May Miscellenia

April was a quiet month on the blogging front, for whatever reason, and a month of contrasts at church. Two of our biggest Sundays, 221 on Easter and 330 on Friend Day, and two deaths in the church, one a tragic road accident. I guess you can't be around a church...you can't be around people long before you see the wisdom, the necessity to weep with those who weep, to rejoice with those who rejoice.

This year i've also really been enjoying going through the Bible chronologically. I was a bit sceptical at first, because, after all, that's not how the Bible was written, but i really like it. I'm not sure whether reading longer chunks is more helpful in say, Leviticus than it would be in Romans, but it's definitely helped my understanding of the overall story line of the Bible, so i guess that's a pretty good endorsement. Reading 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles side by side has proved really useful as well, particularly in appreciating why Chronicles were written. Although i still think i'd put it later in the Bible, who am i to argue.

And for those who know me and are wondering. I was at Adams Park on Saturday. I left North Carolina Thursday evening and got back Sunday afternoon. I had no clear idea of what time it was most of the weekend, but to be there, to see us great promoted with my dad and close friends, to experience the joy of hearing that Bury hadn't won by two goals, that we'd promoted by a goal, and then spill onto the pitch and off, and on again was marvellous. No more awful trips to Grimsby or Macclesfield, no more Tuesday nights at Barnet...hello Charlton, hello Southampton, hello Leeds, hello League One!

How everything is about footb...the Gospel

I've just started helping out with Rebekah's school football team. It's kinda fun and kinda different. I have to call defenders 'stoppers' and get blank looks when i tell our roving midfielder that 'you're my Steven Gerrard,' but it's good stuff. Two hours of running in eighty degree heat is better to watch than do, i can say that much.

Football is about the biggest participation sport in the States, amongst girls anyway, so a lot of these girls have been playing for years, but a lot for barely weeks (hence we lost our first two games 4-0 and 3-0 because most of our players were essentially terrified of the other team). And although it's a big participation sport, few of the girls have ever actually seen a game played by professionals before. And thats a real problem. Your strikers can talk about what they need to do, but they've got no one to copy, they didn't grow up arguing over who was going to be Alan Shearer in their lunchbreaks. Midfielders can talk about breaking down and building up, but when do they hold back and when do they break into open space? No example seems to equal no intuition.

Without a vision my people perish. Or as the ESV has it, without a prophetic vision, without revelation my people perish. Greenville Knights Girls Soccer will struggle until they study people who've played the game all their life. They need to be told, to see. To taste and see that possession is good. Without a revelation from God, how will Christians live? How will they know how to eat and drink to the glory of God, or even that they should? How will we know how to love, or how to live, or even that we should love, without the Bible. The Bible changes our categories. Just as watching Bobby Moore would help our central defenders, so reading Romans will expand our hearts. And change our hearts.

This is what we need no? This is meat and drink for us. Can my team survive without spending time studying the game they're supposed to be playing? Of course, with a struggle, with regular defeats. And so it is for us. Do we read the Bible to impress God? Of course not, we read it like hungry beggars. Why would we not want to eat? Why would we want to snack on candyfloss when you can have lovely steak?

The parable of the sowers seems to teach us that the way we treat the Word has eternal importance. We'll either bow to it, or by judged as we ignore it. We must stay in the Word ultimately because thats where we meet Jesus, the Captain of our Salvation, we must stay in the Word because it makes us wise unto salvation. And how we need to be wise!

The Reformers Hermeneutic (or reading the Bible as if it were the Bible)

Glen points to this excellent article by Nathan Pitchford on reading the Old Testament Christianly. The literal reading is the Christocentric reading. yes! None of the Old Testament can be properly read unless it, as Luther said 'drives us towards Christ.' The point of the Old Testament is not interesting history lessons, not moralism for Kids Church, but for getting to know Jesus better.

As well as everything else, it just makes so much more sense that way!

