the spine with adhesive or by being sewn, so
Christ-centered “Meaning” permeates and holds together the Christ-ward “meanings” throughout the pages of God’s Word no matter where you turn the page.


      In fact, according to our Lord and Savior Himself, the Old Testament set the stage, book by book, epoch by epoch, covenant by covenant, and promise by promise to point forward in some way, shape, or form to the Savior’s glorious work of redemption for His people.
See Luke 24:25-27; vv. 44-47; Acts 3:18, 21, 24; 17:2-3; 26:22b-23; 1 Pet. 1:10-11 to start.


   The Old Testament was not a Christless revelation. Quite the contrary. By means of definite plot points, messianic prophecies, figures, types, shadows, and other details we can rightly understand God drawing His people’s gaze unavoidably to Christ as powerfully in the OT as the NT. As Mark Garcia has stated, the text of Scripture, including the Old Testament,  is “drawing us by the gravitational pull of Christ Himself into the world given to us in Christ to live in that world, to metabolize these words which are bread of life to us, to draw us deeper into faith, hope, and love.”
The Old Testament is nothing, if not,  the Christ-centered preparation for the Christological fullness of the New Testament. 


     The New Testament is nothing, if not, the fulfillment and climactic inauguration of God’s promised redemptive purpose in Christ. The fully-orbed significance of Christ’s person and the work He accomplished at Calvary is what we find exulted over, explained, and the
central theme of worship in the New Testament. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament alone are the words of Christ. The words of Christ are the means by which Christ is formed in us. This is, as Mark Garcia has said, “more than a captivating idea, it’s a captivating life.” 


      The multifaceted and systematic implications of our Lord’s person and work reach out backwards to OT saints and forward to us. The glory of God in Christ is the new song belonging to the people of God  because we have been reconciled to God and each other by God’s grace.
All of Scripture, whether in Christ-ward promise or Christ-centered fulfillment, details the defeat of evil in all its forms in Christ, by Christ, and through Christ.


      This is the warp and woof of Confessional Calvinist biblical interpretation. Berkof, for example, observed, “[m]any of the Old Testament types pointed ultimately to the New Testament realities; many prophecies found their final fulfillment in Jesus Christ, no matter how many of the Psalms give utterance to the joy and sorrow, not merely of the poets, but of the people of God as a whole, and, in some cases, of the suffering and triumphant Messiah. These considerations lead us to what may be called, the deeper sense of Scripture.” But they do so by comparing Scripture with Scripture. Biblical evidence is accumulated and synthesized. Implications are validly drawn out. Texts supplement texts (Analogy of Scripture). Uniformity in teachings (Analogy of Faith) are reached precisely because there is a non-arbitrary, non-capricious, proper, and rational method of Biblical interpretation. This whole, life long process is also the warp and woof that delivers to us the fortunes of a Reformed worldview! 


     In sum, the Scriptures display, despite its diversity, a glorious unity of content. Whether it is the individual Biblical books, doctrines, concepts, motifs, themes, covenants, promises, failures, fulfillments, genres, authors, or ultimately, the transcendent, lofty God of holiness who is mighty and merciful to save man from his miserable plight,
we are not given the right to conclude the Bible is a disparate collection of writings. 


      We are indispensably helped along the way to apprehend Scripture’s organic unity by means of both Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology.
Scripture itself marries Christ-centered, overarching “Meaning” with Christ-ward “meanings”, text with text, and testament with testament thus showing that God Himself has joined unity with diversity. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no interpreter tear asunder.


Suggested Reading Strategies For Understanding Sacred Scripture


     To understand the meaning of a Scripture text, you have to apply your thinking process to the thinking process of the Scripture’s authors (especially its ultimate, Divine Author). The reader of Scripture can only grasp its meaning as he appreciates more and more the style, content, and conventions of communication embedded in the text. Why? Because God revealed His Word through human authors in time and space history as He was dealing with His people in specific circumstances. We don’t seek to penetrate through the text to something beyond the words and propositions of Scripture because God’s special revelation are the words and propositions that comprise the Text of Scripture itself. “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth,” said the Lord Jesus. All meaning is found in the text, not behind or beyond it.


     That is how a reader gets at the thinking process of the Biblical authors and its ultimate, Divine Author: whatever is explicitly or implicitly drawn from the text, given its features and affordances rightly understood, is what the authors and the Author intended to communicate. The reader must be ready to engage with the text on its own terms--the terms dictated by its authors and its Author. Careful, close, and mindful attention to the Text is the only option for the Confessional Calvinist as a matter of Biblical commitment and conviction. The psalmist reminds us, “...For You have magnified Your word above all Your name” (138:2). This is how God’s people hear His voice. 


     So, then, we must examine the appropriately chosen text by a close, attentive, mindful, and repeated reading of the passage first. An appropriate text basically means a cohesive unit of thought between a sentence and a paragraph in length. The length of the text will usually depend on the genre it is part of in Scripture. 


     For example, in a narrative portion of the Bible, a prolonged prose passage of many paragraphs can be divided into many parts that communicate various streams of thought, episodes of life involving people and events, that contribute to its overall flow. Prose lends itself to the qualities of narratives. Whether it is personal narratives (e.g., the story of Abraham), familial narratives (e.g., the story of Jacob and his sons), or national narratives (e.g., the story of Israel during its united kingdom period), they all share certain qualities that prominently convey truth through the stories of people, places, events, conflicts, failures, and triumphs.


