Io voglio credere!

One place I visited in Israel was the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, named after Jesus’ famous prediction of Peter’s denials. The site afforded a nice view of the Aceldama (see picture) and the intersection of the Hinnom and Kidron valleys.

We didn’t go inside the church, because we weren’t in the country to venerate relics but to see as many biblical sites as is humanly possible in two weeks! But many others do comes to Israel just to touch holy sites. Our guide told us that Roman Catholics make for the easiest tour groups because all they want to do is go to a mass in a famous church in the morning, eat a leisurely lunch, then go to another mass in another famous church in the afternoon, followed by a leisurely dinner.

One such group, composed mostly of elderly Italians, arrived at the Church of Gallicantu while we were there. We were scattered over the site having a private devotional time while they were climbing up the steps Jesus supposedly walked up toward Caiphas’ house the night before the crucifixion. Some Catholic pilgrims climb up those steps on their knees.

I sat alone on a ledge overlooking those steps and reading my Bible. A little elderly Italian lady walked up to me and sat down right next to me, smiling. I’ll try to reconstruct the Italian:

“Stai pregando?” She folded her hands like she was praying.

“I’m reading my Bible,” I replied in Italian-accented Spanish—which my brief experience in Italy on a mission trip showed me can take you a certain distance.

“Voi credete!” she said. That is, “You believe, don’t you!”

“I believe the Bible,” I said. I didn’t know how to say, “I don’t go in for the Catholic accretions so much” in Italian or Spanish.

“I am always happy when young people believe,” she said. “I have a missionary friend in Africa who works with many young people.”

Then she said, “Io, no.” In other words, “I don’t believe.” She said it sadly, not rudely or self-assuredly.

Then she added, “Io voglio credere.” I searched the mental files for cognates, and one came up fast. “Voglio”—like voluntary or volunteer—must have to do with one’s will or desire. “I want to believe” is what she was saying.

So I opened to Ephesians 2:8-9 on my Kindle Bible, and I translated it into Spanish: “For by grace you are saved, through faith, and that is not from yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast.” I told her, “Faith is a gift.”

“Perché non ho il regalo?—Why don’t I have this gift?”

“You have to ask for it,” I said. Our conversation ended. I am pregando that she will ask for il regalo.

Tel Aviv Conversations

At the end of my Israel tour, Continental Airlines offered me a generous voucher if I would delay my flight from Tel-Aviv. They put me and one other volunteer up in a  beautiful brand new hotel downtown.

The other volunteer, Kay*, was a very nice middle-aged American lady who had been to Israel many times. She is a former evangelical Christian who stands now somewhere in between Christianity and Judaism.

Kay and I talked for a while about religion. She told me explicitly, “I am no longer a Christian.” She argued that the Talmud gives a more trustworthy interpretation of Jesus than the New Testament does. I argued the reverse, of course, and I decided that the most important passage to bring up was the New Covenant promise in Jeremiah 31:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

The point of this all-important passage is that the Mosaic Covenant had a built-in flaw. Not every member got a new heart from God. In other words, not every Jewish man or woman was regenerated—or, in Jesus’ words in John 3, “born from above.” The OT is the story of total depravity winning out over the promises the nation made to obey the Lord. Jeremiah promises that no member of the New Covenant will have to encourage any other member to “Know the Lord,” because knowing the Lord will be part of the covenant itself. This is one of the most essential points the Bible makes: God must change people on the inside for them to truly obey. Race or education aren’t enough.

When I began to quote these verses, I was surprised to find that Kay was already familiar with them. Only she missed the point. She seized instead upon the mention of the “two houses,” Israel and Judah. Then she excitedly pointed me to the writings of Yair Davidiy at Brit-Am (Covenant People), a group whose goal is to show that the supposedly lost ten tribes of Israel are scattered around the world today but can be located in Western nations and brought back to the land. My friend believed that her visceral love for Israel, something which came unexpectedly to her on her first visit, was proof that she was part of one of these lost tribes.

When I got home, I looked up britam.org, and I immediately began looking over their scriptural proofs. The first one I ran across wasn’t promising. Britam finds “representative democracy” in the meaning of the name Manasseh and then surmises that this particular lost tribe is to be found in the USA! But the verse they point to, Gen. 41:51, already tells us what "Manasseh" meant to Joseph: it was a testimony to God’s grace in bringing him out of his hardships. It meant "forget." Even if, by a wild stretch, someone could prove that Manasseh means "representative democracy," which democracy would it be referring to? The US isn’t the only one.

