Quote of the Day

"A fellow lecturer told his Bible class that it did not matter whether the biblical character Job was real or fictional.  For him, the point off Job's book is to teach us about suffering, and the historicity of Job is immaterial to that lesson.  I cannot disagree more strongly, and hopefully this illustration will help clarify why. 

Suppose you are going through a difficult time in your life.  Perhaps it is from the death of a close relative or you struggle with debilitating illness. Just like the psalmist who felt abandoned by God in his deepest time of need, you feel lost and adrift in your suffering, with no sense of God's care.  In this state, you ask me to bring you wise counsel and comfort.

I tell you a story about a man who built a spaceship to travel to Venus.  Due to a technological breakthrough, he was able to equip his vessel with heat-resistant panels, making it safe to venture close to the sun.  Unfortunately, along the way the panels failed and his eyes were burned out of their sockets.  With all hope seemingly lost, in his despair he called out for help and God rescued him.

What would your reaction be to my story?  Would you thank me for the incredible comfort I gave you?  Or would you look at me with a glare, wondering how I expect this silly story to assist you?....Fiction can provide little comfort for the realities of life.  It is akin to telling someone struggling through financial difficulty, "Don't worry, you'll win the lottery."  Or to a man who lost his legs in a car accident, "Let me read you a story about a man who drank some sugar water and his legs grew back overnight."

The real God of creation acts in the real events of human history.  Our Christian faith is not rooted in esoteric platitudes or ethereal propositional truths to which we grant our mental assent.  Our faith is rooted in concrete experiences, with God breaking into history in amazing ways…"

- Victor Kuligin - From his book: Snubbing God: The High Cost of Rejecting God's Created Order

See more quotes on my quote collection blog: https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

Trinity Without Hierarchy edited by Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower

I have noticed, recently, that there is some sort of proposition going around (particularly in relation to man/woman husband/wife relationships) that the Trinity does not have any authoritative order, especially, that there is no subordination among the Persons of the Trinity.   When I received a notice that I could get a review copy of this book of collected essays by many people: Trinity Without Hierarchy: Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology edited by Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower , my dad wanted me to get it and look into the topic.

I did not know that there was controversy over this particular topic, and I don't believe I've ever really considered it before.  I unconsciously have always assumed that God the Son does the will of God the Father, and that that is something that has always been the case, as that is what a basic reading of the Scriptures teaching on the Godhead seems to indicate.    After going through this book, I don't see any Scripturally compelling reason to change that viewpoint.  If you do not understand exactly what this viewpoint entails, you'll get the gist in my critique.

It seems that the main reason all this argument has come on the scene is because some evangelicals have been using the relationship of the Trinity to argue for complementarianism among the sexes. I agree, for the most part, with the authors of these articles that that is not a hermeneutically valid argument. The Trinity's relationship to each other does not necessitate human beings relating to each other in the same way.  

TRINITY NOT EQUAL IF THERE IS AUTHORITY AND SUBMISSION

I think the most compelling argument  they offer is that the Trinity is One and therefore there can be no significant differences among the Persons of the Godhead.  But, when looking at their arguments, I see some of the logic of it but I don't see it as overwhelmingly compelling biblically. 

Let me give you some quotations from the book to demonstrate some of their arguments and I'll comment on them:

"…To assert relations of authority and submission within a single divine will is similarly impossible:  authority and submission require a diversity of volitional faculties.  Where there is one single will, there can necessarily be no authority or submission."

 In other Words, we know that God the Father and the Son are one, have the exact same will and therefore there cannot be said to be authority or submission in that divine relationship. Now for my commentary:  I'm not sure that that is actually the case. Let me give you an illustration to demonstrate how that type of argument sounds to me: If a wife always agrees with every decision her husband makes, because he is her husband, and wants to do whatever his will is in everything, it isn't actually submission because she never disagrees with him? If she agrees with him in what he wants to do and submits to it, her husband doesn't actually have authority and she isn't actually submitting? I don't think that one can say that the husband has no authority and the wife is not submissive simply because the wife always obeys the husband and wants to do the same thing He does. 

I don't see how it is bionically inaccurate to say that God the Son willingly submits to God the Father because He is God the Father.  I don't see that Christ's complete willingness to do the Father's will indicates that Christ is not obeying the Father and that the Father is not authoritative. 

And my second quotation from the book, which is actually a quotation of a quotation that the author of this particular chapter makes about the Trinity, "neither with regard to nature nor activity is any distinction beheld".

Let me list some questions I have in regard to this statement which really make me reluctant to agree with it:

When the Son said, "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken Me?" (Matt 27:46), Did God the Father say the same thing to the Son? Say the Same thing to the Holy Spirit?  Did Christ and the Holy Spirit also separate from the Father? Forsake Him? Did the Father and Christ forsake the Holy Spirit?

When the Son says, "Not My will but Thine, be done"(Luke 22:42), does the Father at any point also say, "Not My Will but the Son's be done?"

At the end of time, God the Father puts everything under God the Son's feet (1 Cor 15:27). Does God the Father ever put everything under the Holy Spirit?  We also find that the Son Himself is then subjected to God the Father and the Bible makes it very clear that it is not a vice-versa thing. God the Father is NOT subjected to God the Son:  "Then  comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be eliminated is death. For he has put everything in subjection under his feet.  But when it says 'everything' has been put in subjection, it is clear that this does not include the one who put everything in subjection to him. And when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all."(1 Corinthians 15:27-28 NET)

Some of the writers, to varying degrees, seem to concede some sort of submission but only as a part of the Trinity's plan to save people did Christ submit to the Father. But they seem to think that it wasn't quite God the Son who submitted.  At least that's what they seem to be saying.   It is posited that Jesus had a human will and a divine will and that "the human will of the Son is subordinate to the divine will." But can we actually separate His human will from His divine will? Where are we ever told that there was a discrepancy between Christ's human will and His divine one? Where are we ever given an indication that Christ ever had a Romans 7-like scenario? I know, I know, people will say, "in the Garden of Gethsemane!" (Luke 22:42).  But I see no Biblical reason to believe that that was actually God the Son in His humanity speaking separately from His Divinity.  Why would we assume that Jesus' flesh EVER 'took over' or 'manifested itself' over against His Divinity? Don't we believe that Christ's humanity was completely untainted by sin? That even His human nature, his flesh, did not include a tendency to sin?

