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On May 18, 2017 By In Theology

The Tree(s) of Life

When we come to the end of the Bible, there are some things that are intriguingly similar to the beginning. In the beginning, God created the man and placed him in a garden that he had planted in the land of Eden, telling him to be fruitful and multiply. This garden had a river that ran through it and split into four different rivers outside of the garden. In the midst of the garden were two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man was invited to come to the Tree of Life but forbidden to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the midst of the garden, at this Tree of Life, God would communicate his life to man. Man would enjoy communion with God there at this Tree, being nourished in every way to be what his Father had created him to be.

When man sinned, God exiled him from the garden in order to keep him from eating of the Tree of Life (Gen 3.22-23). From that time forward man was forbidden to partake of the Tree. God provided means of communion, communicating his life to man through various means, but full access to the Tree of Life was not a reality.

The scene at the end of Revelation is one that describes this city in which the Tree of Life is not only present but accessible. Some things have changed drastically. The walled garden has become a walled city; a culture full of life. The rugged beauty of a pristine creation has become a developed, glorified creation under the dominion of the last Adam. Man has been fruitful and multiplied, and the garden has grown up into a city. Nevertheless, the New Jerusalem is the old garden, complete with the Tree of Life. Christ’s work has granted us access to the Tree of Life. All those who have their robes washed, who enter the gates of the garden-city, are granted access to the Tree of Life (Rev 22.14). Because Christ has passed through the flaming sword of the cherubim, he has made the way open to the Tree of Life. Because we pass through that same death being united with Christ in baptism, we now have access to the Tree of Life. We enjoy full and close communion with God in the church, the garden of God.

We are given this access, not only for personal privilege but so that we might become what we eat. In Christ Jesus, we are made trees of life planted by the river that runs through the midst of the garden-city (cf. Ps 1). The fruit of the Spirit that we bear is to be nourishment for those around us. The leaves that we produce are to be for the healing of the nations. We come to the Tree of Life, receiving life from God so that through us life might be enjoyed by others.

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Church Fathers Bible App Catena

On April 14, 2017 By In Theology

Bible Study With The Church Fathers

Church Fathers Bible App Catena

An App for the Church Fathers

I recently downloaded a new Bible study tool with an emphasis on the Church Fathers. It is called Catena and it lays out interlinear commentary from the Church Fathers in a Bible app. A double-tap on a particular verse pulls up related content by Church Fathers like St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril of Alexandria. And if you aren’t familiar with a particular author, clicking on his name reveals his wikipedia page. The app describes itself as, “a collection of commentaries on the Bible from the early Church Fathers. With 35,000+ ancient commentaries, and growing, the goal is to provide the most insight possible into the Word of God.” Available for iOS and Android here.

The Hermeneutic of the Church Fathers

In 2015, Pr. Uri Brito penned an article called “Interpretive Maximalism and James B. Jordan” which came to mind as I was using this new app. In that article, a quote from Jordan explains that the commentary offered by the Church Fathers was not always limited to a strict grammatico-historical method of interpretation. Using an app like Catena could aid the modern bible student is exposing him to historical insights or alternate readings of familiar texts. According to Brito, Jordan sees the grammatico-historical interpretation to be valid, but incomplete without the aid of a rich biblical theology that also includes narrative and symbols.James B. Jordan

In a culture thirsty for an ancient faith, Reformed leaders would do well to once again reclaim the Church Fathers as their own heritage. As David Steinmetz of Duke Divinity School once noted in Christianity Today, “The Reformation is an argument not just about the Bible but about the early Christian fathers, whom the Protestants wanted to claim.” Even in their great diversity, the Church Fathers offer a consistent emphasis on the importance of personal holiness, fidelity to the church, and the importance of the scriptures to guide believers. Are the fathers important to Reformation theology? A quick glance at the number of references to Church Fathers in Calvin’s Institutes says yes.

Church Fathers in Their Context

Of Course, the best practice is reading the fathers directly and in the context of the entire work and historical period. Catena could be a tool to whet your appetite for the patristic and historical commentaries. I was first introduced to the work of St. Athanasius through the snippets introduced in David Chilton’s Paradise Restored. I then stumbled through the patristic masterpiece “On the Incarnation of the Word” with a bit of encouragement from a preface by C.S. Lewis.