I have seen some pretty wild argumentation. (There are, of course, Christian preachers whose Bible interpretation descends to this level at times.) But I was, frankly, amazed by Brit-Am. They found another “scriptural proof” of their view in the supposed fact that the word "Yankee" (i.e., American) derives from "Jacob" ("Yaaqov" in Hebrew)! “Ephraim” is supposed to refer to the nobility of England; “bullock” refers to “John Bull.”

How could anyone possibly take this seriously?

2 Thessalonians 2 provides an answer to that question. Even though it is an eschatological passage, it is surely true today that there are people who “refuse to love the truth and so be saved,” people to whom “God sends…a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.”

Brit-Am is not only false but embarrassing. I do feel sad that anyone, especially such a nice lady as Kay, would give any credence to it.

*Not her real name.

Extravagant Music

While I was on the Israel tour, I had some great discussions about modern choral music with Aaron Greene. It’s always a thrill to find someone who likes the same arcane stuff I do, let alone someone who already liked it during his freshman year when I had never heard of it!

He highly recommended a premier set of choral recordings, and I’ve been sampling them a little bit. It’s called the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, an unprecedented act of musical extravagance! John Eliot Gardiner and his fellow musicians attempted, according to the BCP website, “to perform all Bach’s surviving church cantatas on the appointed feast day and all within a single year.” They even tried to perform them in the place for which they were originally intended to be sung! What an undertaking!

I took a little time to watch the six YouTube videos describing the pilgrimage, and I was struck by the one of the recurring themes in the musicians’ comments: they didn’t really believe the Christianity underlying the music, but they said that singing all Bach’s cantatas was a powerfully religious experience anyway. One violinist, Matthew Truscott, said something I found especially interesting:

God puts on his best show with Bach. And I don’t think there is an alternative sort of inspiration other than Christianity that really triggers the music properly. I think that is really the ultimate key to it. It’s a shame I don’t believe it quite myself.

Here’s a man who understands Bach’s music and appreciates it at a level I may never, a non-Christian who saw Christianity as its essential ingredient. The website address for the pilgrimage even features Bach’s famous sign-off, “Soli Deo Gloria.” I see God’s common grace at work here in a mighty way. There is something high and holy about true beauty, and sometimes people who will not submit to it can see it more clearly than those who by God’s grace have submitted. God causes His rain to fall on the fields of the just and the unjust.

I’m thankful for the illumination God has given me in reading His Word, and I want more. I’m also thankful for the illumination He has given me in reading His general revelation—including especially the divine beauty He has placed in good art and music. And I want more.

Mebbe Tevye

I was somewhat skeptical about the value of touring Israel before I found out I was going myself! I am no longer skeptical. I do believe in the value of a visit and a thorough tour. Let me list off some of the benefits of my two-week trip:

• It is valuable to stand on the top of a hill with a map and actually see the Jezreel Valley (aka the plain of Esdraelon) spread out before you, with the mountains closing off your view to the left and the terrain dropping down to the Jordan Rift on your right. Can you picture that by looking at the following picture from the Holman Bible Atlas? I doubt it. A live, 3D picture is worth 3,000 words.

• Next, I’ve gotten a real sense for the spatial relationship of the various towns and cities appearing in the Bible. Capernaum, Bethsaida, Galilee, Hazor, and other Bible places now call up not just images, but 3D space and tactile experience.  I have already experienced reading the Bible with a new vividness just because I’ve been to the places it mentions.
• I also benefited from seeing the terrain, from the rockiness of the many otherwise green hills to the desert areas around the Dead Sea.
• I loved seeing the people. We ran into dozens and dozens of school groups in Jerusalem, and I thought it was fascinating to watch the Jewish and Muslim kids and adults there and elsewhere.
• I didn’t think this would matter much to me, but I did thoroughly enjoy standing in some of the very places where famous things have happened. Probably the highlights in this category for me were preaching on Rahab on the Jericho tel and standing inside Qumran cave 1 (see pic below), where the major Isaiah scroll was found. I had been hiking all over the hillside to find the cave before someone else finally located it, and that gave me a feel for the forbiddenness of the Qumran area.

• I was confirmed in my disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church. I have never in my life been in a darker, more terrible place than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. My feelings exactly matched those of Carl Trueman when he visited Rome recently.
• Lastly, I have a wonderful pastor who gave some soul-stirring devotionals in the various places we visited. My immense debt to him only increased during this visit.

