The higher you rise, the harder you fall. There seems to be nothing more universally revolting than the fall of a big name preacher. The scandals of Jim & Tammy Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard all made the national news headlines. But not every scandal gets such nationwide attention. Sadly, such falls by “men of God” are all too common.
Yesterday, I found out about one such fall that sits far too close to home for my liking. Rodney Stewart, an evangelist who was a frequent preacher at the Bible College I attended, was recently caught in an online sex sting. I own several cassette tapes of this man’s preaching, which always struck me as intense and radically serious. He was a great preacher who stuck close to the Biblical text in most of his messages. Yet he was found out in his sin and now is sitting in prison awaiting his trial and sentencing. The sad story is covered by a local news station in the Cleveland area here.
Why is it that men who are respected and hold a revered office (such as pastor, evangelist or preacher) would do such horrendous things? Why would they be found soliciting sex online from a 15 year old? And why exactly are such failures so commonplace, as it seems?
I can’t speak for all sectors of Christianity, or for the Roman Catholic Church. I do know that sin is common to all men, that is sure. But for conservative evangelical churches, particularly of the fundamentalist variety, there are several factors which I believe contribute to this problem.
1) Too much emphasis on morals
This might sound crazy to some. But an over-emphasis on morality actually encourages sin. Moralism cannot save. It cannot free someone of sinful urges within. Only the Gospel of grace can truly transform our hearts.
2) An external focus
Many fundamentalist churches stress external conformity to rules and standards. Christians need to look different, act different and dress differently than the world. Christians need to read their Bibles, spend time evangelizing their friends and neighbors, and actively serve in their church. All of this, people can trick themselves into thinking they can do. And then keeping up the appearance of spirituality can in turn become a heavy burden.
3) Little emphasis on grace
Grace, or God’s favor for undeserving sinners, is not emphasized. God’s holiness and his high standards are. Grace comes into play in salvation, but living the Christian life is all about effort, character, and duty. So when people struggle, there is no saving grace that can help them. They must dust themselves off and try harder. Often a do-it-yourself-mentality is the practical effect of an over-emphasis on externals and conformity.
4) Failure to appreciate the Gospel
Similar to what was said above, the Gospel is seen as the 101 class for becoming a Christian. The meat and the nitty-gritty of Christian living leaves the Gospel behind. The Gospel is good news for the lost unbeliever, and its an assumed thing for believers. This misunderstanding cuts off the Christian from his only sure hope. The Gospel teaches that God accepts us not on the basis of how well we behave, but as a matter of pure grace and on account of Jesus’ death on the cross in our place.
5) Legalism and burnout
All of this leads to a practical legalism. Christians live as if God is not happy with them. To please God and to truly grow in faith, one must add mountains of work to the faith that saves. If we measure up to our own (or our group’s) expectations, if we perform, if we put out, only then are we satisfied with ourselves, and only then is God pleased with us. When we fail in a myriad of ways, we have to struggle on alone. This leads to burnout. All work, no recognition of God’s love and approval, and no grace. It’s hard struggling on in such a condition.
6) No mutual accountability
The ethos of a legalistic church does not lend itself to mutual accountability. Pastors rarely mention that they too struggle with sin. If one confesses a sin, he is dealt with as a sinner. Grace isn’t proffered. There is no benefit to opening up to others about your struggles. You’ll be rejected, written off and then treated so differently. For those struggling with sexual addiction, mutual accountability is balm to the soul. Understanding that others share the same struggles and hearing others be open about their struggles to overcome the sin are key to victory.
7) Lone Ranger Christianity
This final aspect is an American trait that has affected the church. People think that the Christian life is something that is purely personal, and can be accomplished on their own. The Bible stresses the role of the church and the need for brothers and sisters in the faith to encourage each other. Often, in a high-stress environment, where a judgmental spirit is present, the communal aspects of church life are downplayed. We get together to eat and socialize but never to discuss the impact of the Gospel on our personal lives. This is only intensified in the life of a pastor or evangelist. They are even more prone to the lone ranger phenomenon. The pastor has to keep himself aloof from his congregation, it is thought. The very thought of a pastor wanting help for struggling with his personal sins and thought life, is unheard of in many such legalistic environments.
I suppose other factors come into play, but these are certainly influential in many fundamentalist church environments. But it isn’t only legalistic churches that can harbor such ideas about the Christian life. People can tend toward legalism in any context.
