Ravings and Ranting by &rew

How would you prove the God of the Bible?

2012-02-15T09:31:00.000+11:00

A guy at work said I should get involved with christianity.stackexchange.com so I have been spending a bit of time on that site interacting with it (my thoughts on online democracy is another topic). The question of Is there a way to prove the God of the Bible? came through. In the answers the standard philosophical arguments for a god came up, but also rightly pointed out these arguments don't get you to the God of the Bible.

Photo from ryamilani on flickr

Now I don't think Christianity is a blind faith, so this question made me think about the reasons why I do believe the God of the Bible and how I would answer this question. Firstly I think the God of the Bible is Jesus, so then I would have to establish a case as to why Jesus is God, so I go to the resurrection for that. Below is the answer I posted (and no I am not bitter that I don't have many votes, nor am I appealing to anyone to vote up my answer). I'd like to know what you think and if I am conflating the Trinity; if my logic is screwy, or I am forgetting something:

Jesus claimed to be the God of the the Bible a few times, and he even used the scriptures to support his case (here is only a few verses to make this case):

Jesus claimed to be God:

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:8-9 ESV)

I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30 ESV)

Jesus invoked the name of God that was revealed to Moses in Exd 3:14:

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8:56-59 ESV)

Jesus claimed to fulfil a reading from Isaiah (61:1-2a):

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:17-21 ESV)

Jesus used the scriptures to explaine his death and resurrection:

Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:26-27 ESV)

Paul also held that Jesus' death and resurrection was from the scriptures:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, (Romans 1:1-4 ESV)

And Paul stated that if Jesus did not rise from the dead (according to the scriptures) then the Christian faith is futile and Christians are misrepresenting God:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ESV)

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. (1 Corinthians 15:14-15 ESV)

Jesus and Paul seemed to think that the resurrection of Jesus proved that Jesus was the God of the Bible. If you can prove the resurrection then you have a good case that Jesus is who he said he was. There is no way to prove this scientifically, but historically there is some evidence that may imply it happened. This also depends on how strongly you take the historical sources, but most historians can agree that:

Jesus died by crucifixion.
Jesus was honourably buried in an easily accessible public tomb.
The death of Christ caused His followers to lose all hope in His Messianic claims
Three days later, the tomb was empty.
The disciples had genuine experiences that they were convinced were literal appearances of the risen Christ.
The disciples were radically transformed from skeptics and doubters to bold proclaimers of Christ’s Resurrection.
Eleven of the twelve apostles suffered martyrs’ deaths for their convictions.
The Resurrection message was absolutely central to the early preaching of the Church.
The Resurrection message was central to the entire New Testament.
The Resurrection was first proclaimed in the very environment most hostile to it, Jerusalem. Even there, those motivated to disprove the Resurrection could not do so.
The Church exists only because of the disciples’ conviction that the Resurrection occurred.
The Sabbath Day was changed to Sunday.
James, Paul, and many other skeptics were only convinced as a result of personally seeing the risen Jesus

Some other resurrection theories (swoon, stolen body, hallucination, mistaken identity, wrong tomb etc...) try and account for either (1) the empty tomb, (2) the resurrection appearances and (3) the transformed lives of his followers, but no theory, besides Jesus' resurrection adequately explains all three.

Source:
Resurrect? An Atheist and Theist Dialogue, Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, edited by John F. Ankerberg

Which God & what about Jesus?

2012-02-01T09:30:00.000+11:00

I have just started reading God is not Great by the late Christopher Hitchens (we'll see if I finished it and write a review of it). The second chapter in this book opens with:

Imagine that you can perform a feat of which I am incapable. Imagine, in other words, that you can picture an infinitely benign and all-powerful creator, who conceived of you, then made and shaped you, brought you into the world he had made for you, and now supervises and cares for you even while you sleep. Imagine, further, that if you obey the rules and commandments that he has lovingly prescribed, you will qualify for an eternity of bliss and repose. I do not say that I envy you this belief (because to me it seems like the wish for a horrible form of benevolent and unalterable dictatorship), but I do have a sincere question. Why does such a belief not make its adherents happy? It must seem to them that they have come into possession of a marvelous secret, of the sort that they could cling to in moments of even the most extreme adversity.

To which I reply, Amen! R.C. Sproul has said a few times (here between the 24:20-25:05 mark and here between the 43:50-44:02 mark), that if this was the case, he would despair.

When calling God not great, it is probably best to work out which God you are making reference to, as they come in all sorts of shapes and flavours. To say that any and all god's are the same is to say that all paint is the same colour. If the above is a description of the God Hitchens doesn't like, then he is in good company with most reformed Christians.