Here are a few photos I took in Jerusalem:

Jewish man near Wailing Wall

Boy at his Bar Mitvah at the Wailing Wall

Bar Mitzvah celebrants on the ladies’ side of the fence at the Wailing Wall

Me at the Wailing Wall

Here’s one last photo marking a special event. Right after this shot was taken in Samaria (now Sebastia, near Nablus), the older guys in the village came out in soccer gear to challenge the visitors to a friendly game. I’m not a soccer player, but I can run fast and pretend for a few minutes. Our tour group’s younger guys went out and played, we mixed up teams so that it wasn’t Americans vs. all, and we had a great time. I do love people, and that was one thing I wish I could change about my visit: I wish I could have spoken to more Israelis—Jewish, Muslim, Druze, or whatever—about their beliefs and their daily life.

Israel

I’m off to Israel early tomorrow morning. The Lord provided funds for me to go for two weeks with my pastor. I hope to provide a few updates from the field. Mebbe (as they say in Hebrew—rhymes with “Rebbe”) daily ones. Mebbe.

Tyndale Tech

Make sure to check out Tyndale Tech’s latest release. David Instone-Brewer seems to know all about what’s going in the technology of biblical studies. He mentions a good number of interesting sites I wasn’t even aware of.

TNIV and NLT vs. Pretty Much Everybody Else On Something Kind of Important

Most major translations agree that man is to have dominion “over all the earth.”

Genesis 1:26 (NIV) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

ESV—”over all the earth”
RSV—”over all the earth”
NASB—”over all the earth”
KJV—”over all the earth”
NET—”over all the earth”
HCSB—”all the earth”
NKJV—”over all the earth”
LXX—πάσης τῆς γῆς

But three major translations have another rendering:

The TNIV renders the same Hebrew phrase (וּבְכָל־הָאָרֶץ) with “all the wild animals,” while the NLT has “all the wild animals on the earth.” The NRSV is different by one word: “over all the wild animals of the earth.”

A note in the TNIV explains that, in the committee’s judgment, this is the “probable reading of the original Hebrew text (see Syriac),” while the Masoretic Text has “the earth.”

Neither of my top two Genesis commentaries (Wenham and Hamilton) even mention this question, but the UBS Translator’s Handbook does include a note:

The Hebrew Masoretic text has “and over all the earth,” which the authors of the Hebrew Old Testament Textual Project (HOTTP) rate as {A}. Another textual variant is “and over all the animals of the earth”; HOTTP believes this may be the original form and therefore suggests placing it in a footnote.

The difference seems pretty important! Either mankind has dominion over the animals or over all the earth. But note that whether this phrase gives man dominion “over all the earth” or not, he still has dominion over all the animals—and, perhaps more importantly, the passage still says man is to “subdue” the earth. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (1:28).

Some Christians are fearful of this verse because of postmillennial or Reconstructionist overreach, but note that the Bible never abrogates this command. Subduing the earth and having dominion over it remain part of our marching orders even as Christians. I find that fact liberating. It means, to get down to the nitty and the quite gritty, that the mulching and digging and beautifying I did last week in my yard wasn’t a waste even if no one notices it. I subdued my little plot of ground. (Except for those nasty stumps! But I have purchased a few subduing mechanisms at Home Depot!)

I think it means even more, however. It means that God built a justification for the domains of human culture and the academic disciplines into His blueprint for humanity. This may sound like overreach on my own part, and I’m still exploring this topic, but here’s what I mean: As soon as you start trying to subdue the earth, to “make something of it” you might say, you run into agronomy, science, engineering. As soon as you subdue the earth into a garden or subdue a river by bridging it, you’re into art and architecture. Such as they are, gardens and bridges and wisely fallowed fields honor God by honoring His design for the world.

That design comes in two forms: God’s special and His general revelation. His special revelation in Scripture tells you to build your bridge for God’s glory and out of love for your neighbor who uses it to commute. His general revelation tells you to construct your garden according to the principles of beauty (color, shape, size, proportion) He built into the world. There are, then, Christian ways to engineer and garden. You will subdue whether you have God in mind or not, but you should subdue for Him (Rom. 11:36; Col. 1:16).

The Fall frustrates our attempts at subduing. The world doesn’t quite work the way it should because it’s groaning under the same weight of sin we are (Rom. 8:22). Only when God puts all things in subjection under Christ’s feet will all bridges and gardens—and every other product of human earth-subduing—give full honor to God (1Cor. 15:20-28). But it’s striking that God never said, “Eh, forget that subduing stuff. There’s more important work to do.”

