Theology

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March 1, 2013

Faith is a follower

Posted by Jason Dulle under Faith, Theology
1 Comment 

Be A FollowerWe often think of faith as something that we have to work up in ourselves before God will give us what we want.  We tell God what we want, and then make every effort to believe that we will receive it.  If we were able to work up enough faith, then God will give us what we asked of Him.  This notion of faith is utterly foreign to Scripture.  The essence of faith is trust, and trust – by its very nature – is always in a following relationship, not a leading relationship.  To have faith in God means that we relate to Him in a leader-follower relationship, and we occupy the role of follower.  As a follower, we trust Him to lead us appropriately.  We do not set the agenda; He does.

This does not mean we cannot ask God to grant us certain requests.  By all means we should ask Him to do things for us.  But faith does not demand that God do what we want.  Faith makes the request, and then trusts in God’s wisdom to either give us what we have asked for or not.  Faith says, “I want X, but be it according to your will.”

I’m sure most of you have had the experience of following another car on a road trip.  Back in the days before cell phones, if the person in the following position wanted to make a stop, they had to signal their intentions to the person in the leading position, and the leader had to consent to the stop.  If the leader was unaware of your intentions, or if he was not agreeable to the stop, but you stopped anyway, you would be left behind.  In a similar fashion, we can signal to God in prayer of our desire to make a certain stop, but acting in faith means that if He keeps on going then we keep following Him to wherever He is going.  It is not acting in faith to make the stop we want, and then wait for God to follow us there.  At best this is presumptuous, and at worst it is disobedience.  Faith trusts and faith follows; it does not lead.

 

February 22, 2013

Excitement is overrated

Posted by Jason Dulle under Miscellaneous, Theology
[6] Comments 

excitementIf there is any word that is overused and overemphasized in Pentecostal circles, it is “excited.”  All my Pentecostal life I have heard ministers, worship leaders, and prayer leaders talking about their personal excitement, and our need to be excited for Jesus.  This message has never sat well with a melancholy person like myself.  But it’s not just me.  This sort of message is absent from the Bible as well.  While the Bible does say we should be joyful, joy is not the same as excitement.  Even if it were, the Bible clearly describes other not-so-exciting emotions that Christians will experience as well.  It not only tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice, but also to weep with those who weep.

There are definitely times that we should experience excitement as a follower of Jesus.  There is, after all, much to be excited about: forgiveness, eternal life, seeing Jesus, etc.  But excitement will not be characteristic of our entire Christian life, and neither should it be characteristic of every church service.  I’ve seen many excitable Christians who eventually fall by the wayside.  Excitement is never enough to carry a Christian to eternity.  While not ignoring excitement, we need to focus our attention on commitment, faithfulness, and perseverance.  Excitement waxes and wanes, but a commitment characterized by faithful endurance will pass the test of time.

 

February 21, 2013

J. P. Moreland Distinguishes Between Two Kinds of Judging

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Hamartiology, Theology
1 Comment 

J. P. MorelandAlmost everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, knows of Jesus’ teaching, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Mt 7:1).  I have addresses the proper interpretation of this passage elsewhere in my treatment of judgmentalism, but I recently read some brief comments by J. P. Moreland on the matter that I found  helpful as well.  Moreland writes:

[W]e need to distinguish two senses of judging:  condemning and evaluating.  The former is wrong and is in view in Matthew 7.  When Jesus says not to judge, he means it in the sense that the Pharisees judged others:  their purpose was to condemn the person judged and to elevate themselves above that person.  Now this is a form of self-righteous blindness that vv. 2-4 explicitly forbid.  Such judgment is an expression of a habitual approach to life of avoiding self-examination and repentance and, instead, propping oneself up by putting others down.[1]

The distinction between moral condemnation and moral evaluation is an important one.  We cannot and must not avoid moral evaluations.  Such are necessary and good.  What we must avoid are moral condemnations of people that elevate our own sense of moral superiority and blind us to our own moral inadequacies.

[1]J. P. Moreland, “On Judging Others: Is There a Right Way?”; available fromhttp://www.jpmoreland.com/2012/12/19/on-judging-others-is-there-a-right-way/; Internet; accessed 31 January 2013.