I would have liked it if Hitchens in his book would have imagined a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty (Ex 34:6-7 repeated in: Neh. 9:17, 31; Ps. 86:15; 103:8; Jonah 4:2; and Joel 2:13). Then maybe we might have disagreed on something...

Reading a bit further into this book I found more things that I say Amen to.

When dealing with harming children and the weak, Hitchens writes that "[t]he New Testament has Jesus informing us that one so guilty would be better off at the bottom of the sea, and with a millstone around his neck at that." Here he appeals to Jesus' standard (Matthew 18:5-6), and rightly so.

When dealing with end times nuts, Hitchens commends Abraham Davenport (who was a deacon at his local church for 30 years) for how he acted when people thought the final judgement was upon them:

The speaker of the assembly, Abraham Davenport, managed to keep his nerve and dignity. “Gentlemen,” he said, “either the Day of Judgment is here or it is not. If it is not, there is no occasion for alarm and lamentation. If it is, however, I wish to be found doing my duty. I move, therefore, that candles be brought.” In his own limited and superstitious day, this was the best that Mr. Davenport could do. Nonetheless, I second his motion.

Davenport is only acting out what Jesus tells him to do (Luke 12:35-40), and again rightly so.

So far, Hitchens and I seem to appeal to the same standard.

I wonder if Hitchens sees the tension between Jesus and religion? Do others? I wonder if this is why a spoken word youTube clip titled Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus gets over 17.7 million views in two weeks...

A Resurrected Dialogue

2012-01-16T10:09:00.000+11:00

I bank my life on two main premises: 1) there is a God and 2) Jesus rose from the dead. I think to hold to these two premises you ultimately have to have faith in them, but I do not think it is a blind faith. I think there is some evidence for these two premises, evidence that can be examined and conclusions could be drawn from them. I agree with Paul who said if the resurrection did not happen then the Christians faith is in vain, is misrepresenting God and those who believe it are to be most pitied.

In 1985 Antony Flew and Gary Habermas debated the likelihood of Jesus' resurrection. 15 years later John Ankerberg got them together on his show to have the same debate to see if either had developed or changed their thinking as in that time they each had produced books on or around the same topic. This was a pretty good idea as I know in my case, I sometimes have a conversation with someone and a bit after that I think of something I wish I would have said, although maybe not 15 years later. The bulk of this book is made up the debates transcript and then there is a short essay by each of the three people (Flew, Habermas and Ankerberg).

The subtitle of this book: An Atheist & Theist Dialogue, is incorrect. It really should be: An Atheist & Two Christians Dialogue as Ankerberg, who was chairing the discussion, jumps in way too much to be fair on Flew. This grated on me as the chair of a debate/discussion, even if it hosted on their own show, should remain objective.

What really surprised me was how much Flew, one of the most prominent atheist at that time, conceded in the debate and he really didn't offer that much of an argument against Jesus' resurrection. Flew agreed that Paul's writings were accurate, that Paul saw something on the road to Damascus and that Jesus' tomb was empty. Flew provided no reason how the tomb came to be empty and argued for the hallucination theory to explain the sightings of Jesus that the apostles, the two Mary's, Paul, James, the 500 etc. all saw. Flew even conceded that from a theistic world view the resurrection becomes quite likely and that it even makes sense. In the follow up essays in the following chapters, Habermans noted that now Flew had become a theist (as the book was published 5 years after the debate) and wondered now if Flew would consider the resurrection as a historical fact. The essays were not counter-point essays, but from all other reports Flew never became a Christian. He believed in an impersonal God who created everything but did not interact or reveal Himself/Itself to people.

Habermans kept the debate in the terms of the historical evidence for what both sceptical and Christian scholars agreed upon. Not even using the Gospel accounts, Habermans showed from Paul's writings and also from sources outside the Bible that lots of people reported to have seen something after the resurrection. Hebermans also show that Paul and James were not good candidates for the hallucination theory and they by no means were looking for Jesus' memory to live on as they opposed him. Flew wanted to know about how all the other people in Jerusalem who heard about Jesus' resurrection and didn't believe, those people who we don't have any evidence for (although in Acts we are told that 3000 people in Jerusalem believed in one day). It seems that Flew's argument was: other than all the sources we do have, what about the ones that we don't? I am not sure Aristotle would appreciate this line of reasoning for not following the evidence that we do have (but Aristotle also didn't believe in miracles so maybe he would side with Flew after all and not follow the evidence wherever it leads).