So Christian engineers and gardeners (to name just a few of the vocations) don’t have to feel like they are wasting their time. They have many other obligations in God’s world (including Matt. 28:19-20!), but in their daily work they’re doing what God said to do.

Ἀγαπάω Is Commanded While Φιλέω Is Not, So the Former Is More Volitional Than the Latter

Have you ever heard someone argue that ἀγαπάω is commanded in the New Testament while φιλέω is not, so the former is more volitional than the latter?

Immediately, anyone familiar with the work of linguist and biblical scholar James Barr should be suspicious. He warned that “belief in the necessary reflection of theological structures in the linguistic structures…causes the distortion of linguistic evidence.” This point of the standard view of ἀγάπη love is an excellent example of what Barr is criticizing.

The point is also very significant, because it is the primary exegetical argument proponents of the standard view make for seeing ἀγάπη as a volitional (that is, non-emotional) love. Without this argument’s support, arguing that ἀγάπη is volitional becomes much more complex and difficult (I would say impossible) because it means examining many different contexts to see whether the Bible actually says in sentences that Christian love is supposed to be primarily volitional.

Many linguistic arguments can be made against this point. Here are six.

1. First, meaning is not tied as directly to morphology as this argument supposes. Speech-act theory has shown that you can “do” more things with a declarative sentence than merely make propositions. When the God of the universe speaks through Scripture, whatever He says in any grammatical mood constitutes a norm, something you must believe, love, do, etc. Just because a sentence includes no imperatives does not mean it includes no commands. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked” (Ps. 1:1), for example, constitutes a command: do not walk in the counsel of the wicked. So does “Jesus…loved him” (Mk. 10:21): we ought to love others, too. The imperative mood is not the necessary ingredient which creates obligations for the readers of Scripture.In fact, some imperatives in Scripture are not commands for believers to follow. Context makes this clear. Obviously, Jesus’ command, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (Jn. 13:27) is delimited by context to exclude everyone but Judas. “Be angry, and do not sin” (Ps. 4:4; Eph. 4:26) is not as straightforward an imperative as it sounds, either. It is delimited by its canonical context to exclude many reasons for anger.

   In addition, some sentences which contain no grammatical imperatives are still rightfully translated with one in English: “Τίμιος ὁ γάμος” and “Ἀφιλάργυρος ὁ τρόπος” (Heb. 13:4, 5) are both translated as imperatives: “Let marriage be held in honor” and “Keep your life free from the love of money.”

   Also, there are grammatical imperatives in OT prophecy which are sarcastic and therefore not meant as “commands” for anyone, and there are grammatical imperatives elsewhere in Scripture which are essentially optatives. These linguistic arguments mean that an examination of the full context of each use of ἀγάπη is necessary to determine whether or not the stress is on volition. The mere fact that there are no imperatives of φιλεῖν does not say anything either way about its volitionality. If the NT were longer, it could have used φιλεῖν in the imperative. The word appears only 25 times in the NT to ἀγαπᾶν’s 143. Ἀγαπᾶν itself occurs in the imperative only ten times in the NT. This argument appears to be guilty, then, of a kind of insufficient sampling—as are most arguments in the lexical theology tradition.