     However, in distinction from prose of narrative, the Bible also employs the vehicle of poetry to convey its thoughts and truth. The Psalms, for example, are lyrical expressions of praise, celebration, lament, complaint, and even the depths of despair. These passages contain more abbreviated and concentrated units of thought. Yet, for all their brevity and pithiness, they lack nothing in profundity, significance, immanence, transcendence, and applicability to the reader.


    So, then, a close and attentive reading of an appropriately chosen Biblical text involves a dissatisfaction with a merely cursory reading. It involves a deep dissatisfaction with a superficial comprehension of the Biblical text. (Is that what Biblicism is?) Close and attentive reading means being as mindful of the emergence of meaning from Scriptural revelation as an expectant mother is of giving birth to her baby. A mother spends 9 months monitoring closely the progress of her pregnancy. She eats properly. She adapts to the nausea in the early months by eating strategically to keep food down. She has regular and frequent doctor visits for ultrasounds and blood tests. On the day of delivery, there are a myriad of measures in place to have a safe and successful delivery for both mother and child. Similarly, a responsible reader is a serious reader who closely monitors their comprehension of the text according to the text itself.


      What is a close reading of the Bible mindful of? It is mindful of not imposing meaning on the text. It is mindful of the text’s content, structure, function, context, integration with other Scripture texts (especially with Christological significance), and only gleaning ideas and conclusions from the text itself. A close and attentive reading of the Bible is a strategy that seeks to yield evidence based deductions from an analysis of the content and particulars of the text itself. 


      The success of this strategy is improved by repeated readings and enhanced by thinking about the details of the text along the continuum of revelation of the person, work, and offices of the Lord Jesus.  After all, in addition to not imposing meaning onto a text, the mindful reader should not unduly close off a particular text to its integration with the rest of the Christological significance of Scripture. No text of Scripture is an island unto itself.


     Second, examine the flow of thought displayed in the chosen passage itself as well as how it functionally fits within its surrounding literary context. For example, if your chosen text is a sentence or two, how does it fit within the paragraph? If your chosen text is a paragraph, how does it fit within its larger, surrounding context? 


      No matter the length of the text under consideration, the reader’s examination will have to include a text’s use of language, the function of its grammar, special terms, patterns of organization, figures of speech, and other similar issues. Again, these are usually dependent on the genre the text is a part of in Scripture.


     Beyond these immediate literary contextual considerations, the reader must always be willing to take notice of broader thematic considerations throughout the canon of Scripture. Remember, no passage of Scripture is an island unto itself.  Among the greatest theological themes in the Bible is how God commenced, continued, and culminated his redemptive work in Christ. From its announcement to its fulfillment in the Old and New Testaments, respectively, the careful reader and interpreter will integrate the “meanings” of the Biblical books in each testament with the overarching “Meaning” of the Christ wrought salvation along redemptive historical lines as the chain of islands of an archipelago. 


       What is the bottom line? No matter how many foundational hermeneutical assumptions and the interpretive reading strategies that flow from them, the  bottom line is, as Dr. Craig Carter has stated, that "a certain kind of reader with a certain kind of document in the light of a certain type of God [will trump rigid steps and rules of interpretation]." All Confessional Calvinists can heartily agree with that. What lies next for all of us is to simply take up our Bibles and read! "What does the Scripture say?"


       To conclude, the true Confessional Calvinist interpreter of Scripture is neither a butcher of the Biblical Text nor is he a naive and superficial Biblicist. The Confessional Calvinist follows the Biblical example of the Bereans and the wise counsel of William Hendricksen (Survey of the Bible, 43) by becoming “thoroughly acquainted” with the Bible by “reading the Bible itself. Read not a small portion but a book at a time; say, Genesis in its entirety. What next? Read it again! At least three times! Get into the spirit of the book! See the Christ revealed in it!”


 

The end...for now!



For all those interested (and everyone reading should be interested!), please listen to Episode 11 of Urban Puritano for a behind the scenes look at a Confessional Calvinist handling of an interesting Old Testament Text of Scripture concerning Christ the Conqueror!
 


 









