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

Strange Fire - By John Macarthur

In this book, MacArthur attacks the 'Strange fire'/worship practice of  pneumacentrism/Holy Spirit centrism(Major focus upon the Holy Spirit)particularly in the Charismatic movement, and does a good job too.  He starts by reminding us to 'test the spirits' and then moves on to how the modern charismatic movement got started and how they misinterpret Scripture.  We look at the Scriptures to see what the work of the Holy Spirit actually looks like and what 'Spirit-filled' really means. 

Speaking in tongues is addressed, of course, and we are given the history of how and why the Charismatics switched from viewing the word 'tongue' as being a human language to its being an unintelligible spirit babble.  They apparently tried out their 'tongues' on people in other countries, and it proved that their supposed 'languages' were not languages at all but merely gibberish.  They wanted to keep this babble and so reinterpreted the Scriptures to make it mean, essentially, 'holy babble'.   

Some Charismatics believe that there can be modern Apostles other than the twelve in the early church.  This is addressed by the author as well.  He makes the point that the Apostle's did not tell the Churches that new Apostles should(or would) be appointed, but rather pastors, elders and deacons were to be appointed.  Also addressed is the so-called 'prophecy' that is happening today.  While Charismatics believe that the early church(and OT) had prophets of God who always prophesied correctly, for some reason, today they believe that one can be a prophet and be wrong in your prophecy many times.  While giving Scriptural proofs against this view, this statement is made, "…the Bible only and always condemns erroneous prophets as dangerous and deceptive.  Fallible prophets are false prophets."   The Holy spirit does not give us new revelation but rather gives us illumination/understanding of the Scriptures. "After all, a foundation is not something that can be rebuilt during every phase of  construction.  The foundation is unique, and it is always laid first with the rest of the structure resting firmly above it. "

I found the look at 1 Corinthians 12:31 very interesting. The statement, "But earnestly desire the best gifts."..  rather than being imperative, the statement is probably indicative,  "The New International Version rightly captures the apostle's point in its alternate reading of this verse:  "But you are eagerly desiring the greater gifts."  The Syriac New Testament similarly states, "Because you are zealous of the best gifts, I will show to you a more excellent way."

It’s a good critique of the Charismatic movement along with excellent warnings about the dangers of this misfocus upon the Holy Spirit and His gifts. The ending of the book has a plea to pastors who are concerned with rightly interpreting God's Word, and yet are more accepting of the Charismatic doctrines, to seriously rethink this issue.

 

I'll end with one more quote, "By elevating the authority of experience over the authority of Scripture, the Charismatic Movement has destroyed the church's immune system - uncritically granting free access to every imaginable form of heretical teaching and practice."

 

Thanks to BookSneeze®/Thomas Nelson publishers for sending me a free review copy of this book!(My Review did not have to be favorable)

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The Forgotten Father

Recently there seems to have been a trend towards a Christocentric hermeneutic, and  an overall focus on Christ altogether in Christian circles.  It has been frustrating to see, as the focus of the Bible is not on Christ, but on the Father.  Christ Himself points to the Father!   When I saw the title of this book, it intrigued me…that's exactly what I and my dad(a pastor) have been talking about: people forgetting about God the Father.  As Mr. Smail writes, "God the Father "has been regularly and ritually confessed, but his being and work as Father has been out of the centre of concern.  It is of course true that in recent years there has been a great deal of concentration on God.  It has, however, been a mainly apologetic concern, about the basis, possibility and meaning of speaking about God at all, rather than a properly dogmatic discussion with in the Christian family on the basis of shared faith about the nature and character of the God who in Christ has revealed himself to his people as Father, as well as Son and spirit.  The question about God that people have been asking has been whether he exists rather than who he is. " 

This Christocentric focus, or even Pneumacentric focus is evidenced in who people are praying to,  again, quoting Mr. Smail:  "There is a type of protestant prayer that concentrates in an unhealthy way on Jesus, and that can easily become familiar and sentimental, because it has forgotten who Jesus is - the only Son of and the only way to the Father.  There is a Jesuology that can lavish an all too human love on an all too human Jesus and banish God to such remote transcendence, that we are back with the idea that we have to cling to a loving Jesus to keep us  right with a remote and probably angry God.  There is equally a prayer that concentrates on the Holy Spirit and the gifts and blessings he can bestow in a way that forgets that these things matter only when we use them to witness to the Son and to serve the Father in amore effective obedience.  To pray TO Jesus rather than THROUGH him, TO the Spirit rather than IN him, as the established habit of our prayer, is to betray a doubt about our relationship to the Father." 

