Theology Archives - Page 47 of 67 - Kuyperian Commentary

On June 7, 2017 By Uri Brito In Theology Like

Sola Scriptura is the Uniting Language of the Church, Part 2

In this last post, I wish to show how Scriptures is God’s own language and how it serves to unite God’s people (see the first post).

God’s Liturgical Language

Sola Scriptura is God’s language. Scripture shares God’s authority.^a For a man to put himself above scripture is to put himself above God. In the Bible, when Satan attacks he always attacks God’s word. But the Bible is always God’s answer to assaults on the Bible. God uses his language to defeat evil. We are well aware of that famous Lenten passage in Luke 4 when our Lord is tempted in the wilderness. Jesus, the Word of God, appeals to God’s word. Scripture alone is the language of Jesus. When the devil tempts our Lord, Jesus doesn’t say, “Well, remember the words of Rabbi Kushner who once said…” No. Our Lord says, “For it is written…” Again, when the Pharisees attack him, Jesus appeals to the Word of God. In Matthew 22, Jesus reminds the Pharisees of Psalm 110 to make a case for His divinity. In John 10:35, Jesus says, “The Scriptures cannot be broken.” Sola Scriptura is God’s language. It’s unbreakable because it comes by the inspiration of an unbreakable Spirit. When the late medieval church elevated unwritten tradition to the level of the Bible, the Reformers said, “No, Scripture alone is our highest authority.” The Bible must be supreme because it is God’s language.

Our Uniting Language

Sola Scriptura unites our language. It is the Church’s liturgical language, it manifests God’s inerrant language, but it is also uniting language. When we talk about the Scriptures, it’s important to make a distinction between Sola Scriptura vs. Solo Scriptura. Sola Scriptura means God’s Word is our final authority. There are other authorities like leaders and parents and creeds, but Sola Scriptura says that all these authorities must submit to God’s ultimate authority. Solo Scriptura teaches that the Bible is the only authority and there are no other authorities.

In the 16^th century, a group called the Ana-Baptists rebelled against the Roman Church, but they also rebelled against the Reformation. They wanted no one to have authority over the individual. They did not submit to pastors or civic leaders, in fact, many of them came to deny the doctrine of the Trinity. Only a proper understanding of the authority of the Bible can save God’s people from themselves, from anarchy or from becoming little popes. The Baptists and Reformed will differ on baptism; the Lutherans and Catholics will disagree on the Sacraments, but fundamentally if disagreement over the authority of the Bibe persists, there will never be a united Church. There is no future church, Peter Leithart says, if there isn’t a Bible-saturated church. We are shaped and built in the image of God revealed in the Bible. When we engage the text whether privately or publicly, we are becoming like Jesus Christ, the Logos of God. When we engage the text and encourage others to engage the text, we are uniting ourselves under the banner of Sola Scriptura.

Some thoughts from Rich Lusk’s lecture on Sola Scriptura (back)

On June 5, 2017 By Uri Brito In Theology, Worship Like

Sola Scriptura is the Church’s Language, Part 1

As we approach the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 1517, I would like to offer some thoughts on the implications of Sola Scriptura in the Christian experience. In these two short articles, I’d like to elaborate on at least three consequences of this doctrine:

First, Sola Scriptura is the Church’s language. Second, Sola Scriptura is God’s language. And finally, Sola Scriptura unites our language.

The Church’s Language

In the late medieval era, Sola Scriptura was the rallying cry of this new movement called the Reformation. The Reformers, led by Luther and Calvin and many others, expressed their gratitude to the God who made the heavens and the earth for His revealed word. The Apostle Paul says in I Thessalonians 2:13:

We thank God continually for this, that when you received the message of God from us, you welcomed it not as the word of [mere] men, but as it truly is, the Word of God, which is effectually at work in you who believe.

The Church of our Lord has since its early days feasted on the richness of God’s word. As Van Til once wrote: “The Bible is God’s love letter to his bride.” This love letter, through the body of Christ, has saved orphans, built hospitals, adopted, and contributed for the good of society because the Church believed what God commanded. The city of Geneva where Calvin pastored and where the Scriptures were taught faithfully was known all over the world for its generosity to the poor and needy. It is true that Christians have ignored biblical truth leading to some damaging practices, but the vast majority of the Christian population led by the authority of the Bible and the ministry of the Church has served this world in beautiful ways since the Early Church. Paul says that this word which you have received and welcomed is truly the Word of God. These are not the words of uninspired men, but the very words of God working in men and women in the Church to change and transform not only themselves but their surroundings.

