In recent days there has been considerable discussion about what it means to speak of “preaching Christ from all of Scripture.” Some object to this way of speaking and this approach to Bible interpretation on the grounds that it does violence to . . . Continue reading →
Millions of Christians gather every week to hear sermons preached, we trust, from God’s Word. Believers read and study it. Pastors and elders study it but we do not always agree about how to understand it. How often have you heard someone . . . Continue reading →
“Biblical theology,” or “redemptive-historical” theology may be new terms or perhaps confusing. After all, is not Reformed theology supposed to be biblical? Yes, it is but in the history of theology there developed, in the 19th century, a movement that intended to . . . Continue reading →
When one talks about the church what is at stake is the way in which the Christian life is organized. I believe that the Bible teaches us that believers should be united to the visible community of the redeemed meeting for worship, instruction, and fellowship in an organized, disciplined, way. If I am wrong, then millions of dollars and millions of hours and lives are being sadly misspent. Continue reading →
Tucked in as it is between 3 John and the Revelation, it is easy to over look the epistle of Jude but this past Lord’s Day I noticed something I had not before and that something tells us a good deal about . . . Continue reading →
Recently Atlanta pastor Andy Stanley argued that Christians should “unhitch” their faith from the Old Testament. He was trying to respond to concerns that people have about difficult episodes in the history of redemption but in so doing he fell into an . . . Continue reading →
We turn now at last to Romans. The first occurrence of ἔργα νόμου is in 3:20: διότι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου οὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σὰρξ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, διὰ γὰρ νόμου ἐπίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας. Dunn explains ἔργα νόμου here as meaning quite specifically those observances . . . Continue reading →
The over-arching theme that unites these two epistles is what I have been calling the “Noah Paradigm.” Our Lord appealed to this way of thinking in his Oliver Discourse (Matt 24:37): “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes.” Our Lord was characterizing the inter-adventure age. He was giving us a way to think about our life between his ascension and his return Continue reading →
Throughout these notes on 1 Peter I have considered how the suffering of the Christians in Rome might have affects the way the Christians in Asia Minor looked at their Christian faith and life. Martyrdom was not a mere theory. It happened under Nero about the time that Peter wrote his epistles. If the ancient tradition of the church is correct (Luther accepted and Calvin did not), that Peter wrote from Rome, then “Babylon” in v. 13 is figurative. This seems most likely. Placing him in Rome hardly makes him a pope. The evidence for any papal office or authority—or even a monepiscopacy!—in Rome is completely lacking in the 1st century and there is no notion of a papacy in the 2nd century. In the 2nd century the word επσκοπος (episcopos; bishop) means something rather more like “senior pastor” than “regional manager.” Peter is no more permanently “the rock” (Matt 16:18) than he is “anti-Christ” (Matt 16:23). When he confessed Christ, he was the rock. When he denied Christ, he was anti-Christ. Most likely, according to the tradition of the church, Mark was with Peter in Rome and it was to that context that he wrote his gospel, as a summary of the Apostle’s teaching and ministry there. Continue reading →
The hit TV show Seinfeld has been called a show about nothing. One of the most pernicious falsehoods about the Bible is that it, too, is a book about nothing, that it is a random collection of ancient myths and moral aphorisms. . . . Continue reading →
6Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a . . . Continue reading →
The Christians of Asia Minor were being tested under difficult circumstances. They were being challenged and even harassed because of their Christian faith. We know that some of them were slaves and faced the temptation of disobeying unjust masters. It is not difficult for us to imagine how Christians were regarded by a surrounding culture that was largely pagan because that is the world in which you and I now live. We know that the Christians were misunderstood as being arrogant because they refused to go along with established Greco-Roman religious worship. They could not acknowledge Caesar (just now, Nero) as a deity. Their worship was misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misrepresented. In the second century they were suspected of being a death cult because of their talk about Jesus’ death, of worshiping the cross—which would have provoked the Romans particularly to disgust—because of their theology of the cross. We know that later they were accused of cannibalism because of the Christian doctrine that, in the Lord’s Supper, by the mysterious operation of the Spirit, the risen Christ feeds believers with his body and blood. Beyond all this, doubtless they had or would soon have news of the lies told about the Christians by Caesar and their martyrdom at Caesar’s hands in Rome. Continue reading →
