Archive for the ‘Biblical Theology’ Category

Posted on November 29, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Paid Pastoral Staff? A Calling to the Ministry?

Andrew Hamilton has an interesting post, something I haven’t thought very hard or long about. In it he asks this question:

“Can anyone provide a compelling biblical argument for the existence of paid pastoral staff within a local congregation?“

It’s an interesting question. He concedes that you could probably make more than one good pragmatic argument for paid pastoral staff he then also mentions his own experience of calling to ministry as perhaps a compelling argument. That got me thinking even more. If I re-phrased his question then we have another question that is often taken for granted or thought very little about:

“Can anyone provided a compelling biblical argument for the existence of a subjective call to the ministry of a local congregation?“

Life is becoming more and more complicated the more I study the Bible – the questions just keep on coming, and often they’re questions that impinge upon me directly – like questions about paid pastoral ministry. Anyone got any thoughts on these questions?

Posted on November 6, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Narrative-Realism or Preterism? Help Me

Can anyone help me out with a bit of theological jargon and terminology that I’m trying to get my head around? I’ve been reading a fair bit of the articles on Open Source Theology and I keep coming up against, what many of their authors call the ‘narrative-historical argument’ or the ‘narrative-realist’ approach. Andrew Perriman, one of the authors, even describes himself as doing ‘biblical theology after Christendom in a narrative-realist mode’. In reading the various articles however this narrative-realism seems to sound a whole lot like classic preterism. My question for all the budding theologians out there is what is the difference between the two (preterism and the narrative-realist approach)? Or are they pretty much the same thing – in which case this narrative-realist approach is not really all that new. Help me please…

Posted on March 25, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Goldsworthy Talks

Justin Taylor has links to three talks that Graeme Goldsworthy gave at Southern Seminary on the subject of Biblical Theology.

Posted on January 21, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Harmon on New Testament Unity

Matt Harmon outlines 5 reasons in support of the theological unity of the New Testament documents. He also helpfully points to further reading on the subject.

Posted on January 15, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

iPod therefore I Am

George Whitefield College is running its annual ‘Summer School of Biblical Christianity’ from 23 Jan to 1 Feb 2008 at their campus in Muizenberg, Cape Town. They’re offering courses on Biblical Theology, Church Response to Contemporary Issues, New Testament Greek, Old Testament Hebrew, Advanced Exegesis and Post-Graduate Research. I’ll be attending the Post-Graduate Research course.

What was really interesting to me is that Mark Norman will be down from Pretoria to teach 6 sessions on understanding postmodernism entitled ‘iPod therefore I Am‘. Here’s his schedule:

Part 1: Understanding Postmodernism – The differences between ‘Premodern’, ‘Modern’ and ‘Postmodern’ societies.

Part 2: Postmodernism and the Problem of Truth – A Christian critique of postmodern views of knowledge and truth.

Part 3: Postmodernism, Terrorism and Fundamentalism – The new global war and what it means for the church.

Part 4: Postmodernism and African Thought – How post-colonial African thought relates to postmodernism and its relevance for the church.

Part 5: Postmodernism and the Use of Language – A study of postmodern approaches to language, with special relevance to Jacques Derrida.

Part 6: Postmodernism and the Stories We Live In – Are you living in the Christian story?

Mark’s talks will take place in the mornings of each day prior to the other Summer School classes.

For more information contact GWC  (021) 788-1652

Or see the college website.

Posted on January 7, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Genesis 6 – Poor Animals!

In the last few months I’ve been scanning the bible for links between humanity and the creation and the relationship between the gospel and the complete re-creation of all things. Here’s an interesting little insight I came across in Genesis 6 and 7 this morning.

Notice that God gets ticked with the wickedness and rebellion of humans – so what does he do? Well he drowns almost the entire animal and bird population! Yes he drowns the people too – but we expected that. The poor animals go to Davey Jones’ locker because of man’s rebellion. Seems that somehow the fate of the natural world is intrinsically tied to the relationship between people and God. And so when God rescues Noah and his family animals get rescued too – now you might argue that God only rescues the animals because Noah and his family won’t last for very long in a world with out animal life. But then you come to Paul in Romans 8:19

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

Humanity getting rescued leads to the liberation, ultimately, of the entire creation – that seems to be the biblical pattern. The crux question though for us then is: How does this affect the rescued Christian’s relationship to the natural creation?

Posted on November 14, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Why I don’t Stone People

A Friend of mine asked me to respond to the following piece of writing from the book ‘The End of Faith’ by Sam Harris:

…we must decide what it means to be a religious “moderate” in the twenty first century. Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in the modern world…The first thing to observe about the moderates’ retreat from scriptural literalism is that it draws its inspiration not from scripture but from cultural developments that have rendered many of God’s utterances difficult to accept as written. In America, religious moderation is further enforced by the fact that most Christians and Jews do not read the Bible in its entirety and consequently have no idea just how vigorously the God of Abraham wants heresy expunged. One look at Deuteronomy reveals that he has something very specific in mind should you son or daughter return from yoga class advocating the worship of Krishna:

Deuteronomy 13:6-11
“6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. 9 You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.”