Ankerberg's last chapter in this book was quite good. One thing he did was to give an overview of other theories that people come up with to deny the resurrection. He points out that of the 12 or so facts that all historians agree on, these theories fails at least in one point (but mostly in more areas) to accept all of these facts and they can not adequately explain the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances and the transformed lives of his followers.

Flew's strength (I think) is in the philosophy of miracles, leaning on Hume a bit, but this debate seemed to more resolve around history which was Hebermans strength, so I don't think this had the strongest defence/explanation from an atheist's world view of what happened at Easter. The Internet infidels have a long review of their first debate written by someone who I think wished they were there instead of Flew.

You can read the first 38 pages of this book on Google Books and I think this YouTube clip is the 2000 debate whose transcript makes up the bulk of this book.

Healing the Wounds of the Past

2012-01-09T10:50:00.000+11:00

I read this book mostly because of the brouhaha over T.D Jakes and weather or not he is a modalist or not (another good link). This book really wasn't the right book to dig into his doctrine of God, as it was more about helping people who are hurting.

For some reason in my head I grouped Joel Osteen and Jakes together, maybe because they are pastors of large American churches and sell lots of pseudo-self-help books. After reading a book by each author, I would sooner recommend a book by Jakes than by Osteen. That doesn't mean I am 100% on board with Jakes, but at least he is thoroughly reformed; meaning he stressed salvation by grace alone, continually points to Jesus and he uses the Bible better than Osteen.

This book doesn't sugar coat life and addresses the issues of rape, child molestation, abuse, divorce, betrayal of trust, struggles with singleness, but it does so in a fairly compassionate manner, while urging you to focus on your future, despite your past.

Throughout the book Jakes points out many differences between genders and how they deal with pain and suffering. Generally he offered more advice to women than men, so much so that I would guess that the primary audience of this book would be females. I don't think I would disagree with the differences he points out, but I would probably change the way to say it. For example he draws an analogy between women being a power socket and men being a plug, and cautions women to be careful who they let plug into them. I'm not sure I would phrase it that way, and then I am not sure how that is difference with men, should guys also be careful what they plug into? Isn't that pretty much is saying the same thing?

The book circles around the story of Jesus healing the crippled woman on the Sabbath, while also drawing on other women in the Bible, such as Sarah, Rahab, Ruth and even Delilah. There are lots of bible verses to help support what Jakes is saying, but every now and again I kinda felt he was proof-texting, and not dealing with the original context of the verse. He would also draw some analogies from minor details from a Biblical story that is perhaps too much of a stretch. When dealing with the curses for Eve and Satan (I can't remember if he dealt with Adams curses) he skipped over the protoevangelium which is a little oversight.

There was also a few minor bits about how God wants you to be wealthy and that we have to claim what we want from God, which seemed a bit off to me. In the book, Jakes may have also rebuked a few too many negative spirits and encouraged me to claim the anointing of God too many times for my comfort - but this maybe more of a style than a theological point.

In the end I struggle to work out if I would I recommend this book. I wouldn't recommend it to a guy as it is a bit women orientated. I also haven't read many other books on dealing with personal abuse to know what is out there - perhaps I would recommend someone read a Yancey book instead. I think in the end I would err on caution and not recommend this book to someone who has been abused and instead draw on what these two books have taught me (I never reviewed these books, but they were good). That is to listen to someone needing care and to help/guide them to work out for themselves a future they could hope for.

Why I Blog

2012-01-03T14:34:00.000+11:00

Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few - taken from here

I agree with this quote even though (or especially because) I have three blogs.

I have been asked a few times why I run a blog and when it comes down to it, I think it is mostly out of narcissism, that is, this blog is sometimes more for me than anyone else.

A month into my blogging hobby I found a nice quote how blogging it is either narcissistic or liberating and it is possible to put on a fake persona. I think that still stands. It is quite possible to put on a fake appearance online. In 2007 when I started, I think I was trying too hard to appear smart to others. Over the years I really haven't built much of an audience (which is no surprise as really who wants to read this?) I have stopped worrying so much what others may think of me and so perhaps has found my natural voice a bit more. Only the stray post has really generated a few hits on this site, but I really stopped caring about that, and used this site mostly for my own reference, and sometimes to help someone else think through an issue.

The original goal of this blog was for me to write on issues that were burning inside me. Every now and again some issue might arise that I had an opinion on that I felt just had to be said, otherwise I would continual to have the same internal monologue with myself. This still happens, but maybe not as much, or if I do have some opinion on something that I think everyone has to know about, I generally don't get round to posting about it till the issue or the moment has past, so some of them never gets posted. As I write this, I have four posts in draft, and I am not sure if two of them will ever get published. One post waiting is a book review that will probably go up next week as I am pretty good at keeping up on my book reviews.