 

February 11, 2013

What I’ve Been Reading – The Lord’s Supper: Remembering and Proclaiming Christ Until He Comes

Posted by Jason Dulle under Book Reviews, Lord's Supper, Theology
[3] Comments 

9780805447576_cvr_webA while back someone purchased The Lord’s Supper: Remembering and Proclaiming Christ Until He Comes for me from my Ministry Resource List, for which I am always grateful.

I do a lot of reading, and had a number of books to get through before this one.  I had requested the book because it came highly recommended as a great resource on the subject, but to be honest, I was not on-the-edge-of-my-seat-excited to read it.  Like every other theologian, I am not equally interested in every theological topic, and the Lord’s Supper has never ranked too high on my list of theological priorities.

I grew up Catholic.  Communion was something we participated in weekly.  I never understood what it was all about, and didn’t care to.  It was just a ritual I went through (including the ritual of trying to get that sticky wafer off of the roof of my mouth with all sorts of clever tongue contortions).  When I converted to Pentecostal, I went from celebrating the Lord’s Supper weekly to bi-annually or annually, so I had even less reason to give the topic much thought.  Sure, I studied the various positions and the historical debates on the nature and purpose of the Supper in seminary.  That piqued my interest a bit, but more from a historical perspective than a personal interest in my own practice of the Supper.  I saw the Supper as a memorial, through that we should do it (and more frequently than we usually do as Protestants), but never got much out of it personally.  Then, I read this book.  It has greatly enhanced my appreciation for the importance and significance of this ordinance instituted by none other than Jesus Himself.  There are many nuances to the Supper that most of us pass over.  This book draws them out.

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January 31, 2013

Conforming the Bible to our traditions

Posted by Jason Dulle under Hermeneutics, Theology
[7] Comments 

Glass SlipperIf we are honest with ourselves, all of us want the Bible to support our existing beliefs and practices.  We want it to support the teachings of the religious tradition we were raised in, or are currently part of.  We want it to affirm that which we think is morally right, and condemn that which we think is morally wrong.  There is always a danger, then, that we will engage in hermeneutical and logical gymnastics to ensure that we can walk away from the Bible without having to change our beliefs and practices.

I often ask myself, Would I interpret this passage in this way if I had been raised in a different tradition?  Would I think X is wrong or Y is right if I was Presbyterian rather than Pentecostal?  Are my reasons for interpreting the Bible as I do good enough to rationally compel others to adopt my position, or just good enough to for me to feel justified in my present beliefs?  Would I adopt my position if I were an outsider, listening to the same arguments?  If not, why not?

While I fully understand the desire to avoid change and theological conflict with one’s religious community, truth should always be our first priority.  If good hermeneutics and sound reason cause us to walk away from the Bible confirmed in our present beliefs, then great.  But if good hermeneutics and sound reason require us to change our beliefs and/or practices, then so be it.  Truth is more valuable than tradition.

 

December 21, 2012

The Queen James Bible: A new gay-friendly “translation”

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible, Homosexuality, Theology, Translations
[7] Comments 

queen-james-gay-bibleIf the title itself doesn’t give it away, the Queen James Bible is a new “gay Bible” based on the King James Version, complete with a rainbow-styled cross on the cover.  It was named “Queen James Bible” because King James I of England, who authorized the creation of the Bible that bears his name, was rumored to be bisexual.

According to the unnamed editors[1] of this version, “The Queen James Bible seeks to resolve interpretive ambiguity in the Bible as it pertains to homosexuality.[2] … We edited the Bible to prevent homophobic interpretations.”[3]  It is a near-identical reproduction of the KJV, but with gay-friendly edits made to eight verses that have been traditionally been interpreted as speaking negatively against homosex.  What follows is a comparison of the KJV to the QJV (changes in bold), followed by my comments on their changes:

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December 19, 2012

What I’ve Been Reading: Reasonable Faith

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Book Reviews, Philosophy, Resurrection, Theistic Arguments
[8] Comments 

Reasonable FaithDr. William Lane Craig is my favorite Christian apologist.  I’ve read countless articles he has authored and several of his books, listened to virtually every debate he has participated in as well as his podcasts and Defenders lectures, and even read his weekly Q&A on reasonablefaith.org.  I could rightly be called a Craigite, and yet I had never read his signature book, Reasonable Faith, which is now in its third edition.

I finally purchased the book and read through it with slobbering delight.  I must confess that having followed Craig for so long, there wasn’t much in the book that I had not encountered before.  But that is more of a personal commentary, and does nothing to detract from the wealth of information contained in this book.