Edwards on Scripture

I had then, and at other times, the greatest delight in the holy scriptures, of any book whatsoever. . I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders. . . . Sometimes, only mentioning a single word caused my heart to burn within me; or only seeing the name of Christ, or the name of some attribute of God. . . .

Matt, Challies and Scripture

Former housemate and long time Pro Evo adversary Matt has a linked to a great clip from John Piper about memorizing scripture here.

On the same note Challies is reminding his readers of his scripture memorizing email programme, which i've just signed up for...

A lamp unto my feet

We tend to use v105 as a text for talks on guidance. The problem is for the most part that the Bible doesn't help us with our guidance...it helps us with the simple decisions: 'should i kill my neighbour?' but most of the decisions in daily life the Bible does not actually make for us. And we should not pretend it does. But what the Bible does do is to light our feet so that we do not stumble into wrong.

Christopher Ash, Bible Delight, P 141.

I've often wondered if we think life would be easier if our Bibles were like the wands in Harry Potter. When the times comes we go to the shopkeeper, he asks us some questions, does some tests and then gives us the right Bible for us. The right verses to help us with our specific struggles, some individual advice on careers, marriage, education etc. But it's not like that. So Ash again:

So it is no careers guidance, but a light to keep me walking in the right way. To protect me from the traps of darkness and from falling into sin. When the devil tempted the Lord Jesus, it was the word of God that was a light to his feet.

The Guardian

Calvin asks, in his Commentary on Colossians, "How comes it that we are 'carried about with so many strange doctrines' (Hebrews 13:9)?" And he answers, "Because the excellence of Christ is not perceived by us". In other words, the great guardian of Biblical orthodoxy throughout the centuries is a passion for the glory and the excellency of God in Christ. Where the center shifts from God, everything begins to shift everywhere. Which does not bode well for doctrinal faithfulness in our own non-God-centered day.

Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, P121.

The weight, the depth, the loveliness of the glory of Christ, is what drove Calvin forward. A man who desired a quiet life in the study in Strasbourg, but instead was thrown into the middle of, essentially, a war zone, and kept going. A man who knew Christ from the scriptures, was fed by Christ by the scriptures, who loved to feed his people by the scriptures. it's hard not to be inspired by a man who would preach every day on alternate weeks, and in the course of an average month would preach twenty times and lecture twelve times, and that's even before you mention his commentaries on every New Testament book except Revelation, and nine Old Testament books. 

It was his focus on the glory of Christ, as revealed in the Word that sustained Him, that drove Him. It is this weight, this glory, this determination not to waste our lives that we need to see from scripture. A passion for Christ  is the guardian of the church though the ages, and in every age the centrality of the Bible must be fought for. That is where we meet with Christ, this is where we are fed, this is where lives and ministries stand or fall. Oh, let us be men and women of that book!

Theology and scripture

'...every human being will stand before the judgement seat of Christ. In such a context Christian theology can not afford to be an in house conversation,the intellectula self indulgence of a priveledged group. There is an urgent engagement with theology's engagement with the thinking and behavior of the world in which we live.'

Mark Thompson, A Clear and Present Word (NSBT) P53

'If God spare my lyfe ere many years i will cause a boye that driveth the plough than know more of the scripture than tho dost'

William Tyndale 1521

The law of the Lord

In a few short verses the law of the Lord, the Word of the Lord is described as:

Perfect

Reviving

Sure

Wise making

Right

Pure

Joy enabling

Clean

Enduring

True

Righteous

More to be desired that gold, even much fine gold. It's the last one that challenges me and gives me hope. More to be desired that gold. The truth of the words of the Bible in my bag right now is worth more than everything i can see around me, or everything i could ever buy. These words challenge my heart, clean my spirit, open my eyes and feed my soul. And David here talks (probably) of just the first five books. He would have had nothing like the revelation of Christ that we have today. I need not just to view Matthew and Romans and Galatians as perfect, reviving and joy producing, but Leviticus and Numbers as well. And I should want them more.

