Matt Colvin, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On April 29, 2022 By Matt Colvin In Culture 2

The Biblical Meaning of “Self-Examination”(Dokimazo)

Guest, Dr. Matt Colvin

A frequent objection against the practice of having young children participate in the Lord’s Supper is that they are unable to perform the action which Paul enjoins in 1 Corinthians 11:28, “let a man examine himself”, in Greek, “dokimazeto anthropos heauton.” Why are they unable? George Knight III claims: “Paul gives no specific guidelines for this action of examining oneself.” He believes, however, that “the only guidance that we can ascertain is the meaning of the verb ‘examine.'” Knight’s interpretation of this verb is that “Every person individually is to look into his own being (emphasis mine – MC) to determine if he or she is taking the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner” (“1 Cor. 11:17-34: The Lord’s Supper” in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros and Cons, ed. E. Calvin Beisner, p. 287)

In what follows, I aim to show that Knight is wrong about all these points. First, I want to argue, as a point of Greek lexicography, that he is mistaken about the meaning of the verb “dokimazo”, and therefore also about the guidance which he derives from it. I believe it is a mistake to say that Paul gives no guidelines for how “dokimazo” is to be performed: rather, the context makes clear what the Christians in Corinth were to do. As an example of such contextually supplied content for the test of “dokimazo”, I argue on exegetical grounds that Paul’s use of the same verb in 2 Cor. 13, which is often urged as a corroborating introspective instance, is in fact demonstrably objective, and consists in the performance of actions understood from the context.

First, lexicography. “Dokimazo” does not mean “to look into one’s own being”. I can turn up no such usage in either the LSJ nor the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. All the instances I can unearth are unequivocally objective and outward. Demosthenes 18.266 says “I am being examined for a crown,” and then talks about how he is judicially innocent of all crimes. This is not introspective. Again, in Plato’s Laws, 759D, some officers called “Expounders” are being examined. The scrutiny in question, the test indicated by “dokimazo”, is “to see that a man is healthy and legitimate, reared in a family whose moral standards could hardly be higher, and that he himself and his father and mother have lived unpolluted by homicide and all such offences against heaven.” In other words, it is again objective, not a matter of “looking into one’s being.” Again, in Thucydides 6.53, we see criminal informers being tested; in this case, “dokimazo” indicates a double-checking of the facts of their reports. Or in Xenophon, Memorabilia VI.1, we find talk of testing friends, where the test involves asking whether a person is “master of his appetites, not under the dominion, that is, of his belly, not addicted to the wine-cup or to lechery or sleep or idleness” and whether he is a debtor or quarrelsome.

But I cannot find a single occurrence of the word where it might mean “look into a man’s being.” On the face of things, it seems impossible that in 1 Cor. 11, the fact that a reflexive pronoun is the object should suddenly mean that introspection is the means by which “dokimazeto seauton” is accomplished. Paul himself uses the verb as the culmination of a series of expressions denoting public and objective revelation in 1 Cor. 3:13: ‘The work of each one will become manifest, for the day will make it clear, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test (“dokimasei”) each one’s work, [to prove] what kind it is. Indeed, a survey of the uses of the word in Greek literature lends great plausibility to the suggestion of the OPC Majority report on paedocommunion, Tim Gallant’s book Feed My Lambs, and various other sources, that the test in view in 1 Cor. 11 is whether one is living in love and unity with one’s fellow believers. This would be, again, objectively knowable and would seem to involve no introspection — in short, a requirement that babies do not even have the ability to break yet.

Knight and other credocommunionists seem not to feel the weight of this lexical argument, however. They believe that an introspective meaning for “dokimazo” can be adduced from the pages of Scripture itself. 2 Cor. 13:5 is the passage they cite as corroboration for their reading of “dokimazo” in 1 Cor. 11:28. It reads:

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test (δοκιμάζετε)yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified (ἀδόκιμοι).

“See?” the credocommunionist says. “You have to see whether you’re in the faith, by checking whether Christ is in you. That’s introspection!” The most persuasive way to overthrow this introspectionist understanding of the verse is to show that it does not even fit the context of 2 Cor. 12-13, let alone 1 Cor. 11. The verse is part of a larger argument of a particularly poignant and elegant character — and this argument of Paul’s is only comprehensible if δοκιμάζω and its cognates have reference to objective matters mentioned in the immediate context, and not to introspection. In what follows, I will analyze 2 Cor. 13.

First, the general scene. We may begin by noting that 2 Cor. was written by Paul at a time when his credentials as an apostle were under attack by enemies in Corinth who were promoting false doctrines of hyper-spirituality and consequent antinomianism. This is the letter in which Paul is driven to his “insane” boasting about his service to Christ. The apostle is heartbroken. He loves the Corinthians, and hates having to discipline them and make them sorrowful (2 Cor. 2:1-2). But he is nonetheless motivated by a fierce and jealous love for them: he wants them, not their possessions (2 Cor. 12:14). He is heartbroken because his love for them is not reciprocated. They question the genuineness of his apostolic authority, so that he has to assert it.

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“God Repented” vs. “Greek Ontology”

THE CONFLICT

There is an ongoing conflict between Biblical studies and philosophical theology. N.T. Wright sums it up this way in his essay “Historical Paul and Systematic Theology”:

“In a famous conversation between Paul Tillich and C. H. Dodd at Union Seminary in New York, Tillich basically said that there was no point twiddling his thumbs waiting for some nugget of useful exegesis to emerge from the lexical and text-critical work going on down the hall. This negative comment has frequently been reciprocated, as biblical scholars see theologians who not only claim to be ‘biblical’ but write books about the authority of scripture making more or less no use of the Bible itself in their deliberations. In some quarters, biblical scholars explicitly reject ‘theological’ proposals, as though they were bound to corrupt the pure historical study of the text. If there is supposed to be a marriage of biblical studies and theology, then as Paul says about marriage in Ephesians 5 – but in a different sense – it is a great mystery.”