I rarely read new releases, although I do buy some, but my back log of books that I have on my "to read" pile is so big, that by the time I get to them, there have already been a million other reviews of that book online. The only real purpose of my book reviews is for me to remember, or to send onto someone I know to see if they wanted to read that book as well.

Another reason why I blog is to help me set my thinking straight on an issue. Sometimes I do not know exactly where my conclusions to a series will end. It is true that I have a vague idea where it will end up, but writing things down helps me to see the reasons why I thought something to be true.

So I blog because I sometimes have an strong idea on something that I think others just have to know about; or to keep my own person record of what books I have read; or to help me reason through an issue. If that is not self-centred, narcissism, then I do not know what is.

So I should really say thank you to the 17 people who have subscribed to this blog in Google Reader, and also thank you to the extra 5-30 other "people" that hit each article who may or may not be bots. Thanks for putting up with my ravings and ranting.

I am going to continual to try and post something every week, but when real life happens, that may not be realistic. I have also just added this blog to post in my Facebook stream, which may annoy some people who might consider it spam, but according to the stats for my phone blog, a few Facebook users seem to click through.

100 days of reading over the break

2011-12-28T10:25:00.000+11:00

Normally over the break I try to listen to a sermon series and encourage others to do the same with the extra time they have. This year I was thinking about either listening to the six talks by John Piper on Essential Truths for the Christian Life or his six talks on Quest for Joy. They both seemed like a good topical series and something I could easily finish listening to before I go back to work, but recently I changed my mind.

Last year I encouraged people to read their Bible in 2011 and every year some people try to do it, and for some reason or another we all lose steam... In the past I have tried a few reading plans. I find the ones that have you jumping to different sections every days gets too much and I prefer reading chunks of chapters from the same part. This year my summer break plan isn't so much to listen to a sermon series, but to read The Essential 100. This bible reading plan is meant to go for 100 days and takes you though an overview of the story of the Bible. It's length sounds to me more achievable. It spends 50 days in the Old Testament and 50 in the New. I say "meant to" as each day has a variable amount of chapters/sections to read, making some days quicker and so easier to read ahead (some days readings take about a minute).

YouVersion (the main Bible app for iPhone and Android) has The Essential 100 reading plan in it so it is quite easy to access the plan in the morning, at lunch, late at night with a baby in your arms etc... I started about a week ago and already am about 20% through. I am hoping I won't loose steam before the end of January.... I'm also doing the readings in the Holman Christian Standard Bible as I am used to the NIV and ESV language (there isn't a huge difference, but it feels "fresher").

YouVersion has as whole host of reading plans that are worth checking out. All of their plans start from Day 1 when you start them, meaning if you want to do the Book of Common Prayer reading you start from Day 1 and not from what the real daily reading is. If you want that, I suggest using the ESVBible reading plans that can take you to the current days readings, you can also start from Day 1 if you want (of cause you can only read those plans in the ESV). Both sites allow you to subscribe to RSS making it again easier to access your readings.

Tim Challies has asked people to do the 3650 challenge with him (10 chapters of the Bible a day for a year (pdf)), but my advice is to pick a plan that is realistic for you. I have no doubt Challies could pull off 10 chapters a day, I'm just saying from my track record I couldn't.

Past series I listened to over the break:
All About Jesus over the break
Song of Songs over the break
Philippians over the break

e-Sword vs The Word

2011-12-21T12:46:00.000+11:00

I have been using e-Sword for about six years now. I really like the program because it is free and quite powerful. I liked it so much I even made two modules for it. But a few days ago a mate of mine said if I liked e-Sword I should check out The Word because it was better. I was sceptical of his claim, but after playing with it for a few days, and even though it pains me to say it, I am now going to be using The Word and slowly removing e-Sword modules from my PC (to save some hard drive space).

Before I started to use The Word I said I would convert if it could do paragraphs (e-Sword displays each verse on its own line) and if it allows you to make notes on a range of verse (eg make an entry for Heb 1:1-4) and not just a note for each verse. For me these were the two main features lacking in e-Sword.

The Word can do both!

Interface
Their interfaces are quite similar but The Word allows you to group any book or resource (other than bibles) together. Meaning in one window you can have tabs for commentaries, notes, dictionaries, books next to each other; whereas e-Sword has a separate window for books, commentaries and dictionaries. You can build custom windows with a custom selection of items you want in the tabs for that window.

