Lane Dennis, the ESV, and the Internet Age

Once upon a time, I was preaching as a special youth speaker in a church in the South. It was my fourth or fifth time there. The pastor was KJV-Only, and I knew this, so I converted all the ESV quotations in my sermon to KJV quotations. I was preaching from my laptop—but in the rush of the moment I accidentally used the wrong file! The pastor’s daughter reported my ESV-usage to her dad, who wasn’t present, and I was asked not to return. They don’t hate me, and I still have some contact with them, but I’m not likely to be going back.

One of the pastor’s biggest objections to modern translations of the Bible was this, “You can’t copyright the Word of God.”

My answer to that has always been a verse from that Word of God: “The labourer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7). If someone goes to the trouble and expense of assembling an august group of Christian scholars and then pays to have their work organized, vetted, type-set, and printed, a copyright protects that work from being stolen or altered. The Bible does not demand that Christians give away all their work to other Christians for free.

But along comes the Internet Age, and at its dawn, the ESV. I noticed years ago that the ESV was different from other good translations in its use of technology. And things have only gotten better. Free iPhone and iPad apps, a number of free ESV websites—and they all look fantastic. I think these things have gone a long way in helping justify the S in ESV.

I knew someone at the top over at Crossway must be behind this push, because I gather that most people who have the power to make such decisions at different publishers are part of a generation which fears technology and is loathe to release their material online. Well, now Lane Dennis of Crossway has explained himself. This is a good read, and a good model.

Paul: The Reepicheep of Christian Evangelism

I do love Paul’s personality. Bold and persuasive but full of tender affection—and a Reepicheep streak!

When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s companions in travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him (Acts 19:28-30).

….

As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, “May I say something to you?” And he said, “Do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian, then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people.” And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language (Acts 21:37-40).

I look forward to meeting Paul one day. He plunged his coracle over the edge of the world almost 2,000 years ago, but I would guess that his personality has remained the same.

Skunked Expressions

I’ve finally found the answer, the right name for a particular problem I face often due to my chosen line of work, Stalwart Opponent of Lexicographical Prescriptivism (SOLP).

The problem is this: I happen to know that there’s no “rule” against splitting infinitives, ending a sentence with a preposition, or using “hopefully” the way all of us do—the list could go on. Who has the authority to make such a rule? The President? (If so, grammar would change every four to eight years!) But I’m afraid of appearing not to know to educated people out there who, having once been enlightened in grammar school, have yet to be enlightened again—to the true truth about what is permissible in language. I know these things I’ve listed are okay, because most educated people use them. But they—you know, those people—think I’m breaking imaginary rules handed down by the founder of English. What shall I do?

The name for words, phrases, and constructions that fit into this forlorn category is this: skunked. And I got it from The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style by Bryan A. Garner.

In Garner’s discussion of the word hopefully, he points out that opposition to its usage in sentences like “Hopefully it won’t rain tomorrow” arose mainly in the 1960s. But, he says, everyone knows what people mean when they use the word. The battle is now over.

Except with people who don’t know it’s over. (That was a fragment—but it’s okay, truly.) Garner writes,

Though the controversy swirling around this word has subsided, it is now a skunked term. Avoid it in all senses if you’re concerned with your credibility: if you use it in the traditional way, many readers will think it odd; if you use it in the newish way, a few readers will tacitly tut-tut you.

I think “skunked” is a helpful category. My arch-nemeses, those terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad Stalwart Opponents of Lexicographical Descriptivism (SOLDs), periodically elect certain expressions to Defend At All Costs. (Lanham tells of a usage panelist who placed “a sign on her door prohibiting entry to anyone who misuses ‘hopefully.’”) They are effectively stealing those expressions from we the people; and few SOLDs will ever be won over to the light and freedom of SOLP. It’s like trying to combat an urban legend. It’s like whack-a-mole. It’s like getting most husbands to notice without being told when laundry needs to be moved from the washer to the dryer.

The best I can do is take care for the civilians in the middle and try to pull some of them to safety. For the time being, hopefully, I’ll avoid skunked expressions when I’m writing formally. No need to get those nemeses riled up. They might start their own blog and steal half my readers. But I’ll still have one left!