It’s so easy to cast stones at the fallen pastor. I would hope that we could pray for him and his family, and be on guard lest the sin in our own hearts come to overcome us as well. I certainly don’t excuse him for his crimes. however. I just wish the system he was in would have been more grace-oriented. But for the grace of God, I too could be consumed by my sin.
I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this, too. Feel free to chime in and let me know what you think.
Tags: accountability, Chrisitan life, Christianity, evangelist, extreme, failure, fall, Fundamentalism, Legalism, Pastor, Religion, Rodney Stewart, sanctification, scandal, sin, spiritual life, spirituality, struggle, tragedy
Sharper Iron just posted my entry to their writing contest today. I was one of three winners this year. The topic of my paper may be of interest to some of my readers so I’ll excerpt the beginning paragraphs and encourage you to go over to Sharper Iron and read the whole thing. You can discuss it at SI or here in the comments.
Let the minutiae speak: The place of genealogies, numbers, and parallel passages in the King James only debate
“Things that are different are not the same.” So says the title of Mickey Carter’s book advocating the exclusive use of the King James Bible. This sentiment is a fair summary of the mindset of most King James only (KJO) advocates. The differences between Bible versions demand a judgment. Which Bible is right?
Troubled by differing Bible versions, many sincere Christians seek for answers. One side affirms that no doctrine is affected by the relatively minor differences between Bible versions. The message is the same, but finer points and particular details may be slightly different. A typical KJO position jumps in and says this can’t be right. Verbal inspiration is useless without the preservation of those very words of God. In fact, we need to know each and every word, in order to live (Matt. 4:4). All differences, even word order and spelling differences, matter (Matt. 5:18). Differing versions cannot both claim to be translations of the perfect, inspired Word of God.
On the face of it, the KJO argument makes sense. When we’re speaking about the Bible, shouldn’t every little difference matter? Some respond with manuscript evidence that calls into question the choice of the King James Bible as a perfect standard. Others have shown that the various proof texts for word perfect preservation don’t actually promise a single, identifiable, word-perfect copy of the Bible. And prior to 1611, where was such a copy to be found, anyway?
In this paper, I want to take us down a road less traveled. Rather than looking for a proof text which directly deals with this controversy, I aim to scour the King James Bible itself for examples of the very differences which are said to matter so much. The minor points of Scripture itself, the minutia, should be allowed to speak to this issue. Genealogies, lists, numbers, and parallel passages all have an important bearing on how we should think about “things that are different.” [read the rest of the entry at Sharper Iron]
Tags: Bible, Bob Hayton, contest, discrepancies, entry, harmony, KJV-onlyism, KJVO, parallel passages, prize, quotations, Recommended, Sharper Iron, winning, won, writing
Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis, MN recently posted a statement which helps define where they think fundamentalism is or should be going. It makes some careful delineation of terms and goes out of its way to repudiate some of the more extreme versions of fundamentalism.
I appreciate the desire this statement has for working with conservative evangelicals, as much as fundamentalist ideas and principles can allow. I’m going to excerpt a few key statements in this and recommend you go read it for yourself.
Ethos Statement on Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism
To be an evangelical is to be centered upon the gospel. To be a Fundamentalist is, first, to believe that fundamental doctrines are definitive for Christian fellowship, second, to refuse Christian fellowship with all who deny fundamental doctrines (e.g., doctrines that are essential to the gospel), and third, to reject the leadership of Christians who form bonds of cooperation and fellowship with those who deny essential doctrines. We are both evangelicals and Fundamentalists according to these definitions. We all believe that, as ecclesial movements, both evangelicalism and Fundamentalism have drifted badly from their core commitments. In the case of evangelicalism, the drift began when self-identified neo-evangelicals began to extend Christian fellowship to those who clearly rejected fundamental doctrines. This extension of fellowship represented a dethroning of the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. It was a grievous error, and it has led to the rapid erosion of evangelical theology within the evangelical movement. At the present moment, some versions of professing evangelicalism actually harbor denials of the gospel such as Open Theism or the New Perspective on Paul. We deny that the advocates of such positions can rightly be called evangelical.