2. A second linguistic argument against this point comes from NT usage. There are clearly laudable instances of φιλέω which believers are meant to emulate, and which are therefore in a definite sense “commanded”: Jesus’ love for Lazarus (Jn. 11:3, 36); the disciples’ love for Jesus (Mt. 10:37; Jn. 16:27); God’s love for His Son (Jn. 5:20); God’s love for us (Jn. 16:27). And 1 Corinthians 16:22 certainly constitutes a command to φιλεῖν: “If anyone has no love for (φιλεῖ) the Lord, let him be accursed.” If this were not enough, forms of φιλέω are coupled with imperatives and commanded of Christians. There are combining forms using φιλέω that believers are told to have: “Let brotherly love (φιλαδελφία) continue” (Heb. 13:1); “Train the young women to love their husbands (φιλάνδρους) and children (φιλοτέκνους)” (Titus 2:4). Interpreters regularly point out that men are commanded to love their wives (Eph. 5:25ff.) while women are never commanded to love their husbands. A woman’s love for her spouse is commonly thought to be natural. But Titus 2:4 constitutes such a command, and it uses a combining form of φιλέω—the supposedly natural and instinctive form of love—to do so.Is a theological conclusion—one in the domain of theological anthropology in this case—the best one to draw from the fact that φιλεῖν is never found in the imperative in the NT? Its presence in the imperative in the OT suggests that a linguistic explanation may be better: φιλεῖν in the imperative meant “kiss.” In Gen. 27:26 and Sng. 1:2, the verb appears in the imperative with that sense. Perhaps Jesus, in choosing ἀγαπᾶν for the Great Commandment, was not rejecting a lesser or even different form of love; He simply was not saying, “Kiss the Lord with all your heart.” Only a usage survey can say.
3. Third, Roy Butler has listed the adverbial modifiers that accompany ἀγαπάω and φιλέω, and he notes that while positive words modify both ἀγαπάω (to love “in sincerity,” “in deed,” “in truth,” “unto the death,” “much,” “more abundantly”) and φιλέω (to love “in the faith,” “more”), negative modifiers accompany only ἀγαπάω (to love “little,” “less,” “in word,” “in tongue”). He comments with tongue in cheek, “From these facts it would be reasonable to infer that agapao connotes a love which, depending on circumstances, is good or bad; but phileo connotes a love which is good only.” But Butler’s faux argument is linguistically equivalent to the argument from grammatical mood which is the subject of this post. Interpreters using either would be finding theological significance where God put none.
4. Fourth, does this type of argumentation work with any other NT synonyms? The three words for “wash”—νίπτω, πλύνω, and λούω—have very similar overall usages in the NT (55, 43, 55 times, respectively), but νίπτω is commanded more often than the other two combined. Is the kind of washing communicated by νίπτω a more volitional kind of washing?
5. Fifth, does this method of study admit of degrees? Λαλέω is commanded proportionally almost four times more often than its closest synonym, λέγω. Does this mean that λαλέω speech is approximately four times more volitional than λέγω speech? (Does it mean, in fact, that φιλέω is not volitional at all since it is never commanded?)Does verbal inspiration truly demand that Bible interpreters find theological significance in every linguistic or stylistic choice? This is Bible Code reasoning.It may be objected that volition is not at issue in such simple external actions as washing and speaking, so it will be appropriate to take an example from the same semantic domain as ἀγαπάω and φιλέω: is λυπέω equal to πενθέω in volitionality since they are commanded the same number of times in the NT+LXX—with similar overall usages outside the imperative? No one has ever thought to argue this way (I would suggest that is because no one’s theology is pushing him to do so, whereas a particular theology is pushing the volitional-love view).

   A final comment under this point: in the NT, ἐλέγχω is commanded twice as often as it synonym ἐπιτιμάω. However, if the LXX is included, the proportion of imperatives to overall uses is very similar between the two verbs. Perhaps this demonstrates that an effort to discern meaning from the relative frequency of synonyms (in various moods, even) invites linguistic pitfalls. We simply do not have all the Κοινή usage evidence.

6. Sixth and last, the verb ἀγαπάω is used in statements like “people loved the darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19) and in imperatives such as “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1Jn. 2:15). Many interpreters recognize that such uses make it clear that ἀγαπάω does not always mean Christian love. These interpreters insist, however, that the noun ἀγάπη can and does communicate Christian love. But the noun ἀγάπη, of course, is never found in the imperative mood! By giving up ἀγαπάω, they give up their key objective support for the view that ἀγάπη love is more volitional than others.

The argument that ἀγαπάω is more volitional than φιλέω because the latter is never found in the imperative mood has insurmountably grave linguistic problems. It is probably the weakest point in the standard view of ἀγάπη love.

If you made it this far, even if you are not a regular reader of my blog, you may have gathered that this is an excerpt from my dissertation (slightly blogified). I’m not sure if it’s good form to post excerpts from an ongoing work, but the web is an evolving medium and I’m taking the risk. I do so in part to ask you to interact with me. I just turned in the chapter containing this material. Prepare me for my committee’s barrages by giving me any critique you like.

Admittedly, this particular paragraph could be consistent with the overall point, because it would not matter whether ἀγαπάω is commanded of believers, only that it is commanded. But this paragraph is illustrating the general truth that grammatical form and theological meaning are not tied together in the way the standard view of ἀγάπη is supposing.

Lane comments, “By virtue of its position at the beginning of the sentence, τίμιος, ‘respected,’ is emphatic. The simple adjective is used imperatively here, and in 13:5 as well. This is a usage closely related to the imperatival participle, which is common in the Koine.” In other words, syntax—the smallest unit of context—can “overrule” grammatical form. William Lane, Word Biblical Commentary, Hebrews 9–13 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 508.