I can't just read the Bible to tick a box, i need to seek out Christ in every page. I can't just read it for information, i need to have my eyes opened to the light within the pages. I can't just read with my eyes open, but pray that the Holy Spirit would open my heart as i read... 

Gene Robinson and the Bible

I always wondered whether the reports on the split in the Anglican Communion was missing the point.

Was it about the role of women? Or homosexuals? Or is there something more important behind it? The role of scripture in the life of the church. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire says:

Could it be that God revealed in Jesus Christ everything possible in a first-century Palestine setting to a ragtag band of fishermen and working men? Could it have been God's plan all along to reveal more and more of himself and his will as the church grew and matured?

His point seems to be that God is always revealing more of Himself to us. That though the Canon is closed, that's not all we are to expect. Although he says that he doesn't think that God changes, i can't see how he could feel that God doesn't change if He revealed one thing in scripture but then changes that revelation as (coincidentally) culture changes. Or is it that God speaks today through and in accordance with His Word. Not because Evangelicals have bound Him by it, but because that is how He has decided to do it.

This view of scripture is so sad to me. There's so much glory and greatness in scripture. So much bread to be feasted upon. Perhaps this is a rich thing to say to a Bishop (but perhaps not), but anyone who describes the Bible as 'static' perhaps needs to spend more time reading it. And is God restricted by the Bible? NO! He is revealed through it. And who is Jesus? The Word of God! Come on Gene! See the bigger picture, enjoy the Lord as He has chosen to reveal Himself. Commune with Jesus as the Word. Get to know Him in scripture. Worship God as He would be worshipped. And trust the Book. Yes, the Book, with words and sentences and participles and propositions. With laws and commands and demands. Trust the Book, save the world.

What does an ESV look like?

This...sort of:




HT: Justin Taylor

Eric Simmonds on the Bible

Whats the point? Growing in a vision for dilligent study.

From NA08, excellent, especially Josh Harris's note at the end.

Preach the Word, save the world.

Why Trust the Bible (3)

Are there errors in the Bible?

If we are serious about treating the Bible as God’s word then the answer has to be no. Numbers 23:19 says ‘God is not man, that He should lie’, John 17:17 says ‘your word is truth’ and Psalm 12:6 says: ‘The words of the LORD are pure words’
But how can we defend Biblical inerrancy? The word inerrant means ‘containing no errors, or simply infallible. I think there are four or five reasons.

1) The Bible can be inerrant and still speak in the ordinary language of every day speech.
For example, the Bible can talk of there being 8,000 people somewhere, when in fact there were 7,800 or 8,100 and still be inerrant. I can say ‘I live a mile away from the office’, and whether I live three quarters of a mile or a mile and a half from the office my statement is still inerrant in that it’s not untrue. If I lived five miles from the office, then I’d be wrong. Inerrancy is to do with truthfulness not degrees of precision.

2) The Bible can be inerrant and still contain loose or free quotations.
This is a question of culture. In the period the Bible was being written the importance of quoting someone word for word was much less than the importance of getting the gist of what someone said. Content was more important than words. So if someone says to me ‘I’ll be there in five minutes’ and I write down ‘he’ll be here soon’ what I’ve written down is still error free, even if it’s not word for word what was said.

3) The problem of original manuscripts.
Some people might object that we can only claim inerrancy for the original manuscripts. These originals no longer exist, we only have copies of copies of what Paul, or Moses or Solomon wrote, so what’s the point of defending a stance that is irrelevant to the Bible we actually hold in our hands. Surely no one can tell us that this Bible right here is inerrant, even if we think the original manuscripts were?

This is a good question, but it has a good answer. We can, in fact, be sure of 99% of the words in the original. Even where we’re not sure, the meaning is usually obvious, and where it’s not it changes nothing of the meaning of the verse or overall point. We don’t even have to speak Greek or Hebrew to know where these variations occur, because our Bibles actually tell us. Look at the end of Mark’s Gospel, or try looking up Luke 17:36. The fact that the Bible itself tells us where the problems occur should give us a tremendous amount of confidence in this area.
That’s not to say that we need to do away with the debate over variations for good. In fact, the more research scholars have done on this issue, the closer we’ve actually come to knowing what the original manuscripts said.