To show how the book carries the thought further let me give you another quote: "It is Christ's humanity that will submit to the Father, not Christ's divinity." Jesus submitted His human will to the Father but not His divine will?  I am very, very nervous about that statement.  I see what they are trying to do, but I don't know that they have a biblical right to say that.  Why would we assume that when God the Son, embodied in flesh, ever speaks of Himself He isn't necessarily speaking of His WHOLE self, His 'real' Self, but merely of His physicality? It seems almost a direct contradiction to the texts about the Son talking about His submission to the Father to assert or think that He Himself wasn't actually submissive, that it was just His flesh that was subordinate.  Besides, wouldn't that make God the Son not 'wholly man', so His divinity is not actually joined with flesh? Couldn't it be used to say also that, when people are worshiping Christ, they are worshiping His humanity, not His divinity? That only God the Son, DISEMBODIED, is truly God?

"Eternal submission is to misunderstand the Son, and therefore diminish his glory, power and will…"  Who says? Where does the Bible say this? How does submitting to the Father diminish Christ's glory? It was veiled during the incarnation, but He always had it, right?  How does it diminish His power? His power over God the Father? Does it diminish the Son's will because the Father's will is done and not His in particular(even though the Scripture indicates that He wants the Father's will done)?

ETERNAL BEGOTTENESS OF THE SON BY THE FATHER

Another concept that is propounded throughout the book is the eternal 'generating' of the Son by the Father. It's a proposition of what we are actually supposed to be deducing from the terms "Father" and "Son" in the Godhead. The writers of this book seem to think that, though God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have always been God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, those terms specifically have reference to origin, not hierarchy.  That the Father eternally generates, or begets, the Son. "For the pro-Nicenes, the Father was 'first' among the three persons of the Trinity.  He is the one who generates the Son and who spirates 'the Spirit'."The Son was always eternally generated, eternally begotten by the Father before He was physically begotten in the flesh.  This is pretty much, solely, according to this book, the only thing we are to glean from the terms "Father" and "Son" in the Trinity.  As one of the essay writers puts it:  ""…there is nothing other than eternal generation that we can say of the Father-Son relation."

I don't understand how that is so definitive. Why is it that they can dogmatically say that the terms "Father" and "Son" only have reference to 'generation' and that they absolutely, positively, CANNOT possibly have reference to a hierarchy?  What if they actually do? What if that's EXACTLY what we are to understand about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? What if they really do mean that, though the Son is of the same essence as the Father, He is subordinate to the Father? And that both can be true at the same time? The New Testament presents that viewpoint, it indicates that God the Son submits to God the Father.

IS SUBMISSION GLORIOUS?

That leads me to another question, several questions, actually:  Is submission glorious? Can we say that it is not? Seeing that the Son humbled Himself and yet did not need to 'grasp' glory, as it were, because it was already His?   Is submission to the Father not a natural part of the divine Son's character? Why do we assume the Son is lesser if He eternally obeys the will of the Father? Isn't the Son doing a glorious thing in submitting to the Father? The Bible seems to plainly indicate that the Son's submission to the Father is a glorious, not a demeaning, thing.

Do we actually believe that there should be NO paradoxes in our understanding of God? That we should be able to completely understand everything about Him? That nothing about Him will go beyond our comprehension? The Bible seems to indicate that all the Persons of the Trinity are One and yet that having authority and submission among the Godhead does not negate that equality. 

Can we take everything the Bible says about God in simple faith, not having to understand everything about Him but simply believing that what God says about Himself is true?  And that everything God the Son, even in His incarnate state, says about Himself, is also true, and true about His whole Self, not merely about His physical self, even if it boggles our minds? Shouldn't we take Him at His Word?

When Christ says, "I and the Father are One" (John 10:30) and, "The Father is Greater than I" (John 14:28), Shouldn't our first response be to assume that both statements are wholly true of Him and not merely of His physical body but of His Divine nature as well?  And shouldn't we assume that, without our having to fully understand it, the Father being greater than the Son does not diminish the Son's glory or take away from His Oneness with the Father? 

CREEDS: THE AUTHORITY FOR OUR FAITH?

The book seems to make the case that Ancient 'Christian' Creeds and traditions are a part of forming our faith. That we ought not to depart from the writings and traditions of the early Christians who lived after the time of the Apostles.  I'll give you an example of what I am talking about by quoting the book again:

 "I am aware that some involved in defending EFS have also denied eternal generation; I do not have much to say about that except that to deny eternal generation is certainly to deny the doctrine of the Trinity, and, given that 'eternally begotten of the Father' is a confession of the Nicene Creed, is in grave danger of departing from what can meaningfully be called Christianity - it is, once again, to side with Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses in claiming that the Christian doctrine of God is unbiblical."

So if we depart from the conclusions and interpretations of ancient professing Christian writers we are departing from Christianity?  We can't just use the Bible, we have to agree with the interpretations of the Bible written by ancient professing Christians? This might sound horrible to say, but the Nicene Creed is not something that I hold to.  I don't think I even knew what it said before I read this book, and even then I don't remember a lot of it (don't think I could quote any of what I read verbatim), and I don't know what the whole thing says, but I don't feel guilty about that. The Nicene Creed, the Westminster Confession, the London Baptist Confession…etc. are not, and never have been the Biblical measurement of faith.  And I think that's rather obvious as they do not form a part of the canon of Scripture. 