I still think moving windows around on the screen is easier with e-Sword and well as building your own custom layout. The Word allows you to customise save multiple layouts, but really I just need the one.

Not only does the Bible view allow you to turn on and off paragraphs (and section headers) you can also play with Strong's numbers display by reducing their screen space with a superscript S or you can have the actual Greek or Hebrew word in superscript over the English one.

Modules
Both have access to pretty much all the public domain commentaries and dictionaries, and maybe The Word has more. I found a J.C Ryle's commentaries on the Gospels module for The Word, which was something I was going to do for e-Sword...one day.... There is even a module to convert public domain e-Sword modules to work in The Word, which I haven't used, but sounds like a good idea in case I am missing anything from my current e-Sword library (I've never bought a module).

Custom Notes
In your notes you can link to other verses (you can in e-Sword as well) but in The Word you can also link to other books you have such as a word (Greek, English or Hebrew) in a dictionary, or another commentary entry. Bible references are also automatically linked as you type, which is quite handy. The tool bar in The Word is at the top of the screen and not at the top of you notes window, which took a little to get used to, but another thing that annoyed me in e-Sword was that your notes tool bar has too many options, taking up too much of the screen.

The Word seems to be more open source friendly and allows you to edit existing commentaries which is useful if there is a formatting error or a link doesn't work. This also means it is easier to create a module, and I think I may make some commentaries called Driscoll, Piper, MacArthur and Chandler and copy and past their sermon transcripts from their website into each of these.

I'm not un-installing e-Sword as it has as Gospel harmonizer and a STEP reader that The Word doesn't seem to have. But if you are cheap (which I am) and don't want to pay for a good Bible software program, then you should really try The Word.

Why We're Not Emergent

2011-12-13T15:51:00.001+11:00

Although I now hear less and less about the Emergent or Emerging church, I thought this book was still great. Kevin DeYoung (his blog) and Ted Kluck alternate each chapter bringing their own style to them. Kevin's ones are more heavy on the doctrine and footnotes, and he backs up his theological points with many Bible verses, especially quotes from what Jesus said as to the Emergent person, being like or in a relationship with Jesus is quite important (which I don't disagree). Ted's chapters are more about his experiences reading and writing this book, more of like reading a personal blog. Ted's chapters would really resonate with the postmodern, experiential type people. Both guys write well and are quit funny/harsh at times, picking up some ironies of the Emerging church.

The authors know that tying to define what the Emerging/Emergent church is like nailing down jelly, and so they mostly take aim at specific things certain authors have written. They do point out that some authors and speakers seem to move in the same circles of conferences and they endorse each others books, so there does seem to some overlap of endorsement of some views with some speakers/authors. They thought calling the book: Why We Don’t Agree with Brian McLaren, Leonard Sweet, Rob Bell, and Doug Pagitt, Who May or May Not Agree with Each Other and Who May or May Not Speak for You as an Emergent Christian might not have sold so well. They sate that one of their aims in this book is hopefully that some people will come back at them and state clearer what they do believe. I am unsure if anyone did directly responded to this book, but that would have been helpful for further clarification, to see if these guys did overstate their cases.

They point out that the Emergent church embraces indecisiveness and mystery and hold that the Christian world should be more about a relationship with Jesus and less about doctrinal propositions. But in order to have a relationship with Jesus you still need to know something about Him (which is a proposition) and when death or tragedy strike, you want your minister to be certain on some key issues and not to embrace the unknown.

Emerging churches seem to be pushing against modernity and their confidence in their own reason (which is a good thing), but this book points out that doctrinal rigour is not something that came out of our modern world. Way before the Enlightenment there were councils, creeds and confessions to help support what the church can know about God. Also, within the Emergent books the authors make claims on how the Bible should be really be interpreted (sometimes questioning the status quo) and at that point it should be pointed out that they are making propositional claims, which according to some is one of the devils of modernity.

In one chapter Kluck talks about a funeral service of a small country church he attended while writing this book. He describes how people were born, married and died in the same church, and in their life they didn't travel too far. Everyone knows each other and how they have tacky pot luck meals and prompt people to make decisions for Christ. Some of these things fly in the face of some Emerging thoughts on how to create an authentic community. In actual fact the community that Kluck experiences is more authentic and diverse than some Emergent communities who are mostly aimed at young, white, postmoderns who possible are (or think they should be) angry at the mainstream church.