On the other hand, we also believe that some Fundamentalists have attempted to add requirements to the canons of Christian fellowship. Sometimes these requirements have involved institutional or personal loyalties, resulting in abusive patterns of leadership. Other times they have involved organizational agendas. They have sometimes involved the elevation of relatively minor doctrines to a position of major importance. In some instances, they have involved the creation of doctrines nowhere taught in Scripture, such as the doctrine that salvation could not be secured until Jesus presented His material blood in the heavenly tabernacle. During recent years, the most notorious manifestation of this aberrant version of Fundamentalism is embodied in a movement that insists that only the King James version of the Bible (or, in some cases, its underlying Greek or Hebrew texts) ought be recognized as the perfectly preserved Word of God.
We regard both of these extremes as equally dangerous. The evangelicalism of the far Left removes the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. The Fundamentalism of the far Right adds to the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. Neither extreme is acceptable to us, but because we encounter the far Right more frequently, and because it claims the name of Fundamentalism, we regard it as a more immediate and insidious threat….
We wish to be used to restate, refine, and strengthen biblical Fundamentalism. The process of restatement includes not only defining what a thing is, but also saying what it is not. We find that we must point to many versions of professing Fundamentalism and say, “That is not biblical Christianity.” We do not believe that the process of refinement and definition can occur without such denials. The only way to strengthen Fundamentalism is to speak out against some self-identified Fundamentalists.
We also see a need to speak out against the abandonment of the gospel by the evangelical Left, the reducing of the gospel’s importance by the heirs of the New Evangelicalism, and the huckstering of the gospel by pragmatists, whether evangelicals or Fundamentalists. On the other hand, while we may express disagreement with aspects of conservative evangelicalism (just as we may express disagreement with one another), we wish to affirm and to strengthen the activity of conservative evangelicals in restoring the gospel to its rightful place.
The marks of a strong Fundamentalism will include the following:
1. A recommitment to the primacy and proclamation of the gospel.
2. An understanding that the fundamentals of the gospel are the boundary of Christian fellowship.
3. A focus on the importance of preaching as biblical exposition.
4. An emphasis upon progressive sanctification understood as incremental spiritual growth.
5. An elevation of the importance of ordinate Christian affections, expressed partly by sober worship that is concerned with the exaltation and magnification of God.
6. An understanding of Christian leadership primarily as teaching and serving.
7. A commitment to teaching and transmitting the whole system of faith and practice.
8. An exaltation of the centrality of the local congregation in God’s work.These are features of an authentic Fundamentalism that we all feel is worth saving. These features describe the kind of Fundamentalism that we wish to build. Their absence in either Fundamentalism or other branches of evangelicalism constitutes a debasing of Christianity that we intend to oppose. (emphasis mine)
Be sure to read the whole thing. (The link takes you to the statement as published by Sharper Iron, where additional discussion follows.)
Personally, as I read the entire statement, it still comes across as, well, quite Fundamentalist. At least this is consistent! I still don’t see how their 5th point regarding a strong Fundamentalism is not also adding “requirements to the canons of Christian fellowship”, however.
Tags: Central, cooperation, distinguish, evangelical, fellowship, Fundamentalism, fundamentalist, Kevin Bauder, marks, Separation, Unity
Desiring God just posted John Piper’s thoughts on watching movies, from an Ask Pastor John live event from some time back. From my vantage point I see his thoughts as a helpful corrective to contemporary Christianity. When Christianity Today can publish a glowing review of the “Sex and the City” movie, something is obviously wrong. May we all take care in our entertainment choices and guard our hearts.
Here is the video clip of Pastor John answering the question. Below you’ll find the edited transcript of his answer.
Is it possible to glorify God through the enjoyment of music, movies, literature, etc. produced by secular artists?
Yes. I assume the computer you are holding there was probably not built by Christians, and I hope that you are glorifying God as you tap away at it. And of course out from there, there are a 1000 things that we use all day long, and God says, ‘whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.’ And he knows that you are eating this meat that may have been sacrificed to idols, so that means it was probably butchered by an unbeliever, or handled by an unbeliever, shipped by an unbeliever, it may have been cooked by an unbelieving cook. And here you are savoring the product of all those unbelievers’ work because you are in that moment giving thanks to God for it, recognizing that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof and taking the strength and the joy that comes from it to render back to him.
Now with the arts and with media it is more morally complex than with food. But it is the same principle. The complexity of it is, in those moments what do you do with the moral elements of it that are so contrary to your faith?