The writers of this compilation of essays seem dangerously close to canonizing the Nicene Creed.  I know that they would deny it, but, as saw from the above quotation,  they really seem to exalt it's authority.   I think that L. S. Chafer warned us well when he said: "It is a bad indication when, in any period, men will so exalt their confessions that they force the Scriptures to a secondary importance, illustrated in one era, when as Tulloch remarks: 'Scripture as a witness, disappeared behind the Augsburg Confession' ...No decrees of councils; no ordinances of synods; no 'standard' of doctrines; no creed or confession, is to be urged as authority in forming the opinions of men. They may be valuable for some purposes, but not for this; they may be referred to as interesting parts of history, but not to form the faith of Christians; they may be used in the church to express its belief, not to form it."

I must admit, this argument about the Trinity is a topic I'm nervous about as it seems too easy to come to a wrong conclusion about God, to be dogmatic where the Scripture is silent, going beyond the bounds of revelation. But I’m really scared of where these people are going with their argument as their foundation seems to be the Nicene Creed.  In the book, one of the writers states:  "It may be that EFS/ERAS is biblical and correct, but if it is, the classical Christian tradition of orthodox Trinitarians must inevitably be unbiblical and wrong."  But that shouldn't drastically shake us up because our faith shouldn't be based in the "classical Christian tradition" anyway, but in God's written Word.

Many thanks to the folks at Kregel Academic for providing me with a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable) 

My Rating: 1 out of 5 Stars

*

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers - By Abner Chou

I saw that there was a book on hermeneutics coming out by Abner Chou.  I thought his name sounded familiar, looked it up and remembered that I had listened to a message by him a while back, critiquing the Christocentric hermeneutic and thought that it was pretty good.  Therefore I wanted to see how Chou would tackle hermeneutics overall in a book.

This book, The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers: Learning to Interpret Scripture from the Prophets and Apostles is written from the perspective that the Bible has a "built-in hermeneutic".  We don't have to come up with our own. I loved that Chou points out that we don't need to go searching the hermeneutical methods of the nations in the days that the books of the Bible were written, rather we search the Bible to see how the text interprets itself. 

But sadly, overall I did not like the book.  Let me explain why. 

First, I didn't like how the author keeps saying that the prophets were theological geniuses, they were experts in dealing with the Scriptures, they were experts at developing theology. If he just said it a couple of times I could have overlooked it, but he emphasizes it and seems to make it a major fact/point. Something you need to have fully ingrained in your head:   I'll give a few quotations to show you what I mean:

"The prophets were immersed in Scripture.  As a result they used it accurately in various situations and developed it theologically.  They could apply God's Word to their current situation (e.g., covenant disobedience and failure) as well as advance the theological themes and concepts therein via new revelation.  …In sum, the prophets were exegetes who carefully understood the Scripture, as well as theologians who profoundly expounded upon its ramifications."

"The prophets were immense biblical thinkers and writers because they were so accurate in handling the meaning and significance of Scripture.  That is what made them good exegetes and theologians."

"The prophets knew post revelation well enough to incorporate sophisticated theological ideas in their texts…the prophets intentionally positioned their writings for later writers to use."

So when it says that "the Word of the Lord came to Micah" that doesn’t mean that God actually gave direct revelation, it just means that Micah had studied previous revelation enough that he was able to formulate what he thought God would want to say to the Israelites, and therefore, the book of Micah is his own commentary on previous texts? At least that's how statements like the above come across to me.

I can almost see some of this somewhat applying to the Apostles, but not with the prophets. I don't doubt that they knew previous revelation very well, but in their case we know they received DIRECT revelation, the words to speak, and visions to describe, directly from God. The majority of the prophets' revelation was directly from God, not their own study of previous texts.

"knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit." (2Pe 1:20-21 ASV)  Adam Clark explains this verse in this way "- That is, in any former time, by the will of man - by a man’s own searching, conjecture, or calculation; but holy men of God - persons separated from the world, and devoted to God’s service, spake, moved by the Holy Ghost. So far were they from inventing these prophetic declarations concerning Christ, or any future event, that they were φερομενοι, carried away, out of themselves and out of the whole region, as it were, of human knowledge and conjecture, by the Holy Ghost, who, without their knowing any thing of the matter, dictated to them what to speak, and what to write;"

Clark goes on to point out that it sounds like the prophets didn't really do their 'studying' until after they gave their revelation. They didn't have to understand their own prophecies at all, as the One Who actually gave them understood them perfectly.  The prophets didn't think up all of this stuff, they didn't imagine their own visions connecting them to previous revelation, God showed them visions that corresponded to previous revelation.  They didn't have to study out the previous revelation to come up with their own "Thus sayeth the Lord",  God actually did "say" these things.  God, who knew exactly how everything connected, was the Prophetic Genius giving the prophecies and intentionally positioning them for the later saints to use. 

Second, I didn't like many of the hermeneutics Chou draws from the text. He makes some weird conclusions. For instance, that the prophets intentionally referred back to overall main concepts, for instance, that Daniel's  (God-given) vision of the beasts (chapter 7) being subject to the Son of Man is pointing back to creation and man having dominion over the animals, and that this vision signifies that creation will return to its original order?   That just seemed really, really weird.  Also he talks about the New Testament giving us a hermeneutic of viewing Christ as a new David (going into the wilderness like the Davidic dynasty went into exile, facing same trials as David, born in the same place as David), a new Moses, delivering His people from exile…etc.  I don't see that any of these are absolute hermeneutical principles that one should derive from the new Testament.   I think the point that we should see from all that Christ did is much simpler than all of that. Isn't the main point about Christ being born in Bethlehem, going into the wilderness, coming out of Egypt, was not to fulfill a picture, that of David or of Israel, was  that He was fulfilling direct prophecy about the Messiah, and thus He was the Messiah. 