For most practical purposes then, we can be sure that the published scholarly texts on which our Bibles are based are the same as the originals. So when we say we believe that the original manuscripts were inerrant we are saying that what we read every day is inerrant, because we know they are 99% the same. Inerrancy directly concerns our every day Bibles. Because of this, we must obviously defend the inerrancy of the original manuscripts.

4) The problem of contradictions.
People are keen to make this argument. I’ve often found that it’s best to ask them which particular text they have in mind before leaping into a defence. First of all, because it’s easier to talk in specifics than in generals in this area, and secondly because in most cases they don’t have an example, they’re just repeating what they’ve heard from others. Most perceived contradictions can be dealt with according to a careful reading of the text, and an attention paid to context. Text plus context equals meaning. For example the commands of the law might seem to contradict the commands of the Sermon on the Mount. When they’re carefully put into their redemptive historical context, the problem is sorted. Remember always that the whole Bible is about Jesus.

What about what many people view as the deepest contradiction in the Bible, that of the perceived contradiction between the character of God on the OT ands NT. This idea, again, just doesn’t stand up to Biblical analysis. In fact if anything it’s the wrong way around. Look at how God deals with Noah, or Lot, or indeed the returning exiles. Look at how God gives Pharaoh nine chances to repent, or how He gives His enemies four hundred years to repent. Witness Jesus calling the Pharisees a brood of vipers, or Him saying that he comes to bring division on the earth. Or the fact that He spoke more about Hell than anyone else. Now, obviously I’ve missed out large parts of the story in both testaments, but you take my point.

Even areas such as the differing reports of the death of Judas should not cause major problems. Whether he died by hanging himself, or fell open in a field the point of the scripture is that Judas died. Even those two accounts are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There is also material on this question from the Apostolic Fathers (explain) that says that Judas did indeed hang himself, but that he didn’t die then, but lived on, and eventually became so fat that just fell over and sort of popped.

Scholars are aware of no ‘problem text’ that causes a problem that can not be solved. Ultimately we must remember that the Bible has been in its present form for 1900 years. The problem passages have been there all along, and inerrancy has always been believed in.

Why trust the Bible (2)

How was the Bible put together?

The idea of a canon or collection of texts constituting one text comes very early. Even from Moses coming down the mountain with the 10 Commandments and writing the first five books of the Bible. These books were then added to, as we see in Joshua 24:26 ‘Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God’ as well as 1 Samuel 10:25, 1 Chronicles 29:29 and Jeremiah 30:2. All these verses speak of words being written in a book, as commanded by the Lord, or laid up before the Lord. This idea is even more remarkable given the command given in Deut 4:2 ‘you shall not add to the word I command you’. In order to have disobeyed such a specific command the authors must have been sure that what they were writing was indeed from God. The collecting of separate texts, often kept together in scrolls continued until about 518BC when the prophets stopped and 435BC when Esther was written.

So why the near five hundred year gap between testaments? Well, given that God’s Word always records God’s redemptive work on behalf of His people, and since the end of Malachi points towards the belief that something was ending but that something new was on the horizon, it’s not that surprising that no words were given between Malachi and Jesus.
There was of course Jewish writing in between these times, but when we look at that, we actually see more evidence against their inclusion in the Bible. The author of 1 Maccabees can speak of distress of the Jews ‘such as not been seen since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them.’ The historian Josephus spoke of the ‘failure of the exact succession of the prophets’ Other religious leaders said: after the latter prophets Haggai, Malachi, and Zechariah had died, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel.’ So there is plenty of contemporary evidence against the inclusion of these writings, what we now call the apocrypha.