I’ll just point out one principle because we can talk about this forever. What concerns me is the distinction between entertainment and cultural analysis. To watch something, to study the culture, learn from the culture, be more able to interact with unbelievers for the sake of the glory of Christ is one thing. To just sit and bask in nudity, or bask in fifty f-words, or bask in a world view that is shot through with arrogance to the core, and enjoy it? Hmm. That seems to point to something going on in the heart. And frankly, I have tasted it big time. I think today we are going to have to work at not being shaped by the world because the world has made its world view so scintillatingly attractive.
Movie after movie after movie has come out and most young reformed people are, I would say, indiscriminate. “Let’s go to a movie tonight.” OK, and then we just choose the best. None of the movies in that theater at that night are any good, probably. But you are just going to do it, because that is what you do. You go to the movies on Friday night, or whatever. And then of course you think, we’ve got to Christianize this thing somehow.
I just think we need to test our hearts big time. Big time. Why are we able to enjoy hell bound, God ignoring, Christ dishonoring, false world views because we can give it a little twist at the end that it taught us this or that about the world? So, I think the main thing I’m saying there is, test your heart as to whether entertainment is defaulting to the world, or to something more wholesome. We live in an age where we tend to default to the world for entertainment. [Quoted from Desiring God's post, emphasis added]
[HT: Sharper Iron's Filings]
Tags: arts, Bible, Christianity, culture, discernment, John Piper, media, movie, tv, watch
The other day, I picked up C.J. Mahaney’s excellent little book Living the Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing. I came across his excellent description of legalism once again and thought I’d share it here for my readers.
When I first read through an earlier version of this book, back in 2005, His thoughts helped me realize the legalistic tendencies I had in my own life. Legalism properly refers to earning God’s grace for justification, but the term can also be used for earning God’s favor in sanctification. And for many in conservative or fundamentalist circles, legalism is a danger to watch out for.
In the book, Mahaney uses an illustration which captures the essence of a performance-based ethic which amounts to Christian legalism. To set the stage for the quote, Mahaney describes a variety show that used to be popular where a man would set various plates spinning on a series of long flexible rods. He’d keep each plate spinning as it would slow down until there were 8 or 10 spinning plates spread precariously all over the stage. Here is the quote now from Mahaney about legalism:
That’s a helpful picture of how legalism can hijack a Christian. The life of a legalist can become just as frenetic as the plate spinner’s performance.
The plates we spin are various spiritual activities–such as bible reading, prayer, or sharing the gospel–that are good and vital in themselves when pursued for the right reasons.
But often without realizing it, we allow a dangerous shift to take place in our mind and heart. We change what God intends as a means of experiencing grace into a means of earning grace. Instead of being a further expression of our confidence in God’s saving work in our life, these spiritual activities become simply more spinning plates to maintain.
When Sunday morning comes, we’ll sing and praise god in church with evident sincerity and zeal when we’ve had a really good week–with not a single plate wobbling.
But on another Sunday, following a week in which several plates crashed, we’re hesitant to approach God and find it difficult to worship freely. We can’t escape the feeling that God disapproves of us. Our confidence is no longer in the gospel; it’s based instead on our own performance, and when that performance slides, so does our peace and joy.
Do you see such signs of legalism in your own life? Do you often find that you’re more aware of your sin than of what Jesus accomplished at the cross? Do you think of God as disappointed with you rather than delighting over you?Do you lack holy joy? Do you look to your spinning plates for the confidence–indeed, even the right–to approach God?
If you answer yes to any of those questions, you’ve probably begun to live under the tyranny of legalism.
But don’t let this discourage you. God wants to rescue you from the joyless futility of plate spinning through a right understanding of the gospel. (pg. 115-116, bolded emphasis added)
This performance-based, do-it-yourself-Christianity is deadly. It stifles joy, promotes pride, and can cripple spiritually sensitive believers. Be on guard for legalism in your life and in your church.
I know I experienced this (and still tend toward this “practical legalism” even today). What’s your story? Do you think Mahaney says it right here? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Tags: Bible, Christianity, Gospel, guilt, Legalism, Mahaney, performance, performance-based, Religion, sanctification, sin, spiritual life, works
Here are some notes from a lesson I shared with some teens and young adults at my church this Sunday.
I. The Cycle of Temptation (Prov. 24:16)
- Weak Flesh + Wicked World + Satan’s Work = Continual Temptation
- We try to resist ~ we fail and fall into sin ~ we get up & resolve to do better ~ but we fail again….