 And then also that the prophets made sure that they used illustrations the same way earlier prophets did, like when many of them refer to an Eagle, they use an "Eagle motif", remembering how the "Eagle" picture was used in earlier revelation and  going along with that. I'm not sure that that's the point of the illustrations, that they can't be used to picture anything else, they have to somehow be referring back to the original context of the picture's first use. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I’m pretty sure that "yeast", in the New Testament is used as an illustration for various things (without every time being used to refer back to its original use). You can use the same picture to describe vastly different things, and I don't see that it's a hermeneutical necessity to have it refer to the same thing every time it's used. 

There were some good things in this book, but overall I didn't find it as useful as I thought I would.  Chou rightly says that, "We connect the dots they (Apostles and prophets) established; we do not create new dots.  Immense theology is already there, we do not need to (and cannot ) add anything new." I'm just afraid that there were too many dots connected in this book that aren't clearly connected by the Bible itself.

Many thanks to the folks at Kregel Academic for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)!

My Rating:  2 out of 5 Stars

**

This book may be purchased at Amazon.com and Christianbook.com

The Spurgeon Study Bible

The Spurgeon Study Bible is a very neat idea.  As most people somewhat acquainted with Mr. Spurgeon know, he was not a verse-by-verse through a book of the Bible kind of preacher.  He usually would choose a verse (or portion of verses) for one Sunday and would preach on that and then preach on another (non-related, often from a whole different book)verse the next week. And also, some may also notice that his preaching was not always very exegetical.

That being said, this commentary is a great compilation!  It sort of gives a glimpse of how it would have been if Spurgeon went by a more verse by verse preaching style, and it focuses on snippets from his sermons that are more exegetical.

The version that I have is the brown and tan cloth over board Bible.  It is very nicely bound and seems quite durable.  The spine has some fancy looking ridges on it and the front has Spurgeon's signature printed on the bottom left.

There is a lot of good commentary in this work.  But there are also, of course, places where the commentary is not so great. To give an example, in one place he says,  "I hate that plan of reading the Scriptures in which we are told, when we lay hold of a gracious promise, 'Oh, that is for the Jews.'   Then I also am a Jew, for it is given to me!  Every promise of God's Word belongs to all those who have the faith to grasp it…."  That is a ridiculous, irreverent and, to speak very plainly, quite a selfish statement.  Why does everything have to be about us individually? And it absolutely cannot be applied in a general way.  What if there was a married, childless, ninety year old woman who greatly desires to have children and so she reads Genesis and Matthew,  and grasps hold of the promises given to Sarah and Elizabeth, that they would bear children in their old age,  and applies them to herself in faith?  Is that a reverent interpretation of God's Word?

Anyway, I still think that this is a worthwhile Bible to get.  There is a lot of good commentary in here, and of course, it is filled with pithy statements like, "Let us never think that we have learned a doctrine until we have seen its fruit in our lives." and "Anything is a blessing that makes us pray"

And I was particularly pleased at Spurgeon's conclusions in some places that are more or less controversial today.  For instance, in speaking of the flood's being a universal flood some of the commentary says, "If Moses had meant to describe a partial deluge on only a small part of the earth, he used misleading language.  But if he meant to teach that the deluge was universal, he used the words we might have expected that he would use.  I should think that no person, merely by reading this chapter, would arrive at the conclusion that has been reached by some of our learned men - too learned to hold the simple truth of God. " Wow! That's really stating it plainly.

And then, speaking of 1 Corinthians 9-10 ("What no eye has seen, no ear has heard….") he expresses incredulity at "How frequently verses of Scripture are misquoted!  How frequently do we hear believers describing heaven as a place of which we cannot conceive.  They quote verse 9, and there they stop, not seeing that the marrow of the whole passage lies in verse 10.  The apostle was not talking about heaven at all.  He was only saying that the wisdom of this world is not able to discover the things of God, that the merely carnal mind is not able to know the deep spiritual things of our most holy faith…" Rather, these things "must be revealed by the Spirit of God, as they are to all believers."  I was delighted that he had come to that conclusion as I know that my dad (a pastor) has been frustrated by the same thing.

As one would expect with just about anything written by Spurgeon, there is a lot of quotable stuff in the commentary. Overall, it's exactly what one would expect in a Spurgeon study Bible.

Many thanks to the folks at B&H Publishers for the free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)!

My Rating:  5 out of 5 Stars

*****

This Bible may be purchased at websites like Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

Amillennialism and the Age to Come - by Matt Waymeyer

Amillennialsm and the Age to Come: A Premillennial Critique of the Two-Age Model by Matt Waymeyer is an excellent critique of Amillennialism and, in the process, an excellent defense of Premillennialism.

I learned a lot about Amillennialism and grew even more confident (if that's even possible) in Premillennialism.  One of the key things that seems to mark the Amillennial view is that they apparently believe that many Old Testament passages that speak of a this-earth Millennium are symbolic, not literal in their content. They believe that the New Testament is the key to understanding Old Testament prophecies in their true symbolic meaning.  In other words, you shouldn't take these passages at face value.  The New Testament (excepting Revelation) is the section of the Bible that is the literal key to the symbolic Old Testament.

Waymeyer goes through and defends a literal interpretation of these OT passages, showing that the literal interpretation is the most biblical hermeneutic and the one that harmonizes best with the Bible as a whole.

He addresses many of the passages that Amillennialists think definitively rule out a 1000 year millennium  on this earth (which includes death, marriage and births happening under the earthly reign of the Messiah).  They think that these passages render it impossible.

One of their big proof texts is Matthew 12:32, "And whoever may speak a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven to him, but whoever may speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor in that which is coming.", they put a great emphasis upon "this age and the age to come" concept, basically saying that a this-earthly millennium would indicate that there are three ages, not two.  But Christ only spoke of two, therefore there cannot be a 1000 year Millennial Kingdom and therefore we cannot take the passages that appear to be speaking of a Millennial reign on this earth literally, they must be figurative.