Craig begins the book by answering the question, How can one know Christianity is true?  After surveying what important past and present thinkers have to say on the matter, Craig adopts a Plantingian-based model in which we can know Christianity is true in virtue of the witness of the Spirit in our hearts.  Craig makes an important distinction, however, between how we personally know Christianity to be true, and how we demonstrate to others the truth of Christianity.  While the witness of the Holy Spirit is sufficient for the believer to be persuaded of the truth of Christianity, we demonstrate the truth of Christianity to unbelievers through evidence and rational argumentation.

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December 13, 2012

10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible, Canon, Theology
1 Comment 

Michael KrugerEarlier this year Michael Kruger blogged his way through the 10 most common misconceptions about the NT canon.

Check them out to see which misconceptions you are guilty of, and then confess your intellectual sins in the comments section.

 

November 29, 2012

Is Re-baptism Ever Acceptable?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Baptism, Theology
[13] Comments 

I have been asked on several occasions what my thoughts are regarding re-baptism.  I have in mind those who were previously baptized in a legitimate Biblical manner, but want to be baptized again for various reasons.  The Bible does not directly address this issue, so we cannot cite chapter and verse to settle it.  We have to think about it theologically and practically.  Here are my thoughts on the matter.

First, we have to consider what makes baptism effective.  According to Paul, it is one’s faith in what God is doing through the act of baptism:

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col 2:11-12)

If one exercised genuine faith in Jesus when they were baptized, then their baptism was legitimate and spiritually efficacious, and there is no spiritual need to be rebaptized.  They already have the spiritual benefits of baptism applied to their life.  Being rebaptized will add nothing to their spiritual life that they do not possess already.  However, if one did not have faith in Jesus when they were baptized, or if they are not certain whether they had genuine faith at the time and they feel the need to be rebaptized, then by all means they should do so.

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November 15, 2012

What’s with Jesus calling a woman a “dog”?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology
[5] Comments 

If you’ve ever read the exchange between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7:24-30, I’m sure you’ve asked the same question most of us have: “Did Jesus really say that?!”

What did He say?  In response to the woman’s request for Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter, Jesus said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  How rude!  It seems out of character for Jesus to put down a woman, equating her to a dog.

Larry Hurtado has a helpful article on this passage that explains Jesus’ point in its original context.  He makes the following points:

 

October 30, 2012

“Test the spirits” and “he who is in the world”: Verses for spiritual warfare?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Hermeneutics, Spiritual gifts, Theology
[6] Comments 

Portions of 1 John 4:1-6 are often cited in discussions of spiritual warfare.  John’s admonition to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 Jn 4:1) is cited as evidence that we need to exercise spiritual discernment to distinguish between angelic and demonic spirits, or even good and bad human spirits.  And then there is 1 John 4:4b: “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.”  This Scripture is typically quoted in the context of overcoming the Devil.  But are these passages being interpreted correctly?  Are they referring to spiritual warfare?  To find out, let’s look at the context:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. [2] By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, [3] and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. [4] Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. [5] They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. [6] We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 Jn 4:1-6, ESV)

A key word in this passage is “spirit.”  Many presume that when John talks about “test[ing] the spirits,” he is referring to angelic and demonic beings.  It’s clear, however, that John uses “spirit” in several ways in this passage.  And in verse one he uses “spirit” to refer to human teachers, not angels and demons.  This is evidenced by his juxtaposition of “spirits” with “false prophets” who “have gone out into the world.”

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October 17, 2012

What I’ve Been Reading: Is God a Moral Monster? and God Behaving Badly

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bible Difficulties, Ethics, Gender Issues, Hamartiology, Hell, Hermeneutics, Mosaic Law, Nature of God, Problem of Evil, Theology
[18] Comments 

One of the distinguishing marks of the new atheists is that they not only think religion is false, but that it is dangerous and immoral too.  Even God himself is not above their judgment.  They regularly chide the God of the Bible as being a moral monster!  They accuse Him of being pro-genocide, anti-women, pro-rape, pro-slavery, etc.  Rather than the paradigm of moral goodness, God is an evil despot that is to be shunned.  You know it’s a bad day when even God is evil!