One example is “Your kingdom come” (Mt. 6:10). Randy Leedy suggests that “in classical Greek this would have been an optative.” Lecture notes, Exegesis of Matthew, Bob Jones Seminary, 10/7/01.

Greg Mazak anticipates this argument. Emotional Life of Jesus, 158.

Butler, Agapao and Phileo, 52.

Both mean “rebuke” or “reprove.”

Note what this means: 1 John 2:15, a usage of ἀγαπάω which clearly does not fit the standard view of what ἀγάπη means, has always been a full ten percent of its evidence for a major supporting point.

Turn Neither to the Right Hand nor to the… Wait… Mom, Which One is My Left?

I saved this whole article in my BibleWorks notes.

Here are the excerpts I highlighted for use as a future sermon illustration:

Not long ago, a team of researchers watched a 1-year-old boy take justice into his own hands. The boy had just seen a puppet show in which one puppet played with a ball while interacting with two other puppets. The center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the right, who would pass it back. And the center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the left . . . who would run away with it. Then the two puppets on the ends were brought down from the stage and set before the toddler. Each was placed next to a pile of treats. At this point, the toddler was asked to take a treat away from one puppet. Like most children in this situation, the boy took it from the pile of the “naughty” one. But this punishment wasn’t enough — he then leaned over and smacked the puppet in the head.

. . . .

From Sigmund Freud to Jean Piaget to Lawrence Kohlberg, psychologists have long argued that we begin life as amoral animals. One important task of society, particularly of parents, is to turn babies into civilized beings — social creatures who can experience empathy, guilt and shame; who can override selfish impulses in the name of higher principles; and who will respond with outrage to unfairness and injustice. Many parents and educators would endorse a view of infants and toddlers close to that of a recent Onion headline: “New Study Reveals Most Children Unrepentant Sociopaths.” If children enter the world already equipped with moral notions, why is it that we have to work so hard to humanize them?

A growing body of evidence, though, suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see glimmers of moral thought, moral judgment and moral feeling even in the first year of life. Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone.

I placed these paragraphs, of course, in my notes on Romans 2:15, “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

This is pretty well perfect for a sermon: A human interest story involving the cutest category of human. A statement of the “worldly” view. An unwitting scientific affirmation of Paul’s view.

I get innumerable illustrations from the New York Times.

A Smattering of Notes on Free Will

• Augustine in 426 wrote On Grace and Free Will.
• Erasumus wrote a book in 1524 called On the Freedom of the Will.
• Luther, an Augustinian, replied in 1525 with his book, On the Bondage of the Will.
• Edwards wrote a book in 1754 called Freedom of the Will, yes, but the full title was A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of the Will, Which Is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame. “Supposed” lets you know where he stood.
• The wittiest comment on the matter has to come from that old lexicographer Samuel Johnson: “We know the will is free, and there’s an end on’t.”

Now I invite commenters to guess which theological tradition the following statement on the issue comes from. No Googling, no Binging.

“Sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another.”

Biblical Theology, Practical Application, And Pendulum Swings

I found the following excerpt from Michael Lawrence’s new Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church (browse; buy) really helpful. I’ve been excited about the storyline view of Scripture, and I still believe it is primary. It is essential to know that the Bible is about what God is doing to redeem His fallen creation. But the existence of a primary purpose implies a secondary (and a tertiary?). Perhaps it’s analogous to words and discourses. You can’t have one without the other. I shy away from saying that they have “equal ultimacy” because many individual words could be dropped out without losing the discourse. For that reason I see the storyline of Scripture as primary.

What is the Bible? My own church’s statement of faith provides one possible answer, one that I think many of us tend to use. In our very first article of faith, we affirm that the Bible is “a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction,” that “it reveals principles by which God will judge us,” and therefore is “the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.” I think every single one of those statements is true, but notice their emphasis. The Bible is a collection of instructions, principles, and standards. To put it in more colloquial terms, the Bible is an “answer book” for life’s problems or a compendium of principles by which to live and die. But is this definition adequate for ministry?

Let’s take that definition of the Bible and apply it to a question the elders of my church recently faced. A family was considering making a large capital purchase. Yet to provide the required down payment, they would have had to alter their tithe to the church for a short period. They hoped to make it up to the church later, but there was no guarantee they could. They came to us for advice.

If the Bible is fundamentally an answer book, then we’ll expect to find a verse or passage that gives this family the counsel they need. But which passage do we turn to? Malachi 3:10—“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse”—seems to provide an answer, but then what do we do with 2 Corinthians 9:7? “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Consider also the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Does the story mean we should have warned this family, or is it just a story about what happened to two people in Jerusalem in a unique time of the church’s life with no normative implications for our lives? As you can see, the “answer book” approach to the Bible raises a host of questions before we even get to the answer we’re looking for.