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By Urban Puritano 02 Sep, 2024
Foreword Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4 NIV) “Pastor, would you please pray for me? I am struggling to read the Bible.” Over the last fourteen years of pastoral ministry in the local church, this refrain (or a sentiment very similar) is one I have heard time and time again. This has come from Christians of virtually all phases of life and every educational background (with the exception perhaps of many new believers). The State of the Church surveys put out every two years by the late R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries as well as many other national surveys consistently show an uphill battle for every biblically faithful, historically orthodox Christian who seeks to contend for the faith once delivered for all the saints (Jude 1:3). The landscape of Christianity in the West in general, and the United States of America in particular, is marked by biblical illiteracy yet even worse—deliberate—that is, a chosen ignorance of the Scriptures. This unsurprisingly has led to a decay of doctrine in the souls of many self-professing Christians and a shallowness among many if not most local churches. There is little to no confidence and assurance in the sufficiency, inerrancy, and unique unrivaled authority of the written Word of God. Why? Well, many claim, “After all, when it comes to the Bible, it’s all a matter of one’s interpretation, so who can be right?” The situation is often only exacerbated when we look at the present state of theological education. Many so-called evangelical scholars training current and future evangelical pastors today care far more about being respected in the eyes of the deceived scholarly world over humbly fearing and following the living God according to the whole counsel of His Word. Pastors, then, with a diminished view of Scripture, turn to gimmicks and tricks of leadership gurus and functionally abandon the Scriptures that uniquely bear witness to Christ (John 5:39) in whom unsearchable riches are found (Ephesians 3:8). Moreover, today many who claim to be confessional and convictional Protestants openly or secretly seem to scoff at some of the core ideas that led to the Reformation and a recovery of so much sound doctrine that was muted in favor of tradition, superstition, and mysticism. The interpretation of the written, revealed Word of God can be and often is a demanding task. But it is always worth it as the God-breathed Scriptures are the vital core of a true God-fearing Christian’s discipleship. The Lord Jesus in His high priestly prayer asked the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17 ESV). Yet this is why Roberto Gazga’s book before you now is so needed and important, and I highly recommend it to you. Faithful local church pastors and elders (vocational or lay), Bible teachers, and Christian professors especially ought to take up this book and carefully read this (though I truly think most all Christians should as well). Roberto’s book is not just another book on interpreting the Bible (hermeneutics), though it will help you wisely interpret the Bible and delight in it. Roberto’s book is also not merely a polemic, though he will bless you as he rightly and precisely pushes back on some increasingly popular but incorrect paradigms in our day. Roberto’s book is also not simply a blessing for the sources he probes and gem quotes he has dug up that will bless you—though it will do this as well! Rather, Roberto’s book before you is an invitation and a plea for Christ’s blood-bought church to live under Christ’s lordship and to do so not according to our wits and whims but according to the Word of God. Our Lord directed people to the Scriptures claiming that they spoke of and would direct people to Him (John 5:39). Even in the first century, our Lord encountered and countered religious leaders who neglected the Scriptures for the traditions of men (Mark 7:6–13). Our Lord clearly cared about and asked about the content of the law (Luke 10:25–37) and countered the devil himself with the very written words of God-breathed Scripture (Luke 4:1–13). The holy text of Scripture is for the Christian what water is for the fish and food is for the daily life of all creatures. We will starve or die spiritually without Scripture. As Brother Roberto rightly reminds us, “Interpreters, at whatever stage of maturity, have to get their hands dirty in handling the text.” It is personal to you and me and every Christian. Why? Because God does not treat His Word lightly like we so often do. In fact, the way God is glorified by His people is never around or ignoring the Word but always through and with and under the Word. God takes His Word with the utmost seriousness, and so must we. Roberto writes as a thoughtful and committed churchman seeking God’s glory in all things. As you read, you will see and feast your mind on truth. Truth always has great earthly and eternal consequences, and Roberto knows this and believes it. This brother humbly presents the written, revealed Word of God and helpfully brings in faithful voices from the past who can aid us today in our present crisis, helping us grow in discernment. Roberto’s book is not only an invitation from a faithful churchman; it is also a challenge in the best sense of the word. Every single Christian from the least to the most mature must beware of and reject intellectual laziness and simply adopting Christian fads even among intellectuals (Proverbs 18:17). Whether you are a Christian who is a fresh, new convert or a seasoned pastor or tenured professor with a PhD, you and all of us must remember we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16); and as such, we are to discern God’s will and honor God with our minds (Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 1:13; Philippians 4:8; Colossians 3:2). Though the Lord tells us His Word never returns void (Isaiah 55), and though through their faithfulness to the Lord and His Word our forebears turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6), and though believing faith comes through hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17), many now seem to believe based on their ministries and lives “I will do everything. The Word can do nothing” (reversing Martin Luther’s famous “I did nothing. The Word did everything”). Indeed, this appears to be the norm rather than the exception. I praise God for this book and commend it to you. Read it carefully in this present evil age. Hear what is being said. Think hard about the arguments being made and truths being proposed. Do the hard work and think carefully and prayerfully with your local church family about the role of God’s Word in your life and in your church. What role does the Scripture have in your life? In your family’s life? In your local church’s life? In the world? And if you see shortcomings or a less-than-biblical place for the Bible, what shall be done? The God of glorious grace opens the door for repentance and change of mind. Confess this sin and reorient yourself afresh under Christ’s lordship. Praise be to God! As Brother Roberto reminds us in this volume, “We have, in the text of Scripture from beginning to end, God’s strategic wisdom and tactical cunning summed up in