Is what they say true?  Is God – particularly as He is portrayed in the OT – morally evil?  Many Christians are sympathetic to this charge because they themselves struggle to understand God’s actions and commands, particularly as revealed in the OT.  Thankfully there have been some well-written responses to the problem of “theistic evil” written in recent years to dispel this negative portrait of God.  

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October 11, 2012

Philippians 4:13 – What is it exactly that we can do through Christ who strengthens us?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Hermeneutics, Theology
[3] Comments 

Philippians 4:13 reads “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  This is taken by many to mean they can do anything they set their mind to through Christ’s strength. 

NT scholar Ben Witherington argues that this is a misreading of the text.  He notes that the Greek does not say “do.” The only verb in the Greek is “ischuo” which means “to be able, strong, healthy, valid, powerful.”  A literal rendering of the verse is “I am able all things in Him who empowers me.”  Read literally, it doesn’t make any sense.  Able to what?  The helping verb is missing, and can only be supplied by the surrounding context.  So what is the context of Paul’s statement? 

In verses 10-12 Paul wrote: “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. [11] Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. [12] I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” (ESV). 

Paul had learned to be content in any state he found himself in.  He learned to endure both the good and the bad through Christ’s empowerment.  A better translation of Phil 4:13 then would be, “I am able [to be content in] all things in Him who empowers me” or “I am able [to endure] all things in Him who empowers me.”  This verse affirms our ability to persevere through the good and the bad by trusting in Christ, not our ability to accomplish any feat we want.

 

October 8, 2012

Does Bias Eliminate Objectivity?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Epistemology, Logic, Philosophy, Relativism, Resurrection, Theology, Thinking
[5] Comments 

Some people want to reject the testimony of the NT evangelists on the basis that they are biased.  I have written on the problems of this claim before, but here is a brief summary of my argument (with some added insight offered by Greg Koukl in his September 10, 2012 podcast):

  • This is an example of the genetic fallacy – dismissing one’s arguments because of its origin, rather than addressing it on its own merits.
  • Having a bias is irrelevant to the legitimacy of one’s testimony and/or arguments.  One must grapple with the evidence rather than dismiss it because it comes from a biased source.
  • Everyone has a bias, including those who reject Jesus.  The only people without a bias are those who are ignorant of the matter.
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October 5, 2012

More Updates to the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Archaeology, Bible, Historical Jesus, Theology
1 Comment 

This story continues to fascinate me.  It’s like CSI Miami for Biblical nerds!  And new insights and arguments continue to be offered for and against the authenticity of the GosJesWife.

Christian Askeland has a nice 10 minute video demonstrating some of the peculiarities of the writing on the GosJesWife which cause scholars to doubt its authenticity.

Hugo Lundhaug and Alin Suciu discuss the problems around dating the GosJesWife and evidence that a paintbrush was used for the writing.

Timo Paananen disputes James Watson’s methodology for concluding that the GosJesWife is a patchwork of the Coptic GTh.

Peter Head examines some of the reasons King et al concluded that the writing was authentic, including the lack of ink in a hole created by an insect, the lack of ink where fibers have gone missing from the papyrus, ink on the frayed edges, and the faded ink on the recto and finds them wanting.

 

September 28, 2012

What I’ve Been Reading: Biblical Words and Their Meanings. Avoid the pitfalls of Word Studies.

Posted by Jason Dulle under Hermeneutics, Theology
[7] Comments 

If you are a Christian theologian or teacher, or just a serious student of Scripture, you will engage in word studies.  This can be a very fruitful enterprise in exegesis, and yet there are so many ways it can go badly.  In his book, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics, Moises Silva addresses the subject of lexical semantics.  He discusses the proper study of words, and common fallacies to avoid.  This book is a must read for exegetes.  Here are just some of the gems I have gleaned from Silva:

  • Language and concepts are not necessarily correlated.  For example, just because Hebrew lacks a future tense does not mean Hebrew-speakers lack a concept of the future.  All talk of the “Hebrew mind” versus the “Greek mind,” based on linguistic differences, is simply fallacious.  Linguistics cannot tell us about  a person’s worldview and mental categories.
  • Etymological studies and cognate languages are of limited value to exegesis.  The history of a word’s meaning may be of interest if you are a historian, but it is of little value if you want to know what that word means in the Biblical text you are studying.  To determine the meaning of a word used in the Biblical text, we must determine what it meant in the author’s day (synchronic meaning), not its origin and evolution (diachronic meaning). (more…)
 

September 27, 2012

Update on The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Archaeology, Bible, Historical Jesus, Theology
[4] Comments 

“Jesus said to them, ‘My wife'” highlighted.