While the stoning of children has fallen out of fashion in this country, you will not hear a moderate Christian or Jew arguing for a “symbolic” reading of a passage of this sort. (In fact one seems to be explicitly blocked by God himself…

Deuteronomy 12:32 (New International Version)
32 See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.

The above passage is as canonical as any in the bible, and it is only by ignoring such barbarisms that the Good Book can be reconciled with life in the modern world. This is a problem for “moderation” in religion: it has nothing underwriting it other than the unacknowledged neglect of the divine law.’

So the question i pose is ‘are religious moderates either ignorant or deliberately ignoring certain parts of the bible?’
‘is being uninformed a requirement for being religious in the modern world?’

Here’s my initial reply:

Context, context, context!!!

The Bible is an unfolding narrative of redemptive history.
Those laws were given to a group of people who lived in a theocratic state governed solely by God through the Mosaic law and his manifest presence in the Tabernacle.

So here’s my answer as to why I don’t obey that specific command:
1. I don’t live in an earthly theocracy.
2. The NT makes it abundantly clear that Christ both fulfills the law (I take that to be in a prophetic sense) and frees us from obeying the law slavishly.
3. Hence I interpret all of the Mosaic law (613 commandments) through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
4. Those laws were given for judgment inside the covenant community. According to Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5 we are to continue this internal judgment by expelling those who claim to be believers but refuse to repent of blatant sin – I still keep this law.
5. That same passage in 1 Corinthians 5 tells us not to judge those outside the church – and so I won’t stone people outside for idolatry.
6. The Gospel of Christ now judges people, I proclaim the message thereby bringing judgment on all who hear and refuse to repent and install Christ as king – and BTW this judgment is a hell of a lot worse than simply being stoned! Excuse the pun.

I could probably come up with more – but that’s a start.

I am NOT a Christian moderate – I am a radical, Jesus has called me to die to self and become a servant to all – in some ways its easier to stone someone then really obey that command.

Posted on November 14, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Church: The Place to Encounter God?

I recently heard someone describe church as the place where we encounter God. My question is: Can this concept be derived from a New Testament understanding of the assembly? Is the assembly a place for encountering God – or is the assembly the place where those who have already encountered God, by encountering him at the cross, come together to meet with each other for the purpose of encouragement and partnership and praise?

Posted on November 14, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Preaching Errors According to Manchester #2

Part #1 – here.

Simon Manchester’s second error – ‘Craft beats meaning’:

Another (similar) idea around today is that craft beats meaning. No-one would put it this foolishly, but there is more attention paid (in this error) to the presentation than to the meaning. What is the long-term benefit of a passage used devotionally (without proper biblical theology) if its packaging is better than its truth? What is the point of abusing a text to sell a clever idea? Some sermons are so formulaic in their presentation, only a discerning person realizes that its all ‘form over facts’ – and that’s the sad problem! Sermon craft is a great servant in preaching; it helps the communicator and the listeners. But its a bad master when it pretends that there is an only way to do things (clever story to begin, three points and a bombshell to finish). The Bible is  bigger than our craftiness.

I think its often easier to follow a set form in preaching than to let the rich diversity of the text inform how you craft different sermon forms. But we’re lazy – well I’m lazy – and so often the ‘clever story, three points and a bombshell to finish’ just gets perpetuated because of that. One of the things I’ve done to try and combat this in my own preaching is to listen to a lot of preaching from a lot of different preachers and then have a sort of eclectic approach to form that doesn’t stifle the text but rather, as Manchester says, is a servant to the text. So I regularly try to listen to Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Don Carson, Phillip Jensen, John Woodhouse, John Chapman, Simon Manchester, Dick Lucas, Vaughan Roberts, Richard Coekin, Justin Mote, John Stott, plus some of our own preachers here in South Africa. Its one way to avoid getting stuck in formulaic preaching that stifles the text.

Posted on November 5, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Who are the ‘Poor’?

I spent the day doing some work on Isaiah 61:1-3. This short text is full of great gems of insight into the promise of the Gospel which comes through the Servant/Messiah, ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. After all the passage is most famous because it is quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:18-19 where Jesus directly identifies himself as that Servant/Messiah. One of the issues surrounding the passage revolves around the exact meaning of the term ‘poor’ in verse one – just how narrow or broad is the term being used. Well John Oswalt, an accomplished commentator writes the following:

‘The connotation of this term is not restricted to financial or material conditions. Nor is there any justification in the context for limiting the reference to an oppressed minority of righteous persons. Rather, it speaks of all who are distressed and in trouble for any reason, including sin.’ (The Book of Isaiah – chapters 40-66, NICOT, p. 565)

I think there’s a word of caution here for us as we operate within a younger evangelicalism that is horrified at the neglect of the poor (in the narrow sense) by previous generations of evangelicals and so is busy reconstructing a theology to address the problem.  Let’s make sure we use the texts in such a way that we bring out the full meaning of terms and not just the narrow sense in order to support our personal battles – even if those battles are good and right in and of themselves.