In the end I got the impression that some (not all) aspects of the Emerging church is really a new liberal/seeker sensitive movement for this generation. It is a reaction to the evangelical/fundamental churches of the old generation, but there is a danger that in running away from the church on the right, in that they may have run too far to the left and created their own sub-culture open to its own criticism. DeYoung ends helpfully with reference to the seven churches in Revelation. The Ephesians church knew it's doctrine but it was unloving and cold, their fault was they did not love what God loved (possibly some Evangelical/Fundamental churches we know today). The Pergamum and Thyatira churches were embracing and tolerant, engaging with culture (possibly some Emergent/Emerging churches we know today). While they loved what God loved, their failed to hate what God hates. The Church needs to heed both warnings.

Overall this was a well thought out book. Those who are already committed to calling themselves emerging or emergent will probably push back the hardest and cry unfair, how they are again a victim to modern thought or that they were misrepresented, but if that happens the book will still have achieved it's goal to help church members and leaders to better define what it is they do believe, and to see if that is actually what the Bible says.

You can read the introduction and the first two chapters on the books website.

Another book by Kevin DeYoung I have reviewed:
Just Do Something

Other slightly emerging books I have reviewed:
More Ready Than You Realize by Brian McLaren
Jesus wants to save Christians by Rob Bell

I have also read, but not reviewed:
Adventures in Missing the Point by Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren (this was alright)
Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives by Mark Driscoll, John Burk, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, Karen Ward (this was quite a good book to see where and how people differ)

2011 Conference Talks

2011-12-05T09:23:00.000+11:00

As NTE comes again to my fair town, I am reminded that I list some conference talks that I have listened to for that year. This year I think I listened to less conferences which may have been due to a number of factors including my studies and becoming a parent. But I also did listen to some parenting audio that wasn't produced this year. Anyway here is some more resources that you might like to listen to over the summer break:

Our Fathers & Our Future: According to the schedule the Resurgence hasn't put up all the audio to this conference, and Driscoll's talks are only in video (ie I didn't listen them them). Also I have no idea what the title has to do with the confence as they didn't talk about Spurgeon, Edwards, Luther etc, but more talked about Mission, the Spirit and the Gospel. Regardless of all that, if you only want to listen to a few talks then please listen to Tullian Tchividjian's two talks, they rocked and was probably the best talks I have heard on grace alone (it even made me question how correct my James post was). Other talks available by R. C. Sproul, Matt Chandler, Chan Kilgore, Eric Mason and Daniel Montgomery.

The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor: (for some reason Pipers talk on Robert Murray M'Cheyne isn't in that list). This is a good set of talks to inspire you to pray more and to see the worth in it. This conference was aimed at ministers, but I still found it very challenging and got me thinking about how I could do a family worship time. They are worth a good listen to. Speakers include: Joel Beeke, Francis Chan, Paul Miller, Jerry Rankin and John Piper.

Text and Culture: I started to subscribe to Scot McKnight's blog and found this conference pop through. It was surprisingly interesting with a good flow of topics. The first speaker, Daniel Watson (an Old Testament professor) talked about how knowing the ancient culture can give a fuller meaning to the Biblical text. The second speaker, Douglas Moo (who helped translate the NIV including the NIV11) talked about how they aim to translate the Biblical text so the average Wall Mart shopper could understand it. Scot McKnight then talked about how the church needs to balance relevance with the culture while keeping true to the Biblical text. He also had an interesting point that our messages should be more about Christology and not soteriology.

KEC: A good heart is hard to find: I attended this conference (and blogged about it). The talks were roughly about commitment, how Christians are committed to following Jesus, how God is committed to His people in the Old Testament and how God is again committed save people from Romans 8. Speakers include: Don Carson, Dale Ralph Davis and Simon Flinders.

Engage 2011: This was another conference I attended (and blogged about it). John Piper gave his defence of Christian Hedonism and Rory Shiner gave some great talks on 1 Corinthians 15. Like, KEC you do have to pay for the talks :(

A fresh look at mission: This conference was aimed at Anglicans in Sydney, but not so much that there was no value for people who aren't Anglicans or in Sydney. One thing that stood most our for me was in Dickson's talk he mentioned that his church now has a Q&A after each sermon (which is something my Church has started to do on occasions) helping people interact with the sermon more, or for people to inquire about the Christian faith. Speakers include: Michael Jensen, Alan Lukabyo, Greg Clarke, Andrew Nixon, Andrew Katay and John Dickson.

The Gospel Coalition 2011 National Conference: It feels like a very long time ago I listened to this conference and I can only remember bits of it (that's not to say that it was a bad conference). The theme was on preachings the Old Testament and the mix of different speakers was great as they each had their own style of preaching. Speakers include: Al Mohler, Tim Keller, Alistair Begg, James MacDonald, Conrad Mbewe, Matt Chandler, Mike Bullmore and Don Carson.