The Flip Side

Duncan Johnson made a valid comment on a recent post. The Internet may be an opiate for the people, but that’s not the whole story. So here’s something on the flip side.

I recently attended a large evangelical-ish church while on vacation (and limited by snow from going elsewhere). It was a part of the Churches of Christ, a group known for its belief in baptismal regeneration. But I wouldn’t have been able to tell that very well from anything I was told or handed, because its more important identity was that of a mega-church of the standard American variety. A praise team opened the service with a 15-minute set, singing praise and worship as we all stood, many silently. Then we got a two-minute meditation (not too bad; he mostly just read the Scripture). And then communion was handed out—but perfunctorily, with no explanation of what was going on. I declined it.

Then the teaching pastor got up to speak. To be honest, he was a good speaker. Easy to listen to. He didn’t look as cool as the stereotype. No soul patch. And he lasted over 30 minutes—though he did say a few things like, “Jesus doesn’t roll with that.”

He didn’t stay very close to his text, but he did make some good, well-worded points. And then came the shocker. The pastor, despite this being a Church of Christ, quoted Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll in his sermon. He quoted no one else by name.

I immediately thought, “The Internet is doing something good.” This is a guy who would have no denominational reasons that I know of to seek out exegesis-toting Calvinists. Whatever else Keller and Driscoll are (and I tend to find a lot more help in the former than in the latter), they are that. And 20 years ago, I wonder if anything written by people like them would have even found its way into his hands. But the Internet has changed things. Good material is readily available to anyone who lands in that particular province of the blogosphere.

And check out this church I ran across: it’s Mennonite, but look at who is influencing the pastor. His articles page features Piper, Frame, Challies, DeYoung, and Priolo, and his recommended reading list looks like a bestseller list from the Young, Restless, and Reformed bookstore.

I consider this kind of influence to be a good thing, despite all the evil the Internet has sludged into our culture. And I am partly a product of that influence. I write this blog with wise words ringing in my ears all the time, words I wouldn’t have heard myself but for the Internet:

Instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can. —John Piper

Forks and Finnish

Don’t blame my parents, but I didn’t know until I was 27 that the two different-sized forks in the silverware drawer had different names and purposes. (Don’t blame me either. Blame the Democrats, I think.) One fork is for salad, while the other is a dinner fork. The first fork is shorter, the second longer.

This distinction is observed across dozens or hundreds of silverware designs.* But why? Who said this is the way it should be done? The International Bureau of Cutlery Standards? No, I’m sure that’s not it, because the Americans and Soviets would never have agreed to abide by any joint fork rules. Each of them would suspect that the other was rigging the system.

Forks and Language

There’s no official fork standard. It’s just custom. And in this case custom is a powerful force, just as it is in language. I’ll guess that in America it would be hard to purchase a quality set of cutlery that did not observe this distinction between forks.*

But there’s a difference between the custom governing silverware and the custom ruling most words in language. There is something intrinsic in the two major kinds of forks that makes them appropriate for their uses. Longer, narrower forks are better for the varied foods they’re required to spear, while shorter forks with weightier tines on the sides are better for salad. You need to cut some things in salad with the side of your fork, and you don’t want to get too much salad stuck on it. That would be unwieldy for most American mouth sizes (cable news hosts have the money to buy custom cutlery).

So these two forks are unlike most English words, because most of the latter have no intrinsic connection to what they name. Always has no more of a link to “alwaysness” than does the equivalent Spanish word, siempre. Tree isn’t necessarily a better name for those tall plants with branches than puno (Filipino), puu (Finnish), or arbre (French).

Since fork size does have a connection to fork usage, forks are more like onomatopoetic words, the kinds of words that sound like the thing they’re naming. Buzz puts the sound of a bee’s wings into a word. Splash makes something like the sound water does when my son plays in it.

The two major forks are also like onomatopoetic words in that different cultures may alter them  while still maintaining some link between form and function. The French, the Spaniards, and the Swedes may observe regional variations in fork design—just like French, Spanish, and Swedish all have something similar-to-but-not-the-same-as our word meow (miaou, miau, and mjau).