Another possible answer to the question, “What is the Bible?” is that it’s a story, a narrative of God’s interaction with the world he made. Though there are lots of people in this story, it’s fundamentally about what God has done and will do to bring this world to judgment and his people to salvation. According to this working definition, the Bible reveals the plan of salvation and how God has accomplished that plan, first through Israel and finally through Jesus Christ. Is this definition more useful for ministry than the previous one?

Let’s apply it to the question we just considered. If the Bible is merely, or mostly, the story of God’s saving actions in history, then beyond trusting in Christ for their salvation, rather than in worldly riches, it doesn’t have much to say to their question. We might refer them to Luke 16 and the story of Lazarus and the rich man, or to Hebrews 11 and the character of faith which looks forward to “a better country—a heavenly one.” But at the end of the day, unless we revert to the answer book approach or to pragmatic wisdom, this definition of the Bible leaves us with very little to say to the family which wants to know if they can delay their tithe in order to purchase property. As you can see, the story of salvation approach to the Bible may be faithful to the main point, but it also seems to contradict 2 Peter 1:3, where we are promised that we have been given “everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

A Better Definition

So what should we do? What we need is a better understanding of what the Bible is, one that doesn’t reduce it to life’s little answer book, but keeps the focus on God, where it belongs. But we also need an understanding that doesn’t reduce it to the story of how we get saved and go to heaven, leaving the rest of life up for grabs. We need a working definition of the Bible that allows for systematic answers to almost any question that comes up, but that also provides those answers in the context of the biblical storyline itself. We don’t want to rip verses out of their context, and so misapply them, but neither do we want a story that never touches down into the nitty-gritty of our lives.

What Is the Chief End of Man?

What did the authors of the Westminster Catechism mean by “enjoy” in their first question? Did they mean what we mean by the word—”to take delight in”? Or did they in fact mean something different, “to give joy to”? Is man’s chief end “to glorify God and give joy to God forever”? I’ve seen people argue both ways, and I was curious to know who was right.

So I went to the best authorities in the field. I checked the OED, and I went to the original source, the Westminster Catechism. Here are the relevant portions from the OED entry for enjoy (v.):

2. a. trans. To put into a joyous condition; to make happy, give pleasure to. Obs.

• 1484 CAXTON Ryall Bk. Cj, For to gladde and enjoye the people.
• c1500 Melusine 150 Whos taryeng enjoyed her moche.
• 1502 Ord. Crysten Men IV. xxvii. (1506) 324 That it hym may enioye & recomforte in his spyryte.
• 1610 MARKHAM Masterp. II. li. 107 No meat will enioy or do good vnto him.

3. a. trans. To possess, use, or experience with delight. Also with reference to the feeling only: To take delight in, relish. Also absol.

• 1462 Paston Lett. No. 457 II. 109 Iche off us all schuld injoy the wylleffar off odyr.
• 1538 STARKEY England ii. 67 No one can long Enyoy plesure.
• 1597 SHAKES. 2 Hen. IV, IV. iv. 108 Such are the Rich, That haue aboundance, and enioy it not.
• a1639 Reliq. Wotton. 12 Both well enough injoying the present.
• 1667 MILTON P.L. IX. 829 Adam wedded to another Eve, Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct.
• 1713 ADDISON Cato (T.), I could enjoy the pangs of death And smile in agony.
• 1742 RICHARDSON Pamela III. 137 How he..injoys..the Relations of his own rakish Actions.
• 1870 E. PEACOCK Ralf Skirl II. ii. 10 William enjoyed the novelty very much.
• 1872 RUSKIN Eagle’s Nest §85 It is appointed for all men to enjoy, but for few to achieve.

Linguistically, then, it would seem that either sense is possible in the 1640s catechism: 2a) “to bring joy to God forever” or 3a) “to take delight in God forever.” You can’t just say that Shakespeare, Milton, and Addison were on the 3a side and that settles it. Both uses were clearly idiomatic during the time the Westminster Catechism was written.

So how can we know which one the original authors intended? I did some research into the provenance of the catechism’s proof texts. It appears that they were supplied by the original committee and are therefore a testimony to their intent.

The lone proof text the catechism’s authors place next to the phrase “and enjoy Him forever” is Ps 73:25-28:

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strengthe of my heart, and my portion for ever. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.