Smail does a good job at addressing this issue, reminding us that the Spirit points us to Christ, and Christ opens the way for us to know the Father, to directly know the Father.  Again, pulling up some of the author's statements on prayer, "Prayer is through Christ….in John 16…'I do not say I will ask the Father on your behalf.'  He will not go instead of us, we are to come ourselves because the way is open.  Yet it is immediately clear that our ability to do so is entirely dependent on Christ and our relationship to him.  We do not come by ourselves, but it is we ourselves who come through him.  The same idea of mediation is implied in Hebrews 4:16.  Because he has gone into the holiest of all as High Priest we can

'approach the throne of grace with confidence'…….It was into all this that Christ initiated his disciples when he said, 'When you pray, say Abba,'…" Christ's death did not just save us spiritually, it gives us access to the Father!

He makes the case that you don't know the true God if you do not believe in the Deity of Christ, you do not know the true Gospel if you do not believe in the Trinity.  Knowing about the trinity, the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost  is important.  He asks, "what is the significance, status and nature of the Father/Son relationship? Is it the MEANS of revelation and salvation or, more than that, is it the CONTENT of revelation and salvation?.......The doctrine of the Trinity does not lay an irreverent philosophical mystery on top of a simple scriptural gospel; it simply makes explicit what is implicit in the biblical gospel…….How can the act of atonement on the cross be reconciling, effective, creative and of universal importance for all men, unless the agent of it is himself God?.....It takes the Trinity to make sense of the atonement…….The cross is atoning and saving precisely because on it God offers to God the obedience that is appropriate to us……"  And then… "In the new Testament, as understood in the mainstream of Christian tradition, we meet the same God three times.  First of all we meet him in the Father, whom Jesus prayed to and obeyed, at whose bidding he came, lived, suffered and died, by whose hand he was raised from the dead.  But in Jesus Christ himself, we encounter the same divine love and power appearing personally among us as our fellowman.  God is now not only exalted in heaven but made man on earth.  The acts of Jesus are the acts of God, the words of Jesus are the words of God, the suffering of Jesus is the self-sacrifice of God, the person of Jesus is the person of God, so that the confession of the Church echoes the confession of Thomas (John 20:28) and addresses not the Father in heaven but the risen human Jesus, 'My Lord and my God'.  But with Jesus ascended there comes according to his promise allos Parakletos, 'Another of the same kind of Advocate Counselor.'  The Holy Spirit who keeps on relating Christians to Christ and the Father, and then to one another, is himself God, God at work in and among men.  He does not hand us over to another, but in this other he keeps on coming to us himself." 

He doesn't focus on the Christocentric Hermeneutics issue, but he didn't need as his biblically based plea for us to learn more about the Father deals with the issue itself.   All in all he does a good job.   It might surprise you, as it surprised me, to learn that Mr. Smail is a charismatic.  His leanings show up more towards the end of the book, so be watching out for that.  But even his this is not so 'bad', as he is critical of the movement, desiring it to focused on the Father, not on the Spirit, to be biblical rather than emotionally/needs based(focused on miracles, speaking in tongues).   Speaking of which he says, "If the charismatic renewal is to continue and deepen... It must cease to fabricate a distorted Christ who says, 'Come and I will give you whatever you want,' and face up to the real Christ who says, 'Come and I will send you wherever I choose.'"  And again, "There are those who think that renewal has nothing to do with theology and will find too much theology in this book.  They have to learn that there is no such thing as a renewal without a theology but only a renewal with a bad theology or a renewal with a good one.  I have tried to suggest that the right theology for renewal is not a testimony-based teaching about experiences and gifts, but the classical Trinitarian theology that has its roots in the New Testament and that centre in the incarnation, death and resurrection of the only Son the Father as the focal point of all creation and recreation……"

Sorry this review is so long, but I wanted to give you more of an idea of what this book is about, as the main thing that I had to go off of was the Title(I asked for it for Christmas), so I'm trying to give others a bit more to go off of. 

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes from the book, which is also a good summary of it:  ""…we have had in recent years a Jesus movement and a charismatic movement.  The one has almost disappeared and the other is threatening to run out of steam, perhaps because each is in a different way inadequate to the gospel, which his basically a Father movement.   It is not first a Jesuology (a doctrine about Jesus) or a pneumatology (a doctrine about the Spirit) but it is a theology or even a patrology - a doctrine about God the Father.  It starts not with the cross of Jesus or with the gift of the Spirit, but with the Father who so loved the World that he gave his Son in his Spirit."