Of course, that’s also because cats around the world all speak the same language.

I guess cats didn’t help build the Tower of Babel.

And I imagine they don’t use different-sized forks.*

*Following blogosphere custom, I have written this claim from my armchair and have avoided doing any actual “research.”

Western Assumptions about Technology

Americans assume that the Internet is a tool for democracy. Not necessarily so, says a new book (or rather a review of it).

Authoritarian regimes make an implicit deal with their populations: help yourselves to pirated films, silly video clips and online pornography, but stay away from politics. “The internet”, Mr Morozov argues, “has provided so many cheap and easily available entertainment fixes to those living under authoritarianism that it has become considerably harder to get people to care about politics at all.”

And not just politics, I’d say.

And not just those living under authoritarianism…

Dissertation Completed—Sort Of!

I have reached the end of the dissertation, but I’m 3,395 words over my absolute top word limit and I have some editing to do anyway. I hope to accomplish that today.

I praise the Lord for in-laws who let me work in their basement for two weeks (they got time with their one grandchild out of it!) and for a wife who supported me.

I also praise the Lord for the opportunity to study His special and general revelation.

On the special revelation side, I was really deeply struck with how much Paul loved other Christians, perhaps especially his own converts. I was also struck by how consistently he looked for faith and love (and a little less often hope) as evidences of grace in Christian congregations. That’s the rubric I’ll use from now on.

On the general revelation side, I can say I do love language. Relevance theory, lexical pragmatics—so fun! And I do think I have something original to say about ἀγάπη because of my forays into those fields. But we’ll see what the committee thinks! If you’re a friend, pray that the Lord would give me good success throughout the rest of the dissertation process. Here’s how it will go:

• Jan 15—I turn in a rough draft.
• Feb 15—I turn in a final (defense) draft.
• Mar 15—I defend the dissertation before my four committee members (date approximate).

Christmas Baby

A little cuteness for my snowed-in Greenville friends to enjoy.

(If anyone happens to drive past my house in Taylors, can you let me know if any pipes appear to have burst or any tree limbs have destroyed the roof? I am a little concerned…)

Preserving the Truth Almost-Live Blog (Friday, Jan 7)

Instead of writing the last few pages of my dissertation, I’m at the Preserving the Truth Conference at First Baptist Church of Troy. Here are my notes from last night:

Breakout Sessions

Scott Aniol argued this, if I could boil it down: we can’t have a-cultural church music; we’re going to get our music from somewhere. So why would we choose music that is a pagan cultural expression of pagans to pagans? Culture is an expression of a complex set of values. Why not choose the music nurtured by centuries in a, broadly speaking, Christian culture? The Western tradition may not have been developed solely by regenerated people, but it grew in a culture constrained by transcendent values consistent with biblical values.

My brief evaluation: Scott is picking up wise footnotes and sharpening a message he’s been giving for a good while. I found this to be a genuine help to me, at least in understanding Scott—but more so in answering a question I’ve had: “If music is partially culturally relative—that is, appropriate church music in Botswana will sound different from that of Kazakhstan—then how do you select which music in our culture is appropriate for worship?” Scott was forthright about his violation of political correctness: he thinks Western music is likely a better starting place even for Botswanans and Kazaks than indigenous music—if that music is so shaped by paganism that it is not a fit vessel for gospel truth. Scott was focusing almost his whole time on reading our (John Frame alert) situation and not parsing biblical norms or people’s motivations. This is a valuable service, but I’m going to have to let this simmer for a good while.

Mike Riley argued this, if I could boil it down: Fundamentalism intuitively gets a truth that Van Til argued for with lengthy verbiage, a truth that evangelicals don’t get: the antithesis. Out of the abundance of a Westminster apologetics PhD’s heart Mike spoke, giving an energetic primer on presuppositionalism and connecting it (effectively, I thought) in a few places to the fundamentalist idea. Fundamentalists understand that light has no fellowship with darkness.