2011 National In The Chute conference: I haven't listened to any of these talks yet, as the conference only recently ended, but it does look interesting and also a good mate of mine also spoke at it. Speakers include Al Stewart, Dave McDonald, Andrew Heard, Mikey Lynch, David Jones and Steve Kryger.

This year I didn't listen to the standard Next Conference or Resolved, not because I don't like them, but because I just didn't have the time.

Previous conference talks posts:
2010 Conference Talks

2009 Conference Talks

2008 Conference Talks

2007 Conference Talks

Defining Convictions and Decisive Commitments

2011-11-29T19:27:00.000+11:00

This is a book all about the Thirty Nine Articles. My wife thinks this is probably the most boring book in the whole world. She points out that even the cover and page design is boring. Maybe she has a point, who would want to read a book about the Thirty Night Articles? And I think that is the one of the points of this book. It seems to answer (among other issues) how relevant or important are the Thirty Nine Articles today, and in particular in Australia?

This book was written by Michael Jensen (blog) who is a doctrine teacher at Moore College (Sydney) and Tom Frame who is the director of St Marks (Canberra). Both these institutions are training schools for Anglican priests so you would think these guys might know something about the Articles and their relevance today. Maybe you might think they are overly biased about them, considering they are from within the institution, but if this book (or common knowledge) has taught me anything, it is that Anglicans have quite a diverse opinion on pretty much every issue, including (or especially) the Thirty Nine Articles.

The book gives a good overview of the history of the 39 Articles and how they came to be. Some Articles were drafted with specific issues of their day in mind and before their official acceptance Cranmer put forward 43 articles, but they were cut back. The second chapter, the bulk of the book, went through each article explaining what it means and any issues they were responding to. For some of the Articles I would have liked them to say more than five or six paragraphs, but that would have blown out the book even more.

The rest of the book went through how people within the Church of England took to the Articles. It seemed that just like students who are given rules by a teacher, the Anglican clergy (never the laity who didn't have to submit to the Articles) almost immediately questioned them and looked for loop holes. The rise in thinking arguing for individual liberty from Mills and Locke had the clergy arguing against organisational enforcement.

The book looked at three of the main streams within the Anglican church: Anglo-catholic, liberal and evangelical and how they each responded to the articles back then and what they think of them today. It seems that each group try to make the Articles say what they want them to do, or they push them aside as a document rooted in history with no relevance today. It is hard to decided what the original framers had in mind, as there is no preamble to them in stating how they are to be interpreted.

I was surprised to learn that in the 1968 Lambeth Conference they moved to remove subscription to the Articles for ordinals, which came into effect in 1975. Each country could do with them as they please. In Australia, ordinal do not have to publicly state their subscription to the Articles, but they do sign a bit of paper stating that they do, as long as they agree with the word of God (which gives a bit of wiggle room).

The book also touched on then on what made the church Anglican, if the Article (which was never a full statement of belief, or creed) could be dropped. What I struggled with, if the the Prayer Book was the thing that made the church Anglican, then I don't know what to call most evangelical Anglican churches I have attended, as their services no longer use the Prayer Book.

At the end of the book they suggest revising the articles by removing six (due to irrelevance today), combing 11 into to other articles, adjusting the text in 8 (heavily reducing 4) and leaving 10 as they stand (with minor English changes). They brought the current articles down to 22 leaving them room for 17 more articles to deal with contemporary issue. The authors suggest quite a good range of ides for new articles, such as including some on creation, the Holy Spirit, perhaps one on marriage, faith and reason, obedience to local state laws etc...

What I would have liked to have seen was an actual draft of the new articles with the revisions of the old ones looked like, rather than mealy suggesting topics or ideas about new ones. Although, I think the intention was to get people thinking about what are the issues of the Church today and what is lacking in the Articles. In the historical overview of the Articles I would have also liked to of know how the Westminster Confession of Faith came about in relation to doctrinal issues England faced, (as after all it was drafted in Westminster by Anglicans) and if the Articles helped or hindered their rejection of it as a Confession for the English church. If the Anglican church back then, 100 years after the time of great reform could not agree on adopting the Westminster Confession of Faith, I do wonder if any group of Anglicans today would agree on removing or adding any articles.

Even if this does seem like a dry, historical topic, I at least found the book quite interesting and even would have liked it to be longer. But I think I might be in the minority...