- This can lead us to lose heart, to give up and give ourselves to sin, or to be discouraged and even lose our faith
II. Resources for Temptation
- Memorizing and learning God’s Word – Ps. 119:9,11
- Watchfulness and Prayer – Matt. 26:41
- Faith – 1 John 5:4, 1 Pet. 5:9
- Godly Friends – Heb. 3:12-14
- God does provide a “way of escape” – 1 Cor. 10:13
- God uses temptation to work good in our lives – James 1:2-17
III. The Proper Perspective for Facing Temptation (Heb. 12:1-17)
1. The Christian Life is like a Long, Grueling Marathon – vs. 1
- Not a quick sprint, the battle with sin is long and hard
- Sin trips us up, and some non-sinful things can slow us down
- We need endurance, to be in it for the long haul
- It can be done, others have finished before us they testify to God’s grace, and they watch us finish our race
2. Our Focus needs to be on Christ, our Captain – vs. 2-3
- Focusing on our failures and problems doesn’t solve anything, look away from ourselves to what Christ has done
- Christ initiated our faith and will bring it to completion
- When we fall, we must cling to the Gospel not self-effort
- Jesus resisted sin “for the joy that was set before Him” we can also live now in light of Heaven’s joys (Phil. 3:13-14, 2 Pet. 3:11-14, Heb. 11:10, 13-16, 26)
- Live in light of what is supremely true – that is faith
3. Battling sin is a struggle – like a boxing match – vs. 4
- We haven’t even lost any blood in our match (others have)
- There isn’t a magic “lose interest in sin” pill
- Everyone struggles not just you (1 Cor. 10:13)
- But with time, you can mortify sins and the battle gets easier (Rom. 8:13)
- “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” – John Owen
4. Fighting sin is part of God’s discipline of his children – vs. 5-11
- The trials of the Hebrew Christians primarily are in view when the author speaks of God’s “discipline”
- But discipline is training or teaching as much as punishment
- Vs. 4 “struggle against sin”, vs. 10 “share his holiness”, vs. 14 “strive for… holiness” as well as the weakness in vs. 12-13 argue for the battle against sin as being part of this “discipline”
- So, this means the fight against sin (which isn’t easy), is part of what God ordains for us to make us holy
- The struggle isn’t fun now, but it results in fruit (vs. 11)
- And if you don’t experience this struggle, you just might not be a true son of God because every son experiences the struggles against sin
- Be encouraged if you are struggling – that’s actually a good sign. Non-believers don’t struggle with sin
- Take heart that God is behind our trials and temptations, and He wants them to mature us (James 1:2-4, 12-17)
5. Having this perspective on temptation, take heart! – vs. 12-13
- We are tempted to give up and the race makes us weary – but take heart
- Is. 35:3-4 is quoted: “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come… He will come and save you.’”
6. Fighting sin is a team-sport – vs. 14-15
- It’s like Tour-de-France, many members working toward the one goal of the victory – we look out for each other
- Some can fall short, and miss out on God’s sustaining grace.
- So we need to encourage each other (Heb. 3:12-14, 10:22-25)
7. The fight against sin does have real casualties – vs. 15-17
- Holiness is required to see God – vs. 14 (and Matt. 5:8)
- Some do fall away “bitter roots” (Deut. 29:18) & Esau – he sold his birthright for a bowl of stew (we are as foolish!)
- Ultimately, the grace of God keeps us. Trust Him when you fail and sin. But take heart God’s not done with you!
Tags: Bible, Bible study, cycle, Devotional, fight, grow, growth, Hebrews, lesson, lust, persepective, resist, resources, scripture, sermon, sin, spiritual life, story, struggle, teaching, temptation
Saturday evening, we’ll be taking the KJV Only debate…
ON AIR.
Kevin Thompson of Understanding Our Times Radio, has asked me to guest host his radio show for him this week. He’s had me on the show as a guest before discussing Fundamentalism and Reformed Theology. With Kevin’s blessing, I’ve decided to throw open the phone lines and discuss the issues surrounding KJV Onlyism. I’ll share my own story as a former TR-Onlyist. And I may have another KJVO Debate contributor with me as a co-host (Damien).
So please feel free to tune in to the show live, or download the free podcast in .mp3 or other formats. The download is available pretty much immediately after the show’s completion. If you have a question you’d like to call in with, we’ll be taking callers. Details are below.