Plenary Sessions

Chris Anderson argued this, if I could boil it down: Jude wanted to write about the gospel, but he had to write about contending for the faith. We ought to delight in the gospel. Separatism shouldn’t get more red-meat amens in our churches than the gospel does. Even Jude ends his epistle about contending for the faith with an exhortation to build ourselves up in it. Churches that delight in the gospel are God’s way of defending His people. We have a sword in one hand, yes, but the well-built wall is the best defense.

Mark Minnick argued this, if I could boil it down: the gospel deals with who Jesus was (God and man), what He said, and what He did. And the most central passage defining the gospel is Romans 3:21-26. My pastor preached with passion and eloquence.

I’ve enjoyed my time here, seen some beloved friends, and had some good fellowship. I’ll post some more notes in a bit, Lord willing.

Which Commentary Set Should I Buy?

If you’ve never used BestCommentaries.com, you’re in for a treat. You can search for commentaries by book, by set, and by author. I find myself most often searching by book, because on the Romans page, for instance, all the commentaries will be ranked by an aggregate of recommenders.

John Dyer, the man who runs the site, has done an excellent job with it. And he recently (I think) added a chart showing how commentary sets stack up against one another. It will help you understand this post if you look at that chart first. But here’s a snippet:

I realized that with a little Excel wizardry, I could come up with an average score for each commentary set he lists. A low score means that a given set had more top-rated commentaries. Here are the top seven (the bolded ones are part of the Logos Platinum package):

I have all of these in Logos except for Tyndale (I have most of the books in analog form, and they’re for sale so I can get the electronic versions) and NIVAC. I use them all, and I agree with these rankings.

The rest of the list is as follows (those bolded are evangelical; the others are predominantly liberal):

There are many other commentary sets, but a jury of your peers (and of those none of us could hope to be peers with) has tended to coalesce around these as responsible and useful.

Note that some of them, such as the Word Biblical Commentary, have a high number of liberal works. I wouldn’t make the WBC my first purchase.

But if you can get the Logos Platinum package and then save up the thousand or so bucks for the NICOT/NICNT, you’ll have four of the top seven—plus one set that should be on that list, the NIGTC; and one worth checking if you have it, Hendriksen and Kistemaker’s BNTC.

If you get physical books instead, you can just pick and choose the best available commentaries. I haven’t done the math to figure out how you’d be better off. But I prefer having my commentaries in Logos. Reference work like these are the kind of books I don’t mind reading on a computer screen.

The Singular We

A minor exegetical note that I’m sure I’m not the first to notice but did just now: Do you sometimes get the sense that Paul is using something like the “royal we” (“Unhand our royal person!”), that when he says “we” he means “me”? Here’s some evidence that you were right.

When we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith (1 Thess 3:1-2).

“We were willing to be left…alone.” If there’s a we, what does Paul mean by saying he’s alone? I think he’s alone alone. I think “we” here means just Paul.

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at Paul’s example of thanksgiving, hope, joy, and love, and I can say that he did deeply love his converts. He was alert to evidences of God’s grace in their lives (including especially their faith and love), and he took great joy when they through the Spirit displayed those graces. Paul is a divine example for us, and my wife and I have been thanking God for His grace in the lives of those we love. We’ve had the privilege to see it first-hand in the lives of her parents while they have graciously housed us for several weeks as I work on my dissertation. Praise God for His glorious grace!

MacLaren on Christ’s Teaching

Christ’s ‘originality’ as a moral teacher lies not so much in the absolute novelty of His commandments, as in the perspective in which He sets them, and in the motives on which He bases them, and most of all in His being more than a teacher, namely, the Giver of power to fulfil what He enjoins. Christian ethics not merely recognises the duty of love to men, but sets it as the foundation of all other duties. It is root and trunk, all others are but the branches into which it ramifies.

—Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (Heritage Educational Systems, 2008), Matt 5:43.

Two People Who Made It Into The Kingdom From Jericho 1400 Years Apart

I shared the following devotional message with my church’s Israel tour group this past summer. I was able to preach this from within the walls of ancient Jericho. It was a very special experience and opportunity.

God is creator of the whole world, not just Jews and not just Christians. So when he chose one man, Abraham, to be the father of His special possession, the Jews, He didn’t forget us redheaded Gentiles. He said to Abraham, “Through you all families of the earth will be blessed.”