A word of warning is also due. The Christian faith did not climax at Nicaea (in the same way it’s zenith is not Westminster) and our patristic authors do not claim the final word on Biblical interpretation. As James B. Jordan puts it, “When we see that God’s history will span thousands of generations, we see how silly it is to assume that history ended in the early centuries, everything was settled, and no significant progress remains to be made.” a

  1. Biblical Horizons Newsletter, No. 62: Thinking About Church History  (back)

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On April 3, 2017 By In Theology

Biblicism: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

If the modern scholarship is to be believed, Biblicism has died. It has been buried and never shall rise again. In Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible, he argues that Biblicism is not truly an evangelical reading of Scripture. Smith asserts that we cannot expect the Bible to be something it was not intended to be. He defines Biblicism as “A theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority…self-evident meaning, and universal applicability.”

According to Smith, you cannot make coherent statements about texts since this process produces variant forms of interpretations. Therefore, divergence in interpretation and applicability disprove the evangelical assertion that the Bible is true and authoritative.

Author Rachel Held Evans summarizes Biblicism as “perhaps best reflected in the old adage, ‘God said it, I believe it, that settles it.’” But is this Biblicism? Or is it just another modern attempt to deviate from the orthodox claim to Biblical authority? We ought to be aware of the isms, but has Biblicism been properly understood or too easily dismissed?

Professor John Frame, a philosopher and theologian, argues for a form of Biblicism that avoids the simplification of Smith and Evans. Frame elevates the theological discourse to a more nuanced conversation in his essay, In Defense of Something Close to Biblicism. He concludes:

“Scripture, therefore, must be primary in relation to history, sociology, or any other science. It is Scripture that supplies the norms of these sciences and which governs their   proper starting points, methods, and conclusions.”

While the Bible may suffer at the hands of leaders and laity, proper Biblicism establishes the primacy of the Bible in relation to all other endeavors. Divergence in views will continue until the Second Coming, but only Biblicism properly understood can provide comfort to the Christian interpreter of the first century and today. God has unmistakably spoken in His revelation and what He says is the basis for all reality.

Three Kinds of Biblicisms

Biblicism needs to be distinguished accurately. It seems wise to make a distinction between three forms of Biblicism. Here is the basic outline and perhaps it may be expanded in another article. I propose three types of Biblicism within evangelical theology: 1) Fundamentalist Biblicism (FB), 2) Pietistic Biblicism (PB), and 3) Ecclesiastical Biblicism (EB). (more…)

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On March 27, 2017 By In Books, Culture, Family and Children, Interviews, Theology, Wisdom

Teaching Redemption Redemptively: Theological Educators in Dialog

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Aside from actually teaching, nothing has aided my growth as an educator more than talking with experienced, respected teachers; particularly those in my discipline: theology/worldview. It’s hard to think of two living teachers more esteemed in the field than Dan Kunkle and Dan Ribera.

Mr. Kunkle has been the longtime worldview teacher at Phil-Mont Christian Academy in Philadelphia, PA (to learn more about Kunkle, check this out). And on the other coast, Dr. Ribera teaches bible at Bellevue Christian School just outside of Seattle, WA (to learn more about Ribera, check this out). Together, they have close to 80 years of teaching experience.

I recently engaged in some shoptalk with the Dans (Dani?). While I had high expectations for the exchange, I couldn’t have anticipated just how rich their insights would be. With permission, that conversation is reproduced below: (more…)

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On March 16, 2017 By In Theology, Worship

The Prayer of Humble Access

The historic prayer book of the Anglican Communion, “The Book of Common Prayer,” includes some controversial prayers. Despite often receiving praise as a work of the Reformation, its verbiage can also feel uncomfortably Catholic. Its emphases on saints and sacraments can seem wetted from the pen tip of Thomas Aquinas rather than Thomas Cranmer.  One such prayer is entitled the “Prayer of Humble Access.”
“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.” a

During the Holy Communion service, this prayer is offered following the Lord’s prayer while the kneeling congregation anticipates the words of institution (i.e. “This is my body…”). It is important to note that as a matter of liturgical significance the confession and absolution have already been offered and received in the service. In this way, the “Prayer of Humble Access” builds upon the Reformational apprehensions to any sort of merited righteousness, while also affirming the Reformed tradition’s emphasis on self-examination prior to communion. This belaboring of sin after confession has earned some criticism from liturgical scholars like James B. Jordan: “it focuses on sin and justification to the extent that the entire service feels more like a penitential vigil than a celebration of redemption.” b

Jordan is right if you read the prayer as solely penitential. But this prayer is posturing the Christian up from his knees to a seat at the table. It is bidding the Christian, “dine with God.” Mortal men are invited to Valhalla– what to the Norse meant “Hall of the Slain”– for a feast of flesh and mead. Only the brave souls that died in the triumph of Holy War would feast in Odin’s hall for slain warriors. So it is true of our prayers here. Christ’s absolution has progressed beyond mere forgiveness into conquest. (Romans 8:31-39) And now, those willing to die in and for their sins may enter. Now at the table, we may eat the flesh and drink the blood.