The web continues to be abuzz with The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.  So much is being written that it’s hard to keep up!  Here are the latest and most important developments.

James Watson has written two more papers (here and here) further developing his original thesis that The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife is a collage of various words and phrases culled from the Gospel of Thomas to form a new composition that is supposed to appear like a new gospel.  Andrew Bernhard has also tested Watson’s thesis in two papers (here and here), and agrees that “a modern author could have created the text of GJW simply by using short excerpts culled exclusively from Coptic GTh.”[1]  Both of Bernhard’s papers present an excellent visual and summary of the extensive semantic borrowing of the GosJesWife from the Coptic GTh.  He notes that only 14 out of 139 legible letters on the recto of the GosJesWife do not correspond to the Coptic GTh.  Eight of these 14 letters make up the phrase “my wife.”  Of the other 6 letter differences, they are either due to gender shifts in the pronoun or uninterpretable because they are single letters that come at the beginning or end of the line and lack sufficient context for reconstruction.

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September 21, 2012

Was there a Mrs. Jesus?: Thoughts on the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Archaeology, Bible, Historical Jesus, Theology
[21] Comments 

Karen King, professor of divinity at Harvard and specialist in Gnostic Christianity, recently announced the existence of a small (3” x 1.5”), late-4th century[1] fragment in which Jesus speaks of his wife. Written in Sahidic Coptic with black ink[2] on papyrus, the fragment contains eight lines of text on the recto and six lines of text on the verso, with all margins missing.[3]  The extant text on the recto side reads:

1  Not [to] me. My mother gave to me li[fe
2  The disciples said to Jesus
3  deny. Mary is worthy of it.[4]
4  Jesus said to them, “My wife
5  she will be able to be my disciple
6  Let wicked people swell up
7  As for me, I dwell with her in order to
8  an image[5]

Although the text bears some striking resemblance to known Gnostic texts (particularly the Gospel of Thomas[6], and to a lesser degree the Gospel of Philip), it does not match any known apocryphal or Gnostic gospel.  This may be an independent Gospel of unknown character (Gnostic, apocryphal, etc.) or, as Francis Watson has argued, it may be a modern forgery created using key words from the Coptic version of the Gospel of Thomas (more will be said concerning this momentarily).

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August 29, 2012

A Fundamental Challenge to Calvinistic Theology

Posted by Jason Dulle under Calvinism v Arminianism, Theology
[19] Comments 

I am an Arminian, but much of my theological training has been received from the hands of Reformed theologians.  Indeed, many of the thinkers I read/follow are Reformed in their theology.  My exposure to Reformed thinkers has broadened my understanding of Calvinism, corrected many of my misconceptions about Calvinism, and produced in me a real sense of appreciation for its exegetical basis.  Indeed, sometimes I jokingly refer to myself as a “Calminian.”  And yet, for all its strengths, I think there are fatal flaws in Calvinistic theology (which is part of the reason I remain relatively Arminian—I also see some real strengths in the Molinist explanation, so perhaps I am an “Cal-mol-inian”).  In this post I will present what I believe to be one of the most fundamental challenges to Calvinistic theology.  

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August 22, 2012

If Calvinism is true, why evangelize?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Calvinism v Arminianism, Soteriology, Theology
[21] Comments 

One of the arguments Arminians level against Calvinism is that it makes evangelism superfluous.  After all, if your neighbor is part of the elect God will ensure that he comes to faith whether you preach the Gospel to him or not.  As part of God’s elect, it would be impossible for him not to come to faith.  Likewise, if your neighbor is not part of the elect, no amount of evangelism will be effective for his conversion.  So why evangelize if Calvinism is true?  What’s the point? 

Calvinists typically respond by saying God doesn’t just predestine the ends, but also the means.  While God may have predestined your neighbor’s salvation (the ends), He also predestined that your neighbor would receive that salvation in response to your evangelism (the means).  

While I can appreciate this response in principle, how exactly is God using your evangelism to bring about your neighbor’s salvation?  To speak of God using evangelism to bring about salvation implies that evangelism contributes to the desired end in some way.  I fail to see how this is so, given the strict monergism of Calvinism.  Let me explain. 

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