One of their other texts is in Luke 20 where the Pharisees try to trick Christ with a question about marriage at the resurrection of the dead.  Part of Christ's answer is that there will be no marriage in the resurrection.  The Amillennialists believe that this rules out a Millennial Kingdom that includes people getting married and having children.  Waymeyer provides a good answer (I'll leave that for you to read when you get this book) and then in his conclusion says,: "If this were the only passage in Scripture describing the age to come one might understandably conclude that there could be no physical birth or death at any point during this time.  But with the testimony of the Old Testament prophets regarding the existence of sin, death, and procreation I the coming kingdom……..the need to harmonize the entirety of biblical teaching leads to the conclusion that Luke 20:34-36 is compatible with the millennial kingdom of premillennialism."

The only real problem I would have with this book is that Waymeyer does not address the, apparently future, sacrifices in Ezekiel (the section with the chapters in the 40s) that are described as "sin offerings". He does address the sacrifices offered at the Feast of Booths that are mentioned in Zechariah, but he doesn't address the ones in Ezekiel, which are one of the major questions even I, as a premillennialist, wonder as to how they will work out.   He doesn't even say, "I don't know what to make of them", which I would have preferred.  We don't need to know the answer to every question, but I would rather he would have addressed that section of Ezekiel even if he didn't come to a conclusion as to how they would potentially harmonize with books like Hebrews.

Assuming that these Ezekiel passages are Millennial, I don't doubt that they are perfectly compatible with the Millennial Kingdom. I just don't know how they are - this side of the Millennium.  The Premillennial view does have some questions that we do not know the exact answer to, but we know that these are paradoxes that will be explained at the time of Christ's 2nd Coming.  Just as the paradoxes of the first coming of the Messiah were cleared up at that time (how would the Messiah be a Conquering King and yet be rejected, and be pierced? Rule as King over Israel, conquering her enemies and yet be rejected and "cut off from the land of the living? ) by the realization that the Messiah would come twice.

Overall though, I think that Waymeyer does a great job in his critique.  One of the points that he thinks we should recognize is that "no single prophetic or narrative account is an exhaustive description of what has happened or will happen."  The prophecies complement and build on each other, they do not contradict each other.  And I think that that is one of the best arguments that Waymeyer makes throughout this book:  that, because of the passages that speak of a Kingdom on this earth, it is our duty to try to harmonize them with other passages that give us more information about the future, it is not our duty to allegorize them away when we are not given any prerogative to do so in the Bible.  We trust that somehow they all fit together perfectly, even if we do not see how at the moment.

I highly recommend this book, it is very well written (I read it in about two days), highly informative with intriguing and thought provoking arguments.  It has a lot of footnotes too, which I like in a work like this (especially when one spots quotes from, and references to, other books one may one to read) .  I think that it is very helpful and a great critique of the Amillennial position. 

Among other places this book may be purchased at the Christian Book Distributors web site and also at Amazon.com and KressBiblical.com

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

*****

CSB (Holman) - Ultrathin Reference Bible - Brown Leathertouch

The Christian Standard Bible is a new revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible.  They have made some changes, and it seems to me that many of those changes are toward a more literal translation, which is a good thing. 

Here are some samples:

In Matthew 19:28 the HCSB renders it:

"Jesus said to them, 'I assure you: in the Messianic Age, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne…" This new revision has it as, "Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, In the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne…'" - CSB

Not that I'm disputing that the renewal of all things references the Messianic age, it's just that "the renewal of all things" is a more literal rendition of what Christ said, more toward a formal equivalence rather than a dynamic one - which I believe is a safer route.

To some degree the same holds true with the following:

Daniel 9:25:"Know and understand this:  From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince will be seven weeks and 62 weeks…" HCSB

"Know and understand this:  From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an Anointed One, the ruler, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks" CSB

1 Peter 3:1-2: "In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own  husbands so that, even if some disobey the Christian message, they may be won over without a message by the way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives." HCSB

"In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word by the way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives."  CSB

The translators also switched "languages" in 1 Corinthians 14 to "tongues", though I still think that Languages was a good translation.

There are also noticeable changes in the way the translators interpret the text, for example, in 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul is explaining that if a husband or a wife has an unbelieving spouse who wants to leave them, that they should let them leave, they then translate his next words as, "Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband.  Husband, for all you know you might save your wife." CSB  Whereas the HCSB said, "For you, wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband?  Or you, husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife?"  - 1 Cor 7:16?   Which is a rather significant change.

There were some things that I did not like about this translation.  For instance, they seem to have caved a little bit more on the gender inclusive language - 1 John 3:17  "If anyone has this worlds goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him -how does God's love reside in him?" CSB

"If anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need but closes his eyes to his need - how can God's love reside in him?"   HCSB  They do note that their goal is to translate the Bible faithfully, they simply change some gender specific language to gender inclusive when the text itself allows for it. I still don't think that that is necessary, but okay.   

And then there is a problem that I had with the HCSB that I still have with this revision.  One of which is that, despite saying in their introduction that their "OT Textual notes show IMPORTANT differences among Hebrew (HB) manuscripts and ancient OT versions, such as the Septuagint…(emphasis mine)", they do not include the LXX variant of Psalm 40:6, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not; but a BODY hast thou prepared me: (Brenton- Emphasis added), Whereas the Masoretic text (which only goes back to about 900 A.D. [or CE]), the text the Majority of our Old Testaments are based on, says, Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; MINE EARS HAST THOU OPENED: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required." (KJV - emphasis added).  The difference is extremely significant as the writer of Hebrews quotation of that verse matches the Septuagint and not our Masoretic text in that it says that God prepared a body for the speaker rather than opened his ears.   And yet they include a manuscript variant of the number of the beast, 616 - which variant is quite suspect as Irenaeus (a person who lived in the earlier days of the church who is thought to have been a follower of Polycarp a follower of the Apostle John) said that this variant was false, and that the older manuscripts did not contain it nor did those who knew the Apostles support it.  If they included this variant of the number of the beast then I do not  understand how they did not give the variant of Psalm 40 which is supported by the writer of Hebrews in the Bible!