More tellingly, perhaps, there was no dispute between Jesus and the authorities of His day as to which books were in the canon and which weren’t. Jesus quotes the OT 295 times in the Gospels but not once from the apocrypha. The OT apocrypha was never really regarded in the same light as the OT itself, more a book of the church than books of the Bible. And, perhaps more tellingly for us, despite the existence of the apocrypha, the earliest post Christ list of the OT lists the books that we use today. Which is very encouraging.

So we can say no to the inclusion of the Old Testament apocrypha in the Bible for the following reasons:
1) They do not claim the same authority as the OT does.
2) Jesus does not regard them in the same light as He regards the OT
3) Neither do 1st century Jews
4) They contain teaching inconsistent with the rest of the OT, and historical and geographical errors.

What about the New Testament? Why did the Bible suddenly start again? It shouldn’t surprise us that when God sent His Son he would also send upon the Apostles the gift of scripture writing, and therefore easy to see why the NT is placed alongside the OT. God’s activity historically was always accompanied by scripture writing.

We’ve already spent time looking at whether we can call the NT scripture in the same way as the OT, and we’ve seen that the clear understanding of the authors was that we can do.
How were these books recognized as part of the canon? We must say recognized rather than decided upon.

It is the authority of the Apostles that means we recognize some books and not other. As we’re already seen, those books written by Apostles which the Apostles wanted preserved were recognized straight away as scripture as we see in 2 Peter 3: 1 Corinthians 14:37 and 2 Corinthians 13:3.

Details as to how the books not authored by Apostles came to be recognized is sketchy. They needed authorizing, and we assume that Luke and Acts were recognized early on because of Luke’s association with Paul, Mark was recognised because of his association with Peter. Jude because he was Jesus’ brother, and because of his association with James, who by that time was considered an Apostle (1 Cor 15:7 and Gal 1:19). Hebrews was recognized because of the intrinsic qualities of the book which convinced, and continue to convince believers that whoever the human author was the ultimate author must have been God.

It shouldn’t surprise us that the early church should be able to recognize what was divinely inspired and what wasn’t, if we consider that John 10:27 ‘my sheep hear my voice’ The books we now recognize as the NT were circulated by Athanasius in 367 and accepted by both east and western churches within the next thirty years. Should we expect other books to be added to the Canon at this late stage? What would we do if an Apostolic letter from Paul turned up today?
I think there are two reasons why we can reject this hypothesis. The first is Hebrews 1:1-2 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Jesus is God’s final word of revelation.

And Revelation 22:18-19: I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:(A) if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in(B) the tree of life and in(C) the holy city, which are described in this book.
Given the position of Revelation in the canon and what it concerns we can legitimately assume that ‘this book’ refers to the whole Bible.

Alongside this historic data we must consider the Fatherhood of God. Would God who loves to give us everything we need really hold back part of the Bible for two thousand years? Ultimately we must base our confidence on the completed canon on the love and faithfulness of God.
Just as with the OT, there is a an NT apocrypha that has built up. The suggestion, made by Dan Brown in the Da Vinci code that the books of the Bible were voted on by the early church fathers could not be further from the truth. There are four reasons why we can be confident about their lack of inclusion in the Canon.

1) Some of the letters do not the claim that authority for themselves like Ignatius’s letter to the Romans ‘I order you not as Peter and Paul, they were Apostles.’

2) Other parts of the Apocrypha are absurd, as we see from the end of the Gospel of Thomas: ‘Simon Peter said to them: ‘let Mary go away from us, for women are not worthy of life’ Jesus said ‘lo, I shall lead so that I may make her male that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself a male will enter the Kingdom of heaven’


3) Like the OTA there are historical and geographical errors in the NTA that disqualify it.

Why trust the BIble (1)

(The first part of my script from RUCU's Rebel Apologetics Group)

How do we know what the Bible says is from God and not what a bunch of people made up?

Other Evidence.