And when God constituted the nation of Israel as He gave them His law, He told them they were supposed to be “a kingdom of priests.” That is, they were supposed to do for other nations what the levitical priests did for them: they were supposed to mediate God; they were supposed to show to the Gentiles what God is like.

And when God ended the wilderness wanderings, He had Moses tell the people this: “I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (Deut 4:5-6)

So Moses dies, and as Joshua takes over and the conquest of Canaan begins Israel gets its first opportunity to be a blessing to the nations, to mediate God to them. They may have forgotten God’s words about this as they sharpened their swords and spears and prepared to do battle in Hazor and other places. But God didn’t forget.

He prepared one heart, and for all we know only this one among all the Canaanites. It was the heart of a prostitute who lived in a wall.

Joshua 2:1–24 (Incidentally, my friend and fellow church member Kevin Oberlin wrote a section of his dissertation on this passage, and I got some significant help from it.)

Rahab Hides the Spies

1 And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. 2 And it was told to the king of Jericho, “Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.” 3 Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. 5 And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” 6 But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. 7 So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. And the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out.

8 Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof 9 and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. 10 For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. 11 And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. 12 Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father’s house, and give me a sure sign 13 that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.”

I just think, as our dear pastor would say, that this is remarkable. Rahab says what Joshua 5 later doubly confirms: she was not the only one who feared the Israelites. Great kings behind massive stone walls lost all heart.

But Rahab appears to be the only one who was led to conclude that she ought to shift her allegiance. This confession of hers would really sound ridiculous if it weren’t true. How did a prostitute living in a Canaanite wall and, more than likely, worshiping an assortment of local deities, conclude from the gossip she heard about the Israelites that, really, monotheism was the way to go and Yahweh was “God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath”!? And it wasn’t just that she added Yahweh to her pantheon of many gods. She said, “The Lord your God, He is God.” This whole confession almost sounds like the kind of story someone might invent after the fact to make their side look good.

But it’s not. It’s God at work using the Israelites to mediate His presence to the world and to be a blessing to the world. This is what God said He wanted done, and now He’s doing it! He shows mercy before He brings judgment. It’s like He kept the door open till the last second. Does anyone have any question that this is a perfect example of the kind of thing God does? He picks the weak things of this world to confound the mighty; He draws certain people to Himself. Yahweh, Lord of heaven and earth, made every other Jericho prostitute die for her many sins. He made this one the great grandmother of the Messiah.

14 And the men said to her, “Our life for yours even to death! If you do not tell this business of ours, then when the LORD gives us the land we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.” 15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she lived in the wall.

Now a little aside: Is this trip to Israel worth it? Yes! It certainly helped me picture what I was reading in the OT. I was a little surprised myself that it happened so fast! As I studied up for this little devotional I could see a tell in my mind with its many buildings—and what kind of walls? What kind of walls have we learned about which make sense of the fact that Rahab lived inside the wall? Casemate walls! Remember? These are a double set of walls with open space in between which can be used for living or storage space and filled with dirt or stones when a threat of attack arises. I don’t know that this was the case in Jericho, but it certainly makes better sense than the non-descript picture I used to have. If it was the case, the later fall of the walls is perhaps all the more remarkable. It defied gravity.

I don’t have time to talk about it, but I wanted to point out that at least one other person made it into the kingdom from Jericho, Bartimaeus. And he got in much the same way Rahab did: he was desperate, so He begged for mercy from the God of Israel in the human form of the Son of David.

I want to make one application of this passage, but it might be a little odd for you. I want to back up a bit and just say that in your Bible interpretation, perhaps especially your OT interpretation, you must always keep in mind that you are reading one small part of a big story: what God is doing to redeem His fallen world. You will have some framework in mind whether you mean to or not, so you might as well adopt the Bible’s framework, something summarized well in Jonah 2:9, “Salvation is of the Lord.”

God cares for unfortunates. He has mercy on those who don’t deserve it. And He wants members of all peoples to praise Him in His kingdom. His kingdom will restore the world to the way that it is supposed to be. And He will mercifully bring people like Rahab—and you—inside the safety of walls that will never fall.