the person and work of Christ.” May this book be used by the Lord to help individual Christians and many local churches recover or renew their desire and commitment to have the mind of Christ. May the glory of God’s Word in the verses below bearing witness to God’s grace and truth in Christ the Redeemer become an increasing reality in every reader’s life, as well as every family, every local church, every community, and every school: The Law of Your mouth is better to me Than thousands of gold and silver pieces. (Psalm 119:72) The words of the Lord are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. (Psalm 12:6) The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. (Psalm 19:8) But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Peter 1:20–21) And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:25–27) Soli Deo Gloria Brandon Myers Senior Pastor of Christ the King Reformed Baptist Church, Niles IL May 2024 Preface What does the Lord Jesus have to do with interpreting both God’s Word and God’s world? Conventional wisdom puts the cart before the horse, claiming that the world, whether scholarship or popular opinion, must dictate how the Bible is to be interpreted and who Jesus really is. Most critical scholarship argues that the world is a self-contained, self-explanatory system. It asserts that the Bible contains no overarching metanarrative and should be relegated to a haphazard arrangement of tales. It argues that Jesus was an itinerant rabbi who died a martyr’s death and later became the founding figure of a community of followers. In doing so, conventional wisdom gets the world, the Word, and the Lord Jesus woefully wrong. Christian wisdom in general and Calvinist wisdom in particular, however, self-consciously mediate and subjugate knowledge of the world according to the Jesus of the Word. In doing so, they get God’s world, God’s Word, and Jesus right, holding that the world is the theater of God’s glory in Christ, who is the telos (goal) of all creation precisely because He is the raison d’être (fundamental reason and purpose of its existence). As the Bible says, He is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Calvinists observe that according to the Bible, Christ is the all-encompassing Alpha and Omega for both creation and redemption. This Calvinist self-conscious mediation and subjugation of knowledge of the world to the Jesus of the Word is a lifelong process. It is both a science and an art. It is a science insofar as it seeks to discover further truths from the axiom of God’s Word. It is an art insofar as this lifelong process can be as messy as a painter’s palette. Therefore, my present work of “art” starts within the “scientific” framework of the primacy of the Lord Jesus as revealed in God’s Word. Only He, through His Word correctly understood, can get the things of this world right. I begin and end by asking myself two questions respectively: Am I a Christocentric reader? Am I a Christocentric teacher? In painting, artists sometimes apply neutral colors (called grisaille or bistre ) to a blank canvas as underpainting to give the work more depth and realism. In the same way, I invite the reader to look over my shoulder as I have sought to paint a portrait of Christocentrism for God’s Word and God’s world. Perhaps my efforts will inspire you to paint your own Christocentric work of art. Each stroke is infused with a line of thought. What may be vibrantly seen in the final work belies the necessary tonal underpainting and the further grayscale on the canvas of my experience. As a Calvinist Christian, I believe it is only natural and right to mediate and subjugate all of life to the primacy of the Lord Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures. He tells me He is the way, the truth, and the life. Therefore, I can see and live my knowledge of my experiences in the world only in light of Him. In His light I see light. Christians ought to take this as a joyful invitation to take the Bible seriously and “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, but with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 NASB). So how have my life’s experiences been shaped by the primacy and centrality of the Lord Jesus in both the Word and the world? By the grace of God I have been privileged to be called to teach children and adults in diverse settings, in both Christian elementary schools and the local churches I have been a member of. In those teaching capacities I have sought to open the Scriptures, to explain and teach God’s Word to God’s people. My hope is that parents, pastors, teachers, students, and lay leaders would ponder the eternal significance of God’s Word for God’s world, whatever their present understanding of both are. As for me, I humbly stand upon the unbreakable rock of Reformed Christocentrism. I can do no other, so help me God. Introduction The Christ of Scripture is central to the believer’s life. Too many Christians lack a robust understanding of this idea. It is not sufficiently fleshed out regarding hermeneutics (the branch of knowledge concerning interpretation of texts, especially Scripture), much less its applicability for the world we live in. Whether we call it Christocentric Calvinism or Reformed Christocentrism, we can gain a clearer and greater appreciation of this idea once it is incarnated in real-life reading of the Word and real-life application of that Word in the world. It is well past time for the rays of Christocentrism to escape the confines of the academy and be reflected and diffused in the church, in homes, and in the street. This work isn’t meant to be a formal theological or philosophical treatise. However, it may be more theological and philosophical than some may like. Indeed, I want to ground sound interpretation of the Word and the world upon a Christocentric foundation. But overall, my case is more impressionistic and suggestive rather than theologically and philosophically rigorous. For this I make no apologies. After all, this work is deeply personal, born of reflection I was engaged in while living my calling and carrying out its duties as a teacher in the midst of an increasingly decaying and crumbling society and culture. I taught subject matter to children and adults, including an elementary school curriculum as well as the Bible respectively. Why? Because despite the cultural rot, God always has the first and last word on all matters. Although I’m no more than an armchair Christian philosopher or theologian, I still self-consciously tried to apply Reformed philosopher Alvin Plantinga’s advice to Christian philosophers in his famous essay “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” from 1984. He argued, “Christian philosophers must display more integrity––integrity in the sense of integral wholeness, or oneness, or unity, being all of one piece. Perhaps ‘integrality’ would be the better word here.” For our purposes, such integrality involves seeing Christ in all of Scripture for all of life. I have two hopes, dear reader: (1) that you can adapt and integrate my work with your own experiences and (2) that you can encourage those in your sphere of influence, whether in your household, your local church, your college, or your seminary, to strive to see all of Christ in all of Scripture for all of