One other thing that confused me:  The CSB is presented as having been translated directly from the original languages rather than using an existing translation as its basis. There is a chart on the website for this translation showing many translations and separating them on the basis of whether or not they are translated directly from the ancient languages as opposed to using an existing English translation as the basis.  The CSB is shown to be a translation not based upon an existing translation. But to me this seems to be contradicted by the admission that the CSB is a revision of the HCSB.   That just struck me as rather deceptive.  Perhaps I simply didn't understand the chart….

Otherwise, this is quite a nice translation  Also, this Bible is very nicely bound, with a LeatherTouch cover (it feels very nice).  The text is in two columns with a center column cross reference.  There is also a concordance at the back as well as full color maps.  All in all, very nice.

Many thanks to the folks at B&H publishers for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable).

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

 *****

Among other websites you may purchase this Bible at Christianbook.com and on Amazon.com

Inductive Bible Study - Richard Alan Fuhr, Jr. and Andreas J. Kostenberger

Looking for a book that will give you good guidelines for studying the Bible well? Inductive Bible Study by Richard Alan Fuhr Jr. and Andreas J. Kostenberger is a good resource on the topic. As the authors of this book explain, God chose to reveal His will to us through His written Word, rather than through personal revelation/new revelation.  He chose that it would be learned progressively with effort rather than instantly without any work on our part. We should revere God's choice method of conveying the knowledge of Him that He wants us to have and His will that is revealed through this collection of holy documents.  Fuhr and Kostenberger take you through a series of steps that will assist you in reverently discovering and handling what God's Word says with accuracy and reverence.

The steps you are taken through range from: comparing English Bible translations, Asking the right questions of the text, using commentaries, word studies, practicing discernment and of course, one of the most important steps of all, recognizing the importance of context and authorial intent.  It is pointed out that, "Those who read the Bible with little awareness of surrounding context often do so because they have been trained (by example) to think through Scripture in terms of devotional nuggets, memorizing verses and reading for inspirational insight rather than interpretive understanding."  Context is emphasized strongly, and related to that, I very much appreciate the cautions about word studies (though they are still encouraged),  where it is made clear that when studying individual words or phrases in a passage, it should be remembered that the meaning of those words will ultimately be discerned through the surrounding context of the phrase, not just their bare lexical meaning, "contextual meaning will always take precedence over lexical meaning."

The authors write very well, are easy to understand and the steps in each section are outlined in charts, which helps with remembering and simplifying what one has learned.  They give illustrations to demonstrate hermeneutical errors, some of which I found sadly amusing. For example, Fuhr talks about a missionary conference that he once attended where the theme verse was Joel 3:14, the verse was used as a reference to people ready to make a decision for Christ, but when one looks at the surrounding context of the verse, the 'decision' referenced in the verse is referring to God's decision to bring judgment on the nations, not salvation! 

They recommend many study resources (look for these in the footnotes as well), and also provide demonstrations of the inductive method by using it on various texts of the Scripture.  Being 'doers of the Word' and not merely 'hearers' of it is also stressed.  They make the interesting argument that, "While the Holy Spirit is certainly capable of providing interpretive insight, we'd suggest that illumination has more to do with appropriation than interpretation."  In other words, the work of the Holy Spirit is more seen in the Christian's personal application of the truths of Scripture to their life than by their coming to the correct conclusion as to the meaning of any given section of Scripture (though this is very important of course).  They do clarify that not all texts of the Scripture are necessarily directed at 'doing', some texts give us more knowledge about the God whom we serve by obedience to His will (by the enablement of the Spirit).  But both are a part of what we glean from our Bible study: knowledge of God and His will, and then living in light of the revealed truth. 

I want to mention two more things, first, ironically I must admit that I disagreed with some of their conclusions on the interpretation of some example texts (I will probably take another look at them), but the authors themselves encourage the reader to not be afraid to disagree with a Bible commentator if one thinks (by means of correct hermeneutics of course) that a they are not interpreting a text correctly.  Also, the authors kept using female pronouns when speaking of any given Bible studier, which terminology was rather tough to get used to (despite being a female myself) and was rather distracting.  I think that using male pronouns would be more in keeping with the Bible's teaching of male headship and of woman being taken from man in the creation rather than vice-versa. it simply seems more biblical to have any given person referred to with masculine pronouns rather than having a male read feminine pronouns and apply them to himself.  I understand that our culture is very concerned about gender inclusiveness, but this book is primarily directed at Christians, most of whom would (or at least should) have already come to grips with the primarily masculine pronouns of the Bible, especially those that, though masculine, refer to both male and females. To me it's like someone using the term "womankind" to refer to both males and females, instead of 'mankind'.  I am just not comfortable with it.

But overall, I really liked this resource, and would recommend it to pretty much Christian looking for an aid to accurately studying the Word of God.

Many thanks to the folks at B&H publishers for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable).

My Rating:  *****

Five out of Five Stars

Here are a couple of the websites where this book may be purchased:  Amazon.com and christianbook.com

NKJV Chronological Study Bible

This edition of the Chronological Study Bible NKJV is a nicely bound chronological Bible.  It has a simple, studious looking  'Leathersoft' cover, brown in color with a big dark blue stripe across its center.  This Bible is full of extra content, almost to the point of being distractingly cluttered.  It has charts and 'timepanels', background notes,  full color illustrations (some are very neat looking while others are not very decent), and maps throughout. 