Understanding Our Times Radio Show
Guest Host: Bob Hayton
Time: Saturday 5:00-5:30pm CST
Where: online at BlogTalkRadio
Call-in Number: 347-945-7171
UPDATE: Click here and then click on the download button (or else just listen online). The direct link for the mp3 is here.
~cross-posted from my KJV Only Debate blog
Tags: about, blogtalkradio, call, host, interview, Kevin Thompson, KJV Only, KJV-onlyism, KJVO, live, radio, show, times, understanding
In many ways, America is a world unto itself. Until some tragedy strikes beyond our borders, we are content to fret about our internal problems and concerns. But more and more the world out yonder is coming in to us. Globalization is forever changing our way of life. And the wide world is ever shrinking.
Almost every social arena is affected by this trend, and the Church is no exception. American Christianity has long prided itself as the beacon of world-wide missions. Yet we still are tempted to think the Church outside our shores stands in need of our American ingenuity. Mark Shaw in Global Awakening: How 20th-Century Revivals Triggered a Christian Revolution reveals how ignorant such a perspective truly is. Missionaries are now flocking to our own shores, and the story of the 20th Century is the world-wide surge of the Evangelical Church.
Some of us may have missed the newsflash. Mark Shaw explains:
When one looks beyond Atlantic shores the most significant change in the world in the last several generations is the broader revival of religion sweeping the southern hemisphere…. To miss the rise and significance of the new World Christianity would be like a concerned Christian in sixteenth-century northern Europe missing Luther and the Reformation. Something that affects the renewal of Christianity worldwide is afoot and no one should miss the party. (pg. 10-11)
From many quarters I had heard of this global renewal of Christianity. Mark Shaw’s book offered the chance for me to sample its various manifestations. Shaw uses eight case studies to illustrate his views of the nature and rise of global revivals. He argues that there are natural and supernatural factors at play. And he utilizes missiological and sociological studies to analyze these movements. Global Christianity, he finds, is less an exported Americanism than an indigenous inculturation of Christianity.
For the average Joe like you and I, his study still offers an accessible look into the variety and vivacity of worldwide Christianity. And to a large degree many of the movements he surveys from Korea and China, to India, Africa and on to South America, are the fruit of earlier mission endeavors.
The author shares what we all can learn from these historical revivals “as we look toward the future of the church”:
The current global awakening needs to shake us from our cultural isolation and obsessions as North American Christians…. What the current global awakening teaches me, however, is that the real emerging church is a wildly global and culturally pluralistic one which moves us toward the vision of 1 Corinthians 12, a body of Christ with many parts each recognizing their global interdependence. The message of global revivals is that God is internationalizing his people and we stand at an Ephesians moment (to use Andrew Walls’s expression) in which the cultural, geographic and political barriers are breaking down in light of the gospel. The current global revivals are not ends in themselves. Their ultimate significance will be seen in multicultural missional churches that seek to change their world in the power of the Spirit and in partnership with the mission of God. (from an Author Q & A provided by IVP)
This book isn’t for everyone. It’s a bit technical and doesn’t develop the stories as much as an average reader might like. Furthermore, Shaw is not as critical of new Pentecostal movements as some might like him to be. Nevertheless it offers a helpful survey of the growth of Worldwide Christianity and serves to enforce the notion that the proper term for such global developments is “revival”. Shaw helps us see that God uses both natural factors and human movements as catalysts in His work of growing His Church.
Ultimately, Global Awakening spurs us American Christians to see beyond ourselves and look for the hand of God in other places around the world. To serve this end I recommend the book for a wide audience.
Pick up a copy of this book at Amazon.com or direct from InterVarsity Press. See an expanded version of this review, with additional content and resources, at CrossFocusedReviews.com.
Disclaimer: This book was provided by IVP Academic for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.
Tags: 20th Century, book review, Books, Christianity, global, globalization, IVP, IVP Academic, Mark Shaw, movement, Religion, religious, revival, spirituality, world Christianity
I wanted to spread the word about an interview I conducted of Dr. Maurice Robinson for my group KJV Only Debate blog. Dr. Robinson is the co-editor of The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform (Southborough, MA: Chilton Book Publishing, 1991, 2005), and one of the few proponents of the Majority Text position. This view holds to the primacy of the Byzantine text-type but does not hold up the Textus Receptus (or KJV) as anything close to error-free. Here are the links to the interview.