life. Whether or not you identify with the Reformed tradition as I do, our shared faith commits all believers to seek the Lord Jesus “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3 NASB). To that end, my portrait of Christocentrism according to confessional Calvinism is divided into three interdependent parts. Part 1 will lay a foundation for biblical interpretation according to confessional Calvinism, wherein I discuss some axiomatic principles of biblical hermeneutics (that is, proper interpretation) necessary to read Scripture correctly. Historic Protestant confessions such as the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) or the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LBCF) explicitly demand and endorse such principles. Part 2 will provide an example of these interpretive principles applied to a challenging Old Testament text. It constitutes an extended reading for teaching and preaching Christ in the manner of passages about the roads to Emmaus (Luke 24) and Gaza (Acts 8). This will necessarily involve getting our hands dirty, for only in such a way can we rightly divide the Word of truth. We will have to employ various tools in order to judiciously and rationally draw out the text’s single sensus plenior (fuller sense). That is, human authors in the Old Testament intended to convey a message to their audiences. God often had a concurrent redemptive-historical intention related to Jesus’s ministry to convey to a future audience via the divinely inspired sacred text. He was able to do this because He alone is sovereign over both history and the process of recording the redemptive-historical events themselves. We will therefore use a robustly Reformed grammatico-historical method wedded to a Christocentric redemptive-historical approach. We will scratch the surface in addressing the right reading of figurative language and typology, simultaneously rejecting the medieval interpretive paradigm known as the quadriga , a word that comes from the Latin name for a chariot drawn by four horses abreast, which later became the name of an approach to hermeneutics. Various church fathers and medieval theologians up to the great Thomas Aquinas recognized four levels of meaning in Old Testament texts: literal, typological, tropological, and anagogical. We will touch on these concepts later. Suffice it to say now that those horses don’t haul. Finally, in part 3 we will commend the fortunes of a Reformed Christian worldview as applied to some key areas of education. There is a continuity between a right reading of the Word and a right vision for the world, which the content of education inevitably deals with. No matter what model or system of education you participate in, the primacy and supremacy of the Lord Jesus is central and paramount. Whether it’s a traditional Christian day school, a classical Christian school, a co-op, a homeschool, or the kitchen table for tutoring your or someone else’s children entrusted to you, authentic Christian education presents a challenge worth considering by all involved. It is a challenge worth wrestling with as much as Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord until he received his blessing. And so I have organized this work to exhort a right reading of the Word of Jesus to exemplify Jesus as a warrior and to elucidate key issues of the world according to the Lord Jesus. I encourage you to see all of Christ in all of Scripture for all of life! CHRIST'S SCOPE AND SCEPTER: HIS WORD, HIS WORLD Coming Soon!
By Urban Puritano 09 Sep, 2023
Family Worship is more known and practiced among Dutch Reformed denominations than in run of the mill evangelical denominations. Anecdotally speaking, I've known and worked closely with Presbyterians in my life, and although it's a known subject, it isn't practiced as much as you may think. Same goes for Reformed Baptists. But overall, this situation is changing as more resources are produced.
By Urban Puritano 15 Aug, 2023
We Distinguish? (Who Is We?) Biblicism, Boogeymen, and Bereans Introduction Disputes among Christians on social media are funny…until they aren't. When things heat up, it's either someone's intelligence, integrity, or their orthodoxy being questioned. When things cool down, we are told to keep discussions focused on doctrines, not dudes. But a partisan spirit is difficult to avoid. I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. I am a Cephas. I am of Christ. The same thing can be seen in discussions of the needlessly frustrating topic of Biblicism. What is biblicism and why does it matter? I bet you're wondering whose side I'm on. Have you read my four part blog piece on biblical interpretation according to Calvinism? What are you waiting for? As far as whose side I'm on in the biblicism debate, I like Tree Beard's answer: “I am not altogether on anybody's side because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me well.” I hope this pointed yet fair and friendly critique is understandable to all who hear the episode and read this transcript. Gird your loins as we scratch the surface on biblicism! The topic of biblicism has flared up in recent years and shows no signs of riding off peacefully into the sunset. I have, for the most part, avoided participating in such debates and discussions online because they have been addressed by various authors, pastors, and laypeople ad nauseam. We are at the point where blogs, vlogs, and podcasts are frequently referencing biblicism as a foil to confessionalism and occasionally getting both wrong. Ironically, more heat than light is spent on biblicism, and discussing it is not always profitable. It may be a points game now. To the best of my recollection and ability to track some quarters of the biblicism discussion, a recent approach is being doubled down on. It favors assertion more than argument, pejoratives more than premises. It seems the pejoratives are the premises. The bottom line is that biblicism is the boogeyman. In his recently released book, “The Reformation as Renewal”, Dr. Matthew Barrett noted the term biblicism’s first use as a pejorative without noting its employment by a Roman Catholic. (HT to @NamorPB on X, formerly Twitter). This omission is important due to the common Romanist apologetic against Sola Scriptura, which was from that point pejoratively labeled as biblicism. Does original use of a term, however, determine its future use for all people and for all time? After all, the term “Christian” was originally used by infidels to label believers and persecute them on the basis of wanting to imitate Christ. “Look at them, they are little Christs.” Early Christians, thankfully, had the holy moxie to embrace the term “Christian” as a badge of honor. And believers of all stripes, biblicist and confessionalist alike, have been known as Christians for two millennia. What infidels meant for evil, simple believers having learned from God's ironic work of redemption in Christ meant it for good. What if some sincere believers, knowing its pejorative origin in Romanist apologetics against Sola Scriptura, want to embrace the label? Is the label inherently naive or worse, insidious? If so, it must be shown to be so. Not even frequent Roman Catholic use of the term in the same way necessarily determined future use for subsequent