This prayer also offers a narrative to help understand Christ’s presence in the eucharist. Douglas Wilson rightly points out that: “We partake of the Lord in the participles, we partake of Him in the partaking. We cannot say, ‘Look, there is the Lord, stationary, on the table.’ Rather, we say, ‘Here is the Lord in the action of eating and drinking.’ And these actions are part of a series of actions, which together constitute the story. We partake of the Lord’s body and blood in a glorious series of verbs—declaring, praying, blessing, setting apart, taking, breaking, taking, and giving. And each moment in the story says something about the end of the story.” c

(more…)

  1. Press, O. U. (1993). The 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA.  (back)
  2. 1993. Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 29, Biblical Horizons.  (back)
  3. Wilson, Douglas. (2013). Against The Church. Moscow, ID: Canon Press.  (back)

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On March 16, 2017 By In Theology

The Art of Balanced Living

In Book III of Plato’s Republic, Socrates and Glaucon engage in a dialogue concerning music and gymnastic. Socrates proposes that music is pivotal for a well-ordered soul, and gymnastic is pivotal for a well-ordered body, but too much music, without gymnastic can make a person too soft. Whereas too much gymnastic, without music, can make a person too hard and forceful. He proposes that a wise leader needs both music and gymnastic in order to be “tuned to the proper degree of tension and relaxation”—in order for the person to be harmonious.

Considering harmony, do we balance our lives amidst the host of good choices that God has placed before us? Do we live a balanced life so that we can lead a balanced church or team or family? Do we see each member and each personality as balancing the other personalities and members in order be “tuned to the proper degree of tension and relaxation?” Can we relax in the reality that God has ordained things as they are, or is there always tension that someone is getting in the way of us being successful? Can we be thankful for a proper tension even though the pressure is sometimes extreme, knowing that iron-sharpening-iron creates heat and sparks?

The word “balance” used to rub me the wrong way. It felt like a mystical, Eastern spiritualism promoting both good and evil in some yin-yangy sort of way. But what about balance between some good and some other good? What if the colors of the particular yin-yang in front of you are not black and white, but red and blue, or green and purple? What if, internally, we are trying to balance our gold with our silver with our precious things? What if, externally, we have some good and someone else has some other good and someone else another? (more…)

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On March 10, 2017 By In Theology, Wisdom

Selecting men for ordination

There are a couple of different situations in which a church (and in particular the Minister and Elders of a church) might find themselves needing to train and select men for ordained Eldership. Perhaps there’s an older man in the church who looks (and lives) like the kind of guy who could serve as an Elder. Or perhaps there’s a (younger?) guy in the church who aspires to serve as a Minister, or an evangelist, or a missionary, or some other role in the body of Christ for which ordination is normally required.

In both cases, the initial reaction from the existing Elders and the congregation should of course be great enthusiasm, great encouragement, and so on. For even if the guy is currently not ready for the role, it’s nonetheless a fantastic blessing to have people either growing towards the grey-haired maturity that makes ordained Eldership appropriate or aspiring to the life of Christian service that makes ordination necessary.

However, it needs to be emphasised at the outset that the role is a demanding one, and that (especially in the case of those aspiring to any kind of teaching ministry) a great deal of training is likely to be required.

In order to clarify the nature of the demands upon a man’s lifestyle, understanding, orthodoxy, and so on, it can be helpful to have some questions to think about, both for the man himself and also for discussion among the existing leadership team and the broader congregation.

(more…)

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On January 25, 2017 By In Theology, Worship

Becoming Your Catechism

Becoming Your Catechism (1)

A Transformational Tool

Christian history has a strong and rich tradition of catechetical teaching. Most Catechisms consist of a series of questions and answers with the purpose of instructing another individual in the content of the Christian faith. There are a variety of denominational catechisms: Luther and Ursinus each composed their own catechisms during the Reformation Era. These provided their perspective movements with a common and unified vision.