I have some problems with it though, besides some indecent works of art,  some of the notes and commentary seem rather eisegetical.   For instance, some of the notes dealing with wives being submissive to their husbands make it more of a concession to the culture of the time rather than God ordained. They say things like,  "Paul's command 'Wives, submit to your own husbands' (Eph. 5:22) is at least partly related to concern for Christian witness within the surrounding culture, and is quite mild in comparison to the rest of his culture. What is significant is that Paul modified the culture's values, calling on all believers to submit…Wives were to submit 'as to the Lord' (Eph. 522), and husbands were to love their wives 'as Christ also loved the church"(5:25)  and, "…the structure of these traditional codes was adopted in Christian letters,".

 But the reasons given in the New Testament for wives submitting to their husbands was because of the structure that God had set up, not one man had set up.  It's not that the apostles were adopting and then modifying cultural authority structures in the family and that the headship of a husband over a wife and her submission to him were just necessary cultural evils, rather they were explaining how to correctly implement the authority structure set up by God (husbands loving their wives, wives submitting to their husbands and children obeying their parents.  Ironically, the commentators in this Bible are imposing modern cultural family-structure (equality of husbands and wives = no submission required) views on the Scriptures. 

And of course, you can presume, based upon the hermeneutical method used in interpreting the above concepts in the Bible there are other things that are probably erroneously interpreted as well.  One hint of it is in their use of dates, the numbers they use (like 26,000 years ago) hint at an 'old earth' or theistic evolutionist perspective. 

Oh, and I didn't like some of the chronological arrangement.  For instance, they have some prophecies from Isaiah being read after the fall of Jerusalem.  Part of their reasoning is that, "Other prophetic passages speak of times later than the traditional date of composition for the passage itself.  For example, parts of the Book of Isaiah refer to events that took place centuries after the prophet Isaiah lived.  Though Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem during the 8th century B. C., the passage of Isa 44:28; 45:1 refers by name to Cyrus, a Persian king who lived in the 6th century .  For this reason , some chapters form the Book of Isaiah appear in the time of Cyrus…"  Umm… didn't God have the prophets prophecy LOTS of things that hadn't happened yet?  It would hardly be unthinkable for God to have the prophets give out a particular name of someone in the future.  Besides, right before God starts prophetically addressing Cyrus He states, "I am the Lord, the maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns  it into nonsense, who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers."

Overall, this Bible is very nice looking inside and out (excepting the indecent pictures), but several of the above mentioned aspects keep me from recommending this Bible highly, though there are several redeeming factors, like the timelines, charts, and even other study notes that aren't so biased.  I had reviewed the NIV version of this Bible a while back but seem to have forgotten about several of the problems that I had with it.

I am grateful to have received a free review copy of this book from the Book Look Blogger program(My review did not have to be favorable)

ICB translation: The Frost Bible

I must admit, I liked the cover of this Bible (the 'Frost Bible') decorated with snow and sparkles and that was one of the reasons I requested this book in order to review it.  I am not an advocate of choosing a Bible because of its cover, and am generally uncomfortable with Bibles that are aimed towards a specific gender (mainly because of their study notes that may run into danger of eisegesis by trying to direct the thinking into a more egotistical interpretation of Scripture) , but this one, other than its being appealing to girls by its cover (as I am proof of) is otherwise a fairly basic Bible.   

My motives in requesting this Bible were not wholly material in nature, I had never heard of the International Children's Translation before and was very curious about it.   It seems to be a rather literal translation overall.  They explain in the preface about some liberties they took in translation, such as clarifying ancient customs, changing Rhetorical questions to statements, "showing the implied meaning, as in this example:  'No one is equal to our God,' instead of 'Who is equal to our God?'", editing figures of speech, idiomatic expressions ('he rested with his fathers' is changed to, 'he died')…etc.   Some of the writing style reminds me of the Dick and Jane books, short sentences with a lot of periods for punctuation. But it still reads quite well.  Here's a sample from Genesis 42: 1-4:  "Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt.  So he said to his sons, 'Why are you just sitting here looking at one another?  I have heard that there is grain in Egypt.  Go down there and buy grain for us to eat.  Then we will live and not die.'  So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt.  But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with them.  Jacob was afraid that something terrible might happen to Benjamin."

The translation appears to be quite good to me, and very understandable for kids.  One of the passages I always go to in Bibles to help give me an idea of the general literalness of the translation is Romans 9:13, and this translation doesn't try to soften it which is a good sign:  "As the Scripture says, "I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau." 

Here are some other excerpts to help give you more of an idea of how this translation reads: 

Rom 8:28, 30. "We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him.  They are the people God called, because that was his plan…God planned for them to be like his Son.  And those he planned to be like his Son, he also called.  And those he called, he also made right with him.  And those he made right, he also glorified." 

2 Tim. 3: 14-17:  "But you should continue following the teachings that you learned.  You know that these teachings are true.  And you know you can trust those who taught you.  You have known the Holy Scriptures since you were a child.  The Scriptures are able to make you wise.  And that wisdom leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching and for showing people what is wrong in their lives.  It is useful for correcting faults and teaching how to live right.  Using the Scriptures, the person who serves God will be ready and will have everything he needs to do every good work."  

The Bible has some fancy pages (with snowflakes of course) scattered throughout with little tidbits on topics like, "How Do I Pray?" , "How Do I know Jesus Better?" and "Knowing Jesus Better".  For the most part those sections seem okay, though I might have an issue with some of the memory verses they suggest like Jeremiah 29:11 which is usually taken out of context and applied specifically to Christians when in actuality it was a promise to the physical descendants of Jacob, not necessarily to present day Gentile Christians.  I just had to mention that. 

Overall, I thought this translation was pretty good. 

 

The FTC guidelines require me to state that I received this Bible for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review (my review did not have to be favorable).  Many thanks to the BookLook blogger program.