This proof text clearly points toward the latter sense, 3a, taking delight in. The focus of the passage is Asaph’s enjoyment of God, His desire for time with Him. I don’t catch any hints of giving joy to God in that passage but, rather, of finding joy in God, delighting in and desiring Him alone (though I fully believe that desiring God as Asaph did brings joy to Him).

May God give me this delight!

The proof texts subsequent generations of interpreters supplied to question 1 also support viewing “enjoy” as an example of OED’s sense 3a. They include verses like “happy is that people, whose God is the Lord” and “rejoice in the Lord alway”. None of the proofs support 2a. And commentaries on the standards, including those of Thomas Vincent in 1674 and James Fisher in 1753, clearly view “enjoy” in OED sense 3a.

Also, question 38 of the Westminster Catechism reads, “What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?” Among the benefits listed is that believers will be “made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity.” The proof texts prove neither view here (I John 3:2; I Cor. 13:12), but the focus appears to be on the benefits believers receive, not those they give.

And question 90 of the Catechism says that believers will be “made perfectly holy and happy both in body and soul, …especially in the immediate vision and fruition of God the Father.” Apparently the Westminster divines were at least willing to speak of being happy because of God. (Question 90 continues, incidentally, “This is the perfect and full communion, which the members of the invisible church shall enjoy with Christ in glory”—which also seems to reflect the OED 3a sense).

The Westminster Divines meant that it was part of our creational purpose to delight in God forever. What a privilege, and what a responsibility unspeakable and full of glory.

Periodic Reminder

I’m the semi-official Logos Bible Software representative for BJU. Honestly, I’d rather your money go through the Campus Store, but there are some details which haven’t fallen into place there yet.

Here is the discount link for BJU faculty, staff, and students:

http://www.logos.com/academic/bju/2010

I recently heard my pastor say that if he were training for ministry today he would go electronic. I highly recommend the Platinum package to anyone who can work up to it or buy it outright. You get several quality commentary sets and many other excellent resources (along with some detritus and certain works that are great but you won’t use—but don’t let that dissuade you).

Let’s run through a quick study of what Logos Platinum includes that a ministerial student would likely buy anyway if he went analog (not necessarily what he should buy, as in the case of the TDNT, IMHO). I was very conservative, leaving out many other things you might be interested in and just picking a few commentaries where you would want to pick more. What follows is the best price I found for each item in a very quick check:

• One Greek Interlinear: $15
• Hebrew Bible*: $18 pb
• LXX: $30
• BDAG: $130
• Holladay’s Concise Hebrew Lexicon: $25
• BDB: $20
• Abridged TDNT: $35
• Metzger’s Textual Commentary: $27
• BECNT on Lk, Rom, 1Cor, Php, Rev: $200
• NIGTC on Php: $40
• Pillar on Mk, Jn, Eph, Jas: $108
• NAC on Ex, Jsh, Jdg-Rth, Prov+Ecc+Sng, Gal, 1+2Pet+Jude: $134
• A Bible Dictionary like the NBD: $30
• Archer’s OT Intro: $27
• Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood:  $12
• Concise Theology: $10
• Hodge’s ST or Strong’s ST: $30
• Josephus: $12

*You get a GNT (actually several), of course, but you’ll still want a paper copy for the textual critical notes and other reasons. But most seminarians will not need the marginalia in a  Hebrew Bible like they need it for the GNT.

There are also a few resources you wouldn’t buy in print but you will definitely want electronically in some format—they might as well be in Logos. That would include the morphologically analyzed (that is, parsed) GNT, Hebrew OT, and LXX. You may also end up using some of the syntactically analyzed original language texts. I’m going to put the value of these kinds of resources—conservatively—at $100.

I left out a few things that are nice to have in Logos but are free elsewhere such as the Apostolic Fathers and Calvin’s Institutes. But to be fair, it’s really nice to have these searchable and indexed on your own hard drive in a familiar format. So let’s add another $40 of value.

I’d like to add one more intangible: convenience. That includes portability and searchability. I’m going to peg that at $100, though its actual value may be much greater to you—say, if you become a missionary and can avoid shipping costs.

Now let’s take out a value of $43 because you can’t lend your books out  or read them in bed without hassle, and because your wife and kids can’t stumble across good books in your library as easily—and because that makes my math work out better. The value I’ve given to all of these intangibles is highly disputable, but you need to take them into account somehow.

I got a total value of $1100, and that is just a bit below what Platinum will cost a student with the BJU discount. I highly recommend going Platinum.