Alastair Roberts gives a similar assessment in his contribution to a recent book on classical theism:

“A preoccupation with God as He is in Himself, when proceeding in detachment from the revelation and action of God in history, is always in danger of distorting the character of Christian faith, replacing the intensely historical and relational realities of the scriptural text with doctrinal abstractions… [Dogmatic theology] faces the insistent temptation to reduce the Scripture to the handmaiden of its own authority, or the raw material for its own conceptual edifices. The dogmatician is in danger of approaching Scripture as if it were a mirror for his theological self-regard, within which to seek the confirming reflection of his doctrine (a posture most commonly seen in proof-texting approaches)…” – Alastair Roberts¹

I find myself in the middle of this debate. As a scholar of languages and antiquity who cut his teeth on the puzzling Greek of the Presocratics, I am often frustrated by what passes for exegesis among Christian theologians. On the other hand, as a minister in a church committed to classical Anglicanism, and subscribing to the 39 Articles of Religion, I assent to the statement that God is “without body, parts, or passions” (Article I.1) – but then I find myself compelled to hedge and qualify this statement in order to remain faithful to the Biblical text.² I count myself among the heirs of John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, and the English Reformers, who all held to classical theism. I have no desire to overthrow this system. At the same time, I find the exegetical foundation for the doctrines of classical theism terribly lacking. My interactions with writers for the Davenant Institute have shown that they are aware of the problem.^2.1 They feel the need for a solid exegetical grounding for the doctrines of classical theism of which they are some of the most prominent defenders. So this essay is an attempt from a sympathetic, but critical, onlooker to state the ways in which the current exegetical defenses of some of the more contentious doctrines of classical theism fall short.

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A Review of Solomon Says

Young men are hungry for guidance about how to be men. Some turn to Jordan Peterson, with his Jungian evolutionary psychology; others to the red-pill manosphere. While there may be valuable ideas to glean from these unbelieving sources, I will not be turning my sons to them. Instead, we will be reading and studying Mark Horne’s Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men.

Horne’s book is not a commentary on Proverbs, but an application of principles derived from the Bible’s wisdom books. Nor is it exclusively based on Proverbs: Horne helps himself to texts from the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and many other books.

As is clear from the title, Horne’s book is concerned with wisdom. This also means that he is urging us not to look for vending machine-style feedback but to learn how the world works, how human beings are constituted. It is a process, and Horne prepares his readers to work that process: “If God responded to our deeds in a quick and direct way, human beings would never become wise. Such an environment is only appropriate for very young children.”

Wisdom is found in maturity and dominion; these are what men are made for. This involves the lifelong project of cultivating one’s own abilities, mastering one’s vices, and learning how to relate to other people in a way that leads to success. “If a person is sleeping away hours of his life—or, what is the same thing, staying up late partying or playing video games—he is missing an opportunity to work on himself in other areas.” Horne, like Proverbs, exhorts men to prioritize their dominion over themselves. This involves gaining the upper hand over one’s own bad habits: the wicked man “serves, not one man alone, but, what is worse, as many masters as he has vices.” (Augustine)

This is a struggle, not a matter of automaticity: “Remember, one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control (Gal. 5:25)… The fact that self-control is on the list proves that good fruit doesn’t simply ‘flow’ out of anyone.” It requires training. Horne counsels his readers to avoid the sort of foolish machismo that characterizes performative masculinity, e.g. buying firearms when you ought to be saving money and building skills. The goal is dominion, the exercise of godly lordship over the creation.

Two chapters are devoted to the discipline of controlling one’s tongue. Horne is a master of modernizing Biblical imagery to bring it home to us in a new way: “Your mouth is a pistol at your hip and a shotgun over your shoulder that you are never allowed to put in a gun safe. You are armed at all times.” He applies Biblical counsel about avoiding the habit of destructive speech in ways that pierce to the root of that particular sin: “The reason people continue to talk in ways that hurt them (and others) is because they have grown attached to the habit. It is exhilarating to belittle others; it makes you feel special.” Those of us who have sinned with the tongue (or keyboard) will experience a salutary conviction in reading Horne’s words.

This sort of insight is on nearly every page. I was struck by Horne’s diagnosis of how actors reciting scripted lines on sitcoms give us a false ideal of rapier wit: “a system of writing, memorization, and rehearsal is used in our culture to promote an ideal of how people should talk to one another in a quick, witty manner.” By contrast, in the Bible, knowing the right thing to say is considered hard. “When Jesus told his disciples they would have to speak for him, he promised them supernatural aid.” There is a congruence between popular culture’s false portrayals of wit and its false portrayals of sex: in both instances, there is the mirage of a shortcut, a promise of an ego-boosting enjoyment of unearned pleasure, but the whole thing is actually a sham.

Horne offers similarly perceptive comments on questions of debt, money-management, sloth, and fitting oneself to be a husband. Throughout, his exhortations are delivered with striking and perceptive exegesis of Scripture, often juxtaposing verses that I had never compared before. If you are a disciple of Jesus, seeking to please Him by the exercise of self-discipline and responsibility, or if you have sons whom you want to guide so that they will walk in this path, I heartily recommend this short book.