Amongst other places, this book may be purchased at Amazon

The Apostles' School of Prophetic Interpretation - By Charles Maitland

The Apostles' School of Prophetic Interpretation: With Its History Down to the Present Time - by Charles Maitland is a very fascinating book on prophecy.  Maitland bases his premise on the fact that the Apostles taught Christians verbally and not merely through letters, and that those letters do not contain everything they taught the early Christians.   He cites 2 Thes. 2:15, "So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by epistle of ours. "(2Th 2:15 ASV)  And also uses another verse closely connected with the above to prove his point, speaking of 2 Thess. Ii 5-6.  "…on this point St. Paul and the Thessalonians understood each other:  'Ye know what withholdeth.' And how had they learnt it?  'When I was yet with you I told you these things.'  They knew something not directly expressed in Scripture:  and this knowledge they were told to hand down together with the epistle." Paul told the Thessalonians to hold fast to, and by implication to pass down, what they had been taught, by letter and by the Apostles' verbal teaching.  So Maitland thinks that one of the best ways to study prophecy is to see what many of the Christians of the early church believed in regard to prophecy as they may have learned from the Apostles, or those taught by the Apostles, about certain prophetic interpretations.  This is what the author does in this book, going down through church history to see what the earliest Christians believed and observing and critiquing the deviations from those interpretations that ended up occurring along the way

The conclusion of the book is that the correct scheme of prophetic interpretation is a Premillennial one: The ultimate Antichrist has yet to come, Babylon the Great has yet to be destroyed, there will be a literal thousand year reign of Christ upon this earth…etc. One of his biggest conclusions is that the Roman Catholic Church is 'Rome' or Babylon, the Great Harlot spoken of in prophecy…I'm still a bit 'iffy' on that but he did make some very interesting arguments on that score. There were differing views amongst the early Saints about whom the woman clothed with the sun represents, some early church Saints believed it was the Church, others that it was the 'Jewish Church'.  At times, I must admit, I was bothered by the author's inconclusiveness about the Jewish people…though if I remember correctly, I think he did believe (he lived in the 1800s) that they would be brought to Christ at the end, though not necessarily taking a prominent or significant place in the 1000 year reign.  That was rather disappointing to me, but I really liked the book overall. 

Maitland gives many very fascinating thoughts, a couple of which I'll quote here: Speaking of the incredible deceiving power the Antichrist will have, so powerful that if it were possible even the elect would be deceived, the author speaks of the, as it were, reverse truths Christians will bank on to hold to the true Christ and reject the Antichrist: "Compared with the history of our Savior's life, faith and unbelief will seem, in that day, to have changed sides.  What it was blasphemy to say of the first, it will be soul-saving truth to think of the second:  he truly 'hath a devil, and is mad;' he lives and reigns 'by the operation of Satan,' for it is the Dragon that gives him that power, and seat and great authority. ..The same Scriptures that foretold good things of Christ have declared bad things of Antichrist.  Seen by this light, his very miracles will resolve themselves into a fulfillment of prophecy:  to style himself God, will stamp him 'Man of Sin:' for, if he did no miracles, he would not be the Antichrist of prophecy…"  and speaking of the Jews' rejection of Christ as Messiah in spite of the prophecies supporting him: "For Christ Himself, instead of uttering new prophecies about Antichrist, refers to that which was before spoken by Daniel the prophet:  it being His purpose not to bear witness to Himself, but to support His own mission by the witness of His Father's prophets.  The rejection of that witness, according to the primitive belief, will increase the condemnation of the Jews, and in the end bring Antichrist upon them:  God will send them strong delusion, that, as they rejected Christ in spite of their own Daniel, so they may receive Antichrist in spite of Daniel also." I had never thought of it that way before, the Jews rejection of Christ, and their ultimate acceptance of Antichrist, both actions were/are/will be in spite of the prophecies of Scripture!

The book is filled with little witty, sarcastic, and profound statements about erroneous prophetic views, for instance, in the introductory essay (which I strongly advise you to read as well) the author is defending the literal interpretation of scripture and makes comments like, "When history has falsified any part of a prognostication professing to be derived from Scripture, the mistake will be found, not in the over-literalness of the interpretation, but in its not being literal enough."  and speaking of allegorical interpretations and giving an amusing demonstration of how the Jews could have allegorically interpreted the prophecies of Christ, "Thus the methods now employed to evade the natural meaning of the prophecies about Antichrist, would have enabled the Jews to evade all that was predicted about the first coming of Christ." And many pages later, in the main part of the book after comparing in a chart (yes, this book has charts too!) differing views of early Christians for and against the Millennium he writes, "But on which side shall we range St. John?  Were he uninspired, nothing could be more decisive than his statement:  - 'They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.'  Have we at length come to this, that because we reckon him inspired the plain sense is to go for n nothing?" In other words, is John TOO inspired to be taken literally?  Maitland was very good at using sarcasm to make his point. 

Oh, and another interesting note, I have heard several times over the past few years an interesting account of a discovery of a variant of the number of the beast that says 616 and not 666.  It wouldn't be quite worth remarking on except that a second manuscript was found rather recently that has the same variant, so it seemed to give it a little more credence and cast doubt upon the number of the beast.  The account made me wonder about it as well.  This book helped me draw a conclusion on it, simply through the author's recounting of prophetic history:  Speaking of Irenaeus (a probable disciple of the Apostle John), the author writes:  "Through Irenaeus we discover that……Some had changed the Beast's number to 616; a mistake which he supposes to have begun with the copyists, and to have been kept up by 'vainglorious' attempts to support some names that agreed with 616." " Against those who had altered the number of the Beast's name, he could bring this conclusive argument:  'They that have seen John face to face say otherwise.'"  Well, that settled me on 666! 

I suppose I should end this now…there were SO many points made in the book, and I took SO many notes/wrote down quotations, the above are just a sampling of them.  I strongly recommend getting this book, it gives a very interesting look at the study of prophecy down through the ages, and is VERY thought provoking. 

Many, many thanks to Wipf and Stock Publishers for sending me a free review copy of this book!  My review did not have to be favorable.  

Besides Wipf and Stock Publishers, one of the places this book may be purchased from is Amazon.com