Protestants who modified it for their ends. History may count noses, but truth doesn't. Romanist apologists already reject and refute Sola Scriptura with the pejorative epithet “Biblicist” as being the mother of all heresies. Therefore, when contemporary confessionalists inveigh against the supposed dangers or ignorance of biblicism, it is not that impactful or scandalous. In fact, even some confessionalists embrace the term Biblicist under a certain understanding of it. To the chagrin of some academically oriented believers and their enthusiastic acolytes, these confessional biblicists consider it intellectually and devotionally virtuous. The absolute madmen! Apparently, there may be versions of biblicism that are perfectly biblical and confessional, similarly to how there are versions of, let's say, determinism that are biblical and confessional despite protestations to the contrary. After all, there are versions of “tradition” quite consistent with Classical Protestantism, are there not? Rome may own the copyright on capital “T” Tradition, but not lowercase “t” tradition. What if some sincere believers, whether learned or unlearned, embrace the label biblicist as an intuitive and natural outflow of faith in the precious promises of God found in the Bible? What logical or biblical need is there to say that such people are narcissists? What about calling them obscurantists? Isaiah 66 says, “But on this one will I look on him who is poor and of contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.” This trembling at God's word is, as another Matthew comments, “an habitual awe of God's majesty and purity, and an habitual dread of His justice and wrath. Such a heart is a living temple for God. He dwells there, and it is the place of His rest. It is like heaven and earth, His throne and His footstool” (Matthew Henry). So then trembling at God's word is tantamount to trembling at God himself. What would drive anyone pastorally, logically, biblically, to accuse someone of an “idolatry of the letter” of Holy Writ? What can that possibly mean when our Lord Jesus himself says the words that I spoke to you are Spirit and they are life? (John 6:63). The literal is the spiritual and vice versa when it comes to the Bible. Many decry biblicism as a principled construct inherently imposed on the Scriptures, but our Lord excludes bifurcation of the spiritual from the letter. Do theological teachers give due respect to our Lord's elevation of the Word of God? I fear for the ones who do not. The devil, however, is in the details of how to apply this in discussions of biblicism versus confessionalism. Who is more biblical, the non-confessional biblicist, the non-biblicist confessionalist, or the confessional biblicist? I know. Heads are exploding right now. But we must distinguish right? Easier said than done. Defining Biblicism Recent opponents of biblicism have had varying degrees of success in offering definitions of what they oppose. Let me just mention a few that are offered up by opponents. Davenant Institute produced a video entitled, “Is Biblicism Bad?” in which Alistair Roberts defined biblicism as, “that elevation of the Bible to such a high level that it occludes other things that we need to take into account.” However, it must be noted that Dr. Roberts prefaced his definition with a recognition, unlike Matthew Barrett, of the Bebbington Quadrilateral description of Evangelicals, of which biblicism forms part. David Bebbington is a church historian who wrote, “Evangelicalism in Modern Britain.”(HT: to Daniel C, whose resources can be found at puritanreformed.net . He was a graduate of Westminster Seminary California.) Bebbington's fourfold classification of evangelicalism consisted of conversionism, activism, crucicentrism, and biblicism. Apparently, Bebbington identifies himself as an Evangelical. Presumably, biblicism, therefore, isn’t at all pejorative. It is simply descriptive of how Evangelicals express their ultimate theological commitment. So, if biblicism is indeed irrefutably demonstrated to be bad, this prompts the question: Does that make evangelicalism into a wobbly Jenga tower seconds away from collapse? Maybe it does if we accept a pejorative sense of biblicism. Back to Robert's definition. Is it even possible to elevate the Bible to an unacceptably high degree and level? In Psalm 138:2, David remarkably raises the biblicist stakes and would seem to ruin the cause of anti-biblicism, or at least of Robert's definition of biblicism. The psalmist and Holy Spirit state, “for you have magnified your word above all your name.” Christians are supposed to be the people of the book. Given God's own elevation of His Word, it would seem that pearl clutching about extra biblical things being occluded is purely academic. All believers should be elevating the Bible to a maximally high degree. Our problems don't ever seem to be a supposed idolatry of the letter, but the neglect of the letter or its supplanting. Now, a curious point is attempted to be made by Roberts when he adduces the Bible's silence on an issue to illustrate an ethical lacuna of God's Word. Quite perplexingly, Roberts states that the Bible is silent on…(checking notes) necrophilia. Immediately, we are confronted with the academic impulse to score points among acolytes who go off and parrot similar talking points and straying from their own definitions of biblicism. Doesn’t Genesis 1 and 2 have something to say about sex, marriage, and fruitfulness? And does the fullness of the meaning of marriage revealed in a New Testament have no implications for that sick practice they mentioned? Robert's definition of biblicism did not specify in what sense the elevation of the Bible will necessarily lead to the occlusion of, let's say, natural law or ethical issues such as the example of necrophilia. In fact, I find this whole approach to be a disingenuous downgrade, not worthy of serious discussion. In politics, if you're the first to mention Hitler, you lose. In Christian Ethics, if you claim the Bible underdetermines whether necrophilia is licit, you lose. Necrophilia can quite reasonably be addressed biblically and confessionally as a sinful practice by a thoroughly Reformed exposition of the moral law of God. Anything outside the purview of licit sexual practices is sinful, whether it is explicitly or implicitly found in Scripture. The biblical data does not underdetermine this and many other issues one might think the Bible is silent on. Moreover, biblical silence is not to be equated with not having an explicit verse directly addressing a particular issue. After all, even non-confessionalist Christians believe in the Trinity by good and necessary consequence (“necessarily contained”, if you prefer). Speaking of good and necessary consequence (or necessarily contained), the Sadducees on one occasion are recorded to have argued similarly to Alistair Roberts in Matthew 22:23-33. They try to score points against the Lord Jesus by asking him a conundrum situation about the resurrection. They were under the false impression that Jesus was an unsophisticated, ignorant, naive, and perhaps even insidious biblicist. Since the Sadducees judged that the Bible was silent on the afterlife and a future resurrection of the body, they offered a reductio ad absurdum. They