Peter invokes the Exodus deliberately. Throughout the epistle he has been trying to help his original readers in Asia Minor and us to understand where we are in the history of salvation. Perhaps the predominate imagery has come from Noah. We are like those waiting for the ark to be built, waiting for deliverance from the coming deluge of judgment. Here, however, he shifts the imagery to the exodus. We are the Israel of God, united by grace alone, through faith alone, to the risen Christ. We are in Egypt, as it were. We are believers, for whom God has sent the one greater than Moses. We are aliens and strangers in Egypt. We live under a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph (Ex 1:8). Like the Israelites, we are surrounded by pagans who misunderstand us and who sometimes abuse us. That is a hard providence. In order to submit to it and to the sovereign Lord who ordained it, we must be assured that it is ordained for our good and his glory, even if we cannot see how it is all working out. Surely that was true of the Israelites? How often over the centuries of their captivity must they have wondered why Yahweh had ordained their captivity? Continue reading →
In our youth-obsessed culture (with how many advertisements for ostensible “age-reversing” products are we bombarded daily?) it is a good reminder that Christians may not despise the older. It is plain foolishness for younger Christians to ignore the wisdom who have been making the Christian pilgrimage to the heavenly city longer than they. Our older brothers and sisters have experience in the Christian life that younger believers ordinarily do not have. They have been reading the Word longer. They have struggled in prayer, with doubt, and temptation longer than we have. Speaking experientially, they have also known the grace (favor) of God longer than we. Why would we not listen to them and learn from them? Why we would we not submit to them, whether or not they hold special office? Continue reading →
The Kingdom of God is a reversal of the order of this world. In this world, the first are first and the last are last. It is cut-throat and Darwinian, red in tooth and claw, but in the Kingdom of God the last are first and the first are last. This is the difference between grace and works. Works gives what is earned but grace gives to those who cannot, who would not, what they did not earn. So, as a consequence, ministry in the kingdom is on a different order, a different paradigm. Jesus is the model of ministry in the kingdom. The Son of Man was the suffering servant who as abused, stricken, and finally murdered for us, in our place, as our substitute. He did not suffer for himself. He did not obey for himself. His obedient suffering was for us, in our place, and all that he did is credited to us who believe and even our believing is a gift from God. Continue reading →
One of the most remarkable aspects of the Roman claims about an alleged Petrine papacy, apart from the utter lack of historical evidence for any such thing, is that Peter did use two different nouns to characterize his offices and ministry, apostle (ἀπόστολος) and presbyter (πρεσβύτερος). As a matter of fact, the papacy per se did not really come to exist until well the 4th century and even then its occasional claims to authority were rebuffed. As late as the 7th century Gregory I (c. 540–604), who was arguably the first Roman bishop to begin to exercise anything like the authority attributed to later popes, rejected the idea of a universal episcopal see. Continue reading →
We live in the season or epoch (καιρὸς) of redemptive history, after the ascension and before the return of Christ, in which, from time to time, we face both informal and formal persecution for the sake of Christ. When Peter’s words might be understood to say, “For this is the season for judgment (κρίμα) to begin (ἄρξασθαι) from (ἀπὸ) God’s house…”. As Johnson notes, this is the pattern in Malachi. We might see also the whole history of national Israel from the beginning of the national covenant to its dissolution in the exile. The Lord repeatedly entered into judgment with his people and he began with them before he commissioned his (then) national people to commence holy war against the surrounding nations. These judgments were acts of purification of his people, which gets us back to the language of vs.12 above. The fire upon God’s house (following Johnson) is the fire of purification, of sanctification through suffering. Continue reading →
12Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when . . . Continue reading →
12Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when . . . Continue reading →