The Roots of Sola Scriptura

In the Reformation, the Scriptures returned to their proper place, shaping the language, liturgy, and life of the Church. The classical and historical Christian worship found in many Reformed churches today reminds us weekly from where our language comes. It originated from an early church that believed in the authority and sufficiency of the Bible.

The authority of the Bible causes the church to develop habits of gratitude. One way the liturgical church makes this clear is that at the end of every Scripture reading the people respond together by saying, “Thanks be to God.” This is our way of expressing thanks for Sola Scriptura. When our children are nurtured in this environment each Sunday, they have no other option but to contemplate the Bible. The Church’s language ought to be scriptural language. It’s precisely when we abandon the church’s language that the Church abandons the authority of the Bible.

One of the most important studies on why people return to church after years of being away from church was done by Dr. Tom Rhainer. He observed that the main reason people once unchurched came back to church and stayed in the church was not primarily for the music—which by the way, out of the ten reasons, music was #8—but because churches taught the Bible. The second reason people come back to church after not being in church for many years is when churches hold firmly to their convictions. This explains the phenomenon of why mainline churches—that is, historic denominations that no longer believe in the authority of the Bible– are declining rapidly in the last two decades. The Church must proclaim in Word and Sacrament the authority of the Bible. Sola Scriptura must form our language.

Spurgeon once expressed marvel at a pastor who was saturated in the Bible and said:

“Why, this man is a living Bible! Prick him anywhere—his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him.”

Similarly, the Church needs to be bibline; living and singing God’s revelation as a demonstration of submission to God’s inspired Word.

On May 25, 2017 By Steve Macias In Theology 1

The Unlikely Ascension of Jesus

The Ascension of Jesus can be a confusing scene. It is to be counted among the high holy days of the church calendar. Events on the church calendar are limited to items of theological significance, which is why the nativity (Christmas), passion (Good Friday), and resurrection (Easter) of Christ are memorialized with such pomp. Yet the Ascension is easily the least understood of the great feast days. This is to the detriment of the modern church which desperately needs to recover the meaning of the Christ ascended on high.

A Textual Confusion

Part of the problem is that the Biblical authors have offered limited descriptions of what actually happened at the Ascension. Our Scriptural references to the event are limited to a few quotations. One such description comes from St. Matthew’s Gospel following the words of the Great Commission.^a Where Christ gathers his disciples at the mountain where he will presumably ascend. The Ascension in this account can only be inferred by its correlation with the descriptions offered by St. Luke in his Gospel and in the Book of Acts. St. Luke’s Gospel gives us a description of Jesus taking his disciples to Bethany, blessing them, and then, “He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.” ^b Later in the first chapter of Acts, St. Luke describes the scene as Jesus boarding a cloud rising up through the sky. ^c

So that the general picture we get from the text is that the resurrected Christ gathers his disciples, gives them a sort of farewell speech, and then zephyrs his way into Heaven.

Why does it matter that Jesus ascended and why does the Church calendar mark this event as significant in the theological history of the Church?

Sorrow in Separation

Perhaps the Apostles were expected to understand the Ascension in the context of the Old Testament? How often is Christ compared to the Prophet Elijah, who himself was taken up into heaven by a chariot of fire? ^d But is this event similar the Ascension of Christ? Do the disciples of Christ rend their garments in grief and anguish as did Elisha? No.

Christ’s words seem to imply the reverse. Rather than separation, Christ teaches that his presence has penetrated the two planes of existence by the reality of the Incarnation and by the work of the Holy Spirit. Where Elijah was taken away from Earth, Jesus teaches that in the Ascension the Kingdom of Heaven is coming into contact with Earth in a way that is only comparable to how his own divinity took on human flesh. (more…)

The Holy Gospel of St. Matthew Ch. XXVIII:16-20 (back)
The Holy Gospel of St. Luke Ch. XXIV:51 (back)
The Acts of the Holy Apostles Ch. I:9 (back)
Fourth Book of Kings Ch. II (back)

On May 18, 2017 By Bill Smith In Theology 1

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.

On April 14, 2017 By Steve Macias In Theology Like

Bible Study With The Church Fathers

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.

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

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

On April 3, 2017 By Uri Brito In Theology 1

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…)

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

Teaching Redemption Redemptively: Theological Educators in Dialog

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…)

On March 16, 2017 By Steve Macias In Theology, Worship Like

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…)

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

On March 16, 2017 By Kuyperian In Theology Like

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…)

On March 10, 2017 By Steve Jeffery In Theology, Wisdom Like

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…)