offered this on the basis of their notion of special revelation’s silence on the matter of the resurrection. Whose wife will a woman be at the resurrection if her previous seven husbands were brothers and all died succinctly? The Lord Jesus draws out two valid conclusions from supposed biblical silence. In doing so, he combats biblical superficiality rather than silence. First, the purpose and function of marriage fulfills its design in this earthly life, and to assume marriage continues in the resurrection is wrong. Why assume that? Second, they didn't read scripture aright, since a central divine declaration would have established the truth of the resurrection. “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The Logos, Jesus, draws out the valid logical implication God is not the God of the dead but of the living. It would seem that the necessity of the resurrection is required by the present tense in God's declaration. Leave it to Jesus to offer them a biblicist bone in their kebab. So much for idolatry of the letter. Another recent description of biblicism as negative is found in a Modern Reformation Magazine article by London Lyceum's very own Jordan Stefaniak. It is entitled, “Everything in Nature Speaks of God: Understanding Sola Scriptura Aright.” He describes it in the opening paragraphs of the article as “a disordered love” with inevitably “corrosive” effects for both faith and practice Descriptions, however, are easier than definitions. In fact, Stefaniak confesses (pun intended) that there are, “several ways Biblicism could be defined.” Parenthetically, this is the heart of the issue! Biblicism does not enjoy a standard definition as other terms like infralapsarian or supralapsarian do. And while the infra and the supra attached to the lapsarian objectively mean something, the same courtesy isn't afforded to biblicism. “Bibl” is sitting right there in the middle of the word! Why greet it with crossed arms? Stefaniak offers the following definition: “Scripture is authoritative for all concepts of God and any other theological locus such as morality, anthropology, etcetera. Therefore, theological commitments must emerge from Scripture alone and be consistent with Scripture. Intuition, creed, confession, tradition, or any other source is incompatible with the supremacy of the Scriptures.” He further adds that biblicism, thus defined, is “impossible” for it allows no extra biblical input for theological construction to faithfully maintain Scriptures supremacy and sufficiency. Now, apart from painting one's opponent into a corner in a dispute, one must make sure that the proper footwear is being worn to avoid being stained with paint oneself. The process of attempting to paint one's opponent into a corner can be something of a Pyrrhic victory. Stefaniac asserts that an insurmountable problem with Biblicism as he defines it, is that since it “is unfeasible to derive any theological concept from Scripture without a secondary means apart from Scripture,” then even “[T]heology cannot be done.” Stefaniak further spreads the proverbial paint as he pushes his biblicist opponent into the corner by asserting even “the basic reading of the text and forming an idea of it is itself external to Scripture. Therefore, no one can consistently adhere to biblicism, because biblicism itself is a theological concept derived rationally from Scripture, and is thus unacceptable as a theory by the grounds of its own premise. Moreover, such a vision of theology is inconsistent with Scripture’s own vision.” Now, nobody is infallible. Despite good intentions, we can't always employ and display serious thinking for a serious church, as the London Lyceum's motto states. I believe Stefaniak's argument above is not as cogent or sound as imagined, at least from the perspective of a, let's say, confessional biblicist. Many critical observations can be made, but I want to focus certain details. To the best of my ability, Stefaniak's argument can be distilled in this way: Premise 1. Biblicism maintains it is always feasible to derive theological concepts from Scripture alone without secondary means such as reason, creeds, or even the act of reading itself to form ideas. Premise 2. It is unfeasible to derive any theological concepts from scripture alone without secondary means. Therefore, biblicism is self referentially incoherent since it cannot be feasibly maintained. I'm no logician, so although the form of this argument may seem valid to some observers more logically inclined, I cannot help but offer the following criticisms. Premise 1 is mixed between how Stefaniak defines biblicism and what he stated it entails. Part of what he explained is that the act of reading is a secondary means of knowing or acquiring knowledge that is itself not derived from scripture. But this entailment would not be granted by the biblicist, who can simply maintain that reading, like reason itself, is simply how God ordained image bearers come in contact with divine special revelation in textual form. For God to design and cause the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture was to fit it to our cognitive faculties like hands and gloves. In principle, the adequacy of human language has been wedded to our cognitive faculties sufficiently to the purpose God ordained it for. It is, therefore, not apparent, much less proven, that the act of reading is a mismatch for maintaining the feasibility of deriving theological concepts from Scripture alone. Speaking of which, Premise 2 seems to suffer from a lack of modesty. It seemingly is in a hurry to reach that unpainted corner or conclusion, given that there is no reason to think, certainly no demonstrably good reason, provided that according to biblicism, either reason or reading makes it unfeasible to derive any theological concepts from scripture alone without secondary means, we only need to provide one example or instance of deriving a theological concept from scripture alone without a secondary means. Where should we look? To ask, that is to answer it! If this hypothetical biblicist really existed, the stronger brother should imitate the Lord Jesus as He theologized offering counterexamples from Scripture. The problem is that Premise 2 is formulated from a supposed self-evident truth that it is unfeasible to derive any theological concepts from Scripture alone without secondary means. If I was ever to encounter a biblicist according to Stefaniak's definition, I won't make Stefaniak's assertion of Premise 2. Instead, I will offer a markedly Protestant, Evangelical, Confessional, and, dare I say, Biblicist answer. Romans 4:3 says, “For what does Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Also, “…just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven.” Romans 4, where Paul argues for justification by faith, results in refuting Stefaniak's premise 2. Why? Because the Apostle Paul derived the theological concept and conclusion of justification by faith alone from the Old Testament narrative in Genesis 15 and from the poem of Psalm 32. Makes one wonder if Paul was a Confessional Biblicist of sorts. Not only can this sort of theologizing be feasible, we must remember by whom it must be feasibly maintained. Paul's audience at the Church of Rome were not the sophisticated or philosophically