KJV Only Debate Blog Interviews Dr. Maurice Robinson, pt. 1
KJV Only Debate Blog Interviews Dr. Maurice Robinson, pt. 2
KJV Only Debate Blog Interviews Dr. Maurice Robinson, pt. 3
Tags: Bible, Greek, group blog, interview, KJV Only, KJV-onlyism, Majority Text, Maurice Robinson, New Testament, News, textual criticism
Opening John’s Gospel and Epistles by Philip W. Comfort & Wendell C. Hawley
Philip W. Comfort and Wendell C. Hawley have given us a unique blend of particularly helpful scholarly material and pastoral insight. In Opening John’s Gospel and Epistles one finds detailed textual and interpretive notes, sprinkled throughout a warm exultation of the main points being taught in the text. The result is a manual or guide for the active teacher, rather than an application book or a detailed exegetical analysis.
The book is laid out in a helpful format, with 6-12 page introductions to the books (2 & 3 John are treated together), followed by separate discussions of each unit of text. The discussions include an exposition and notes on pretty much each verse. The section on John also includes a key words and phrases section.
The expositions set the stage and serve to provide a big picture and background for one’s study and preparation. This is the place helpful application points and themes are raised. The notes explain the text and cover critical or textual matters in some detail (but those discussions stay brief and accessible).
Given Comfort’s expertise in textual critical matters, the work abounds with detailed textual notes explaining alternate readings and the manuscript evidence behind various readings. This can be a strong point, as when the publication and canonicity of the Gospel and epistles are explained, and when the leading papyrii witnesses to John’s writings are described. It can also be distracting to those less familiar or concerned about such matters. I think Comfort aims to make the wider church more aware of such discussions, and this work will make such points more accessible for sure. Of particular note, is the decision to set off the story of the woman caught in adultery (7:53-8:11) as an appendix to the section on John. The manuscript evidence argues against the inclusion of the story in the text of John’s Gospel, and Comfort and Hawley correspondingly treat the passage as less than fully inspired.
The commentary reflects a conservative evangelical approach to Scripture. Detailed theological points of controversy are generally avoided, however, in favor of the explication of the text. In John 6, for instance, the transubstantiation debate and the unconditional election question (6:44), are only referenced obliquely. In John 3:5 the various interpretations for “born of water and of the Spirit” are offered, and the preferred choice defended briefly. That discussion was quite helpful, and the discussion stayed very irenic.
I found the claim that John’s version of the Last Supper was not a Passover meal to be somewhat confusing. The introduction and also the discussion in chapter 19 assert that John asserted the Last Supper to be prior to the Passover meal. But the discussion in chapter 13 was referenced for more information, and there the commentary explained the Last Supper likely was a Passover meal.
The combination of two separate works into one presented some problems. Opening the Gospel of John was the original title. The work on the epistles was published as a separate work later in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series. Bringing the two works together is great, but I would have liked to see a greater attempt at standardizing the work as a whole. The Cornerstone Biblical Commentary Greek numbering system was used in the epistles of John for instance. Each Greek word is transliterated (as in the Gospel section), but it is a Strong’s number, as well as another number as well. This convention is not followed in the Gospel of John. What makes this even more confusing, is there is no mention of what the numbering system is or means in this book at all. I had to pick up a Cornerstone commentary to find that the numbers with a prefix “TG” refer to a Tyndale’s modified Strong’s Greek number, and “ZG” refers to a similar numbering system popularized by Zondervan. “TH” and “ZH” refer to the numbers for the Hebrew words in such a system. A similar matter is the absence of end notes in the epistles of John entirely, whereas every section of the book of John had several end notes. Also the NLT is emphasized in the work covering the epistles whereas the section on John (produced before the publication of the NLT Bible) ignores it.
Along these lines, I encountered a few editing errors. Following the appendix to the Gospel of John, a list of three papyrii is found with no explanation as to why it is there. At the very end of the book a list is given of all the papyrii and major manuscripts and there are a few obvious typos in that list as well. Furthermore in at least two places (pg. 335 and 351) a single Greek word is followed by a reference to a Greek and a Hebrew number (TG & ZH).
These minor quibbles aside, the notes and commentary provided in this work seem especially clear, straightforward and eminently helpful. It will be a volume that I’ll be keeping in arm’s reach, whenever I teach from John’s Gospel or his epistles. I recommend this book highly.
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Disclaimer: This book was provided by Tyndale House Publishers for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.
Tags: Bible, commentary, critical, exegetical, Philip Comfort, Recommended, resource, textual criticism