I want to start by looking at the historical evidence from outside the Bible that the Bible is true. But before I do I want t say that when we do this, we’re on dangerous ground somewhat. As Christians we accept the Bible as our final, ultimate authority. Not history, or other writers or other data. Just the Bible. So while the evidence from outside the Bible is useful and interesting, we must be careful never to present this evidence as the final proof, as then that becomes our authority over the Bible itself. I’m increasingly convinced that the best way to argue for trusting the Bible is from the Bible itself, which we’ll be doing for most of the afternoon.

That said there is a lot of historical evidence to trust the Bible. The science of textual criticism is the science of discovering the reliability of a text. The higher the number of copies we have and the less time that passes between the original and the copies being made the more reliable the text we have in those copies is. Serious history books like Herodotus have a very large time gap, and only eight copies, whereas the Bible has, literally, thousands of copies and a time gap of, at the most, just three hundred years. The blink of an eye in terms of ancient history texts. One historian puts it like this: the text of the New Testament stands alone amongst ancient prose writing in terms of reliability.’ Other contemporary historians such as Josephus mention Jesus in their histories. One even says that ‘he was more of a God than a man.’ We’ve found ruins of places and buildings mentioned in both testaments and nothing historically or geographically in the Bible contradicts what we also believe to be true. We’ve found court records from some of the Kings mentioned in the OT and some that even mention their courtiers. The book of Daniel for example mentions King Nebuchadnezzar, and specifically that at one point late in his reign, he lost his mental faculties for a while. The madness of King Nebuchadnezzar is a recognised period of ancient history. Esther talks about King Xerxes, a well known King from the period where Esther is placed.

One further piece of evidence is how unlike other 1st century writing the Gospels are. CS Lewis puts it like this: I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this (gospel) text there are only two possible views. Either it is reportage...or else, some unknown ancient writer...without known predecessors or successors suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic realistic narrative


In short, whether you think it is necessary or not, there is a huge weight of historical and circumstantial evidence that we can trust the Bible. This evidence isn’t enough on its own though, so we must look to the Bible itself for authentication. If these seems like a slightly circular argument to you we’ll deal with that in a moment.

Bible Evidence

What about evidence from the Bible itself. There is some overlap here between this section and the section on how the Bible was recognised and put together. We need to know that this authority is what the Bible claims for itself. We see this in the OT phrase ‘Thus says the Lord’ which appears hundreds of times and would have echoed the words ‘thus says the King’ read before royal edicts. The words that fall under this banner constitute a large part of the OT and show that the original authors clearly thought they were recording God’s words.

As well as this we see what the NT says about the OT and about itself. 2 Timothy 3:16 says ‘all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.’ The word used for scripture here is graphe, which will become important in a moment. 2 Peter 1:21 says ‘for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.’ Matthew 19:5 ‘and said therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’ Which is of course a quotation by Jesus of Genesis 2:24.

So even from that small selection we can see that there is no reason to mistrust the OT as far as the NT is concerned. We’ll cover some more reasons later. What about the New Testament though? How do we know that it wasn’t made up by man? Well, 2 Peter 3:16 says: …there are some things in them (Paul’s letters) that are hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.’ The word Peter uses here to describe Paul’s letters is graphe, the same word Paul used to talk about the OT. 1 Timothy 5:18 says ‘for scripture (again the word graphe) says you shall not muzzle and ox when it treads out the grain, and the labourer deserves his wages.’ What’s fascinating about that verse is it quotes Deuteronomy and Matthew and refers to them both as scripture, or, that word again, graphe. So from this we see that addition were being made that the term ‘scripture’ was applied to, so we can, feasibly apply 2 Timothy 3:16 to the NT as well as the OT.

Internal Evidence
Secondly, we are convinced of the authority of the Bible as we read it. 1 Corinthians 2:12-14 says: Now(A) we have received not(B) the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this(C) in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit,(D) interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.[a]
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are(E) folly to him, and(F) he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

A conviction that the Bible is true does not come apart from reading the Bible. You can not know what the Bible says about itself unless you read it; you can not experience the inward testimony of the Bible unless you read it with faith. We are convinced of the Bible’s claims as we read the Bible. It’s words are self attesting. This is why I’m not keen to jump on the non Biblical reasons to prove the Bible, because the Bible is the final, self attesting authority.