inclined. They were merchants, the poor, the humble, the illiterate, and perhaps even slaves. The Scriptures may not have been able to be read individually by all, but certainly all heard the Scriptures being read collectively and publicly preached from. Don’t forget, “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” We all can feasibly theologize from Scripture alone. That's what Protestantism is famous for concerning justification, right? And the perspicuity of Scripture, right? Stefaniak’s Premise 2 postulates too much and seems to make Protestant Christianity itself self referentially incoherent. Thank God for Paul! We'll look at one more definition of biblicism before we end this. It's from the Baptist Broadcast in a recent video entitled, “Is Biblicism Biblical?” Like the host and guest, some pastors and professors and young seminary and whippersnappers sometimes define biblicism as a rejection of things not explicitly stated in Scripture, with a concomitant rejection of creedal and confessional statements, even if produced by the church in the past. Whereas the previous descriptions and definitions may have been less on the nose with their synthesis of what constitutes biblicism, this definition isn't playing Footsie with anyone. It is no coincidence many Reformed Baptists use it, since they are by nature incapable of playing Footsie with anyone. It gives no quarter for anyone who might think they can be Confessional Biblicists: either principled Biblicism or principled Confessionalism. In atypical magnanimous Reformed Baptist fashion, however, there is a glimmer of mercy, but only a glimmer. If the principled biblicist is not insidious or seriously in error, than he is simply seriously naive in his biblicist principles. Someone like a theological Forrest Gump, perhaps. I ask, however, who and where are these biblicists? Reality seems to reflect that this boogeyman is made out to be a mountain instead of being recognized as the molehill that it really is. “No Creed but Christ!” may have been a slogan known to some of yesteryear from certain denominations, but nowadays I mainly hear it from certain academics and their acolytes who parrot prepackaged talking points. And as mentioned, the talking points don't even get the origin of the term right and its subsequent modifications. One such talking point, used as a slam dunk against not so much biblicism in the abstract, but personally against biblicists, goes like this: “The confession does not have ultimate authority, but it has more authority than you!” Not as artistic or effective as Tetzel’s slogan: “As soon as a coin in the coffers rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” Can you imagine the inadequacy of that talking point to the naive sincere biblicist needing instruction? The inadequacy in that common Reformed Baptist talking point online isn’t in a lack of artistic imagination. If you know of any non-denominational, holiness, denomination, Assembly of God, Free Church, or other run-of-the-mill Baptist biblicist, wouldn't reasoning and reading scripture be more God honoring and fruitful? The sincere believer may be anti-confessional with Biblicist tendencies. He hears that quip and wonders why it's a slam dunk refutation of biblicism. Don't confessionalists, they may wonder, know about Paul and the Bereans? It's as though some Reformed Baptists don't remember being Pop-Arminians, themselves, and coming to accept the doctrines of grace through much struggle. Unfortunately, there are too many confessionalists who can't be bothered to respect the misguided believer operating under unbiblical assumptions, such as only holding onto explicit statements in Scripture. Boogeymen are offered more than the Berean way. A recent strategy among environmentalism activists is to claim “climate homicide.” They are charging oil companies for culpability in causing extreme weather events, rising sea levels, etc. But this charge is based on so called “Attribution Science,” which posits connections between one thing and another as cause and effect. At this point, some Reformed Baptists are unwittingly adopting this approach, a sort of attribution theology saying biblicism leads to Rome. That's what's happening in the Baptist Broadcast. I fear this is nothing more than an empty attempt to virtue signal one's own superior theology. What it lacks in virtue, it abounds in non sequiturness. Conclusion If at this point, dear reader, you are not closer to a definitive, agreed upon by all parties, standard technical definition of biblicism, that means that the parties involved are talking past each other. Biblicism is an equivocal boogeyman, but a boogeyman nonetheless. That is why I prefer Berean. It's Biblical and fits quite comfortably with my Confessional Calvinism. Test the spirits! We started by taking note of Matthew Barrett's documentation of the first use of biblicism as pejorative thanks to the detective work of Namor, Particular Baptist (@NamorPB on X, formerly Twitter). We learned it was from a Romanist author for whom biblicism can only ever be pejorative because it is the equivalent term to the Protestant Sola Scriptura. (Imprimatur by the Church? Was Barrett citation indicating approbation?). But it never seems to dawn on those confessional Protestants advocating the pejorative use of biblicism that they had to change its original Roman Catholic definition of it as the equivalent to Sola Scriptura and use it in a lighter way. If they enjoy the privilege of redefining terms in their favor and for their use, why can't anyone else? Seems that chronological snobbery is a two way street. Confessional Calvinists with thick skin like myself yawn at being labeled a hyper-Calvinist by other Protestant or Evangelical traditions. Adding one more pejorative like biblicist doesn't make me no never mind. It's mind over matter : if I don't mind, it don't matter. “As long as we don't scream at each other because that's what it sounds like when doves cry.” (Prince). Next, we gave a Davenant Institute definition. It wasn't the worst. I had the virtue of being polite, but then Davenant got Deviant with the example of necrophilia. At least they acknowledge Bebbington's Quadrilateral, in which biblicism was used non-pejoratively. Thanks once again to Daniel C, graduate of Westminster Seminary in California. He can be found on X, as @puritanreformed, and once again on puritanreformed.net . With tongue firmly planted in cheek, I say Bebbington may not have ultimate authority on Evangelical Church History, but he has more authority than Roman Catholic Finngan (originator of the term “Biblicism” as the pejorative equivalent of Sola Scriptura). Then we discussed Jordan Stefaniak's definition of a hard version of biblicism. I think I showed that a biblicist worth his salt can effectively avoid being painted into a corner, as well as simultaneously showing that Stefaniak cannot avoid being splashed and stained by paint himself. Lastly, we looked at a popular level Reformed Baptist strategy that just baldly states biblicism leads to Rome. But that's just attribution theology. No charges for Bible homicide can be filed. That's just as lazy as an upper jaw. The bottom line is, if the glove does not fit, you must acquit.

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