St. Paul mentions a tradition of catechesis in his letter to the church in Galatia, “Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.” (Galatians 6:6) St. Paul uses two greek phrases: katēchoumenos and katēchounti to mean “being taught” and “teaching.” Both begin with the same “kata-echeo” root, where we get the English word catechism.

The Divine Echo

Commentators have noted that this Greek verb “echeo” attaches the idea of learning to audible sound. The Apostle certainly implies that we are to learn by oral tradition. In Greek mythology, a nymph called Echo is cursed with a speech impediment by the goddess Hera. The consequence is that Echo is only able to repeat back what others have said. Christian catechisms with their prewritten questions and given answers free us from Echo’s hopeless repetitions. To our human questions, we receive the promises of God’s reciprocity. Unlike the curse of the nymphs, we are made whole in our echoed answers. The antiphonary nature of questions and answers in the catechism help build up the wholeness of the body of Christ. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:12)

Your Voice in God’s Story

My Bishop Todd Hunter (ACNA/C4SO) describes the importance of catechism in the context of your story: “Everyone is looking for a story to live in – that is why the catechism is important.” He continues with, “Catechism is not best understood as a bunch of bullet-point doctrines. When we understand catechism that way, we are actually doing ourselves a disservice.” Bp. Hunter argues that limiting catechism to just doctrine can limit the practice to only mental assent. “Catechism is a way of summarizing this amazing cosmic story from divine intention to divine completion. A story that invites our participation.”

Bishop Hunter is describing catechism as more than a theological exercise. The questions and answers of our catechisms create a vision and story that we can invite others into, “that becomes the life of discipleship.” Beyond being a pedagogical tool, the catechism is a way for Christians to be formed into new spiritual realities. Our personal narratives are supplanted by the united and concerted voice of the Church on earth. As the world asks, “What is thy only comfort?” The church responds: “my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.” This is more than an ammunition of answers for apologetics. As Christians, it is the real participation in our vocation as divine image bearers. Our answers transform us, as the very sounds we form with our mouths become our story. Just as the first creation came to be by the Word of God, so each image bearer speaks his own new creation into being.  St. Paul describes this process as putting on a new man, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:4) Our catechisms help us redirect our lives and our story back to the life and story of Christ. May we “put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (3:10)

Just as in Crosby’s famous hymn Blessed Assurance, where the familiar lines “this is my story” are coupled with the lines, “echoes of mercy, whispers of love.”

Resources on Catechisms

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On December 28, 2016 By In Theology, Worship

A Case for Working Hard in Worship: Eight Reasons to Sweat on Sunday Morning

From Couch to Warfare

There is a great app called Couch to 5K. It’s designed for people who have become comfortable with the couch and have an allergy to the treadmill. It’s an incremental approach to working out. As the weeks go by we become more accustomed to the patterns established and we long to achieve the final level when we run an entire 5K. It’s hard work. My proposition is very simple: Worship is hard. We cannot remain comfortable in our pews. We need to start running the race. We may not be ready to run a 5K, but we need to be headed in that direction. And like running, worship requires habits and consistency. I am calling you to burn your calories in worship not because I am a controversialist or a tyrannical trainer but because I want you to be a healthy sacrifice to God. In fact, the formal synonym for worship is liturgy. Liturgy comes from two words: “Work” and “people.” Therefore, worship or liturgy can be accurately defined as the work of the people. 

Our Lord was so righteously angry by the easy business transactions (easy worship) of the Temple that he turned upside down the world when he overturned the tables of the money-changers (John 2:13-16). Such audacity should be imitated by God’s people, but cautiously exercised in light of our sinfulness. So here is my attempt to cautiously turn a few tables upside down with the hope that some will decide to keep it that way rather than try to put it back up or mend the broken pieces. (more…)

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On December 26, 2016 By In Family and Children, Theology, Wisdom

Raising Expectations

A few weeks ago, the young people at Emmanuel Evangelical Church in North London organised a conference to share with the wider church their own aspirations to stop thinking of themselves as overgrown children and instead to grow towards greater maturity in Christ. The conference was called Raising Expectations, with talks on The Myth of Adolescence, Godly Ambition, Motivation, and Taking Risks, and the videos are now online below.

(Click here for audio recordings only.)

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