At this point people will say that this is a hopeless circular argument. That we believe the Bible because we believe the Bible. In a way this is true. But that’s ok, it doesn’t invalidate the argument because any argument about final authority must appeal to that authority. Otherwise that authority would not be authoritative. It’s not a problem unique to Christianity. For example people might argue ‘my reason is my ultimate authority because it seems reasonable to make it so’ or ‘I know there can not be any ultimate authority because I do not know of any such ultimate authority’

The ultimate truthfulness of the Bible will commend itself as being far more persuasive than other religious books. The Bible will be, and is, fully in accord with life around us, whereas other texts, or logical constructs will not. The Bible will commend itself to us in this way if we view life, and ourselves, and God in a clear way.

And here is yet another problem that sin causes in our hearts. Sin pollutes our hearts and our minds so that we are blind to the bell toll of Biblical truth, so that we can not see that glory of God in the face of Christ shining from the pages. It’s no coincidence that the people who have the deepest love for the Lord have the clearest understanding of the Bible. So in that sense the Biblical argument for Biblical authority isn’t a circle, but more a spiral. The more we are convinced of the Lordship of Christ over every area of life, the more we will be convinced of the authority of the Bible, and vice versa. This is a wonderful path to walk, and ultimately far more satisfying that relying on historical data, however worthy that may be. Of the Bible Jean Calvin says: ‘…if we turn pure eyes and upright senses towards it, the majesty of God will immediately come to view, subdue our bold rejection, and compel us to obey’.

It's arrived! (kind of!)

The new ESV study Bible

New ESV Study Bible

The people behind the ESV of the Bible are releasing a new study Bible later this year, heres what Mark Driscoll makes of it:

To test my hypothesis, I showed the confidential proofs to some of our newly converted, well-tattooed indie rockers and they reported that it looked “filthy” and “sick”—for those of you who wear khaki pleated pants and tuck in your shirt, this is a really good endorsement. So, thank you Crossway for the “filthy sick” ESV Study Bible.

I've never bought a study Bible before, probably because i'm a snob and a legalist, but this one looks irresistible!

Stott on the Bible

'Every authentic Christian ministry begins here, with the conviction that we have been called to handle God's Word as guardians and heralds. We must not be satisfied with 'rumours of God' as a substitute for 'good news from God.' For as Calvin put it 'the Gospel is as far removed from conjecture as Heaven from Earth.' Of course we are not apostles of Christ like Pail. But we believe in the new testament the teaching of the apostles has been preserved and is now bequeathed for us in it's definitive form. We are therefore trustees of this apostolic faith, which is the Word of God and which works powerfully in those who believe. Our taks is to keep it, study it, expound it, study it and obey it.' (John Stott, Thessalonians BST, P68)

coffee plus Bible

i love students! here's what ine said over a coffee and Isaiah 10 this afternoon:

'i'd be appalled at a God who didn't hate sin'.

Brilliant, the Word is doing it's work!

Calvin on scripture

'For we know that the moment we exceed the bounds of the Word our course it outside the pathway and in darkness, and there we must repeatedly wander, slip and stumble. Let this, therefore, first of all be before our eyes: to seek any other knowledge of predestination than what the Word of God discloses is not less insane than if someone should should purpose to walk in a pathless waste or to see in darkness'

Mhmm. Now Calvin's only talking about the doctrine of election here, but surely the same principle applies to any doctrine that we hope to explore. To try and find knowledge of God outside of His Word which concerns His Son is going to be hopeless and futile. Our hearts are idol factories, as Calvin also said, and so any attempt to know God outside of scripture will lead to us creating an idol, which good theology exists to tear down. As Mike Reeves once said 'everything we intrinsically know about God is wrong'.