Another book by Tom Frame that I have read
Losing My Religion

For and Against Infant Baptism

2011-11-21T10:24:00.000+11:00

I have been thinking about infant baptism for a while now and now I am more torn than I thought I would be. I grew up in a Baptist context where only full immersion adult Baptisms were done. For most of my life I have strongly held that view. But now I have been attending an Anglican church which has a different view on the matter (along with the other mainstream denominations). Although I still held my ground of not doing it to my new daughter, the opposing arguments have more weight than I originally thought. The best (free online) resource I found that looked at both sides was a debate between John MacArthur (Baptist) and R.C Sproul (Presbyterian). I respect both MacArthur and Sproul and so found what both of them were saying compelling.

Below, mostly for my own thinking, is a point-counterpoint summary of both arguments, placed under the 5 points that MacArthur framed the debate, Sproul didn't structure his response in that way, so his bits are a little artificial If you have more time, skip this post and read (or listen to) MacArthur's talk and then Sproul's response that I am trying to summarise.

1. Infant baptism is not in Scripture
Both: Nowhere in scripture is infant baptism endorsed or forbidden, both sides have to use inference.
MacArthur: Since it is not in scripture there is no reason to condone it. What other rituals can you do this reasoning with?

MacArthur: Matthew 18:1-5 is about how we treat other believers using children as an illustration. It's not about baptism. Matthew 19:14 (and in Mark 10 and Luke 18) is saying God has a special care towards children, but it's not about infant salvation. Jesus doesn't baptise them or commands it here. Acts and 1 Corinthians mention lots of households been baptised. In these references it is "all who heard" the message who are baptised. They follow the pattern of all hear the gospel, all believe, all receive the Holy Spirit, all were baptized. No infants can do such, nor are any mentioned. Again in John 4:53 "households" means the believing people and not babies as they couldn't have believed. Acts 2:38-39 mentions “your children” which is reference to the future generations of Jews and Gentile will receive the Holy Spirit the same way. Not the immediate infants in the crowd. 1 Cor 7:13-14 means don’t divorce your unbelieving partner because both that partner and children in the home will feel the goodness of the grace of God upon you. If it is a defence for infant baptism, then why can't it also be used as a mandate for the baptism of that unbelieving partner as an adult cause you can’t have one and not the other.

Sproul: Every single reference to adult baptism in the book of Acts is 100% irrelevant to the issue as they involve the first generation of believers. If the opponent of infant baptism could point to one case of an adult baptism in the New Testament where the person who is being baptized as an adult was the child of Christian parents when that person was an infant, then he would change his mind on the issue, but there isn't. The very language of 1 Cor 7:13-14 ("set apart", "unclean" and "holy") is covenant language, meaning the the children of a believing parent is also under the same covenant- they too are to be set apart (holy).

Me: I think trying to build a doctrine off 1 Cor 7:13-14 is quite hard as the meaning of the text is a little unclear.

2. Infant baptism is not New Testament baptism

MacArthur argued that the method of baptism for infants, the sprinkling of water is not how the Bible describes baptism.

Sproul commented quickly near the end that he disagrees with the "Baptists who insist that the Greek word baptizo can only mean immersed because in the Septuagint, the translated text of Leviticus 14 where two birds are used in a sacrificial way and these two birds are killed, the one has its blood drained out of it and the other one has to be baptizo in the blood of the first one. There just ain’t enough blood in the first one to immerse the second one... But that is a secondary issue and not a primary issue" Which I agree with - the method of baptism can be a whole other debate.

3. Infant baptism is not a replacement sign for the Abrahamic sign of circumcision

MacArthur: Nowhere does the New Testament ever say infant baptism replaces circumcision. Nonetheless some claim inferential evidence without any specific statement of Scripture. Circumcision was a sign of ethnic identity and not an act of faith. It also only applied to boys. A better New Testament parallel would be to look at the baptism of John as it prefigures Christ and has the meaning of repentance, which is the meaning baptism also later takes on.

Sproul: No one in history has argued that there is an identity between circumcision and baptism, but there is one of relationship. The issue is if there is any continuity between circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in the New Testament. The are both signs of a different covenant but both covenants are one that God had promised to redeem His people. It is too simplistic to say circumcision is only for ethical or national identity, Paul in Romans refuted that idea. Abraham received the sign of the covenant after he believed the promises of God and then says his children are to also receive it. That at least sets up a Biblical precedent of God commanding a sign to be given to to a person who doesn't possess what that sign signifies. The new covenant is better than the old one as it is more inclusive. Its not just for boy, but also girls, Jews and Gentiles. The old sign did included infants to take part, so when this new more inclusive sign came along why was it not pick up where the old practice left off - including infants in the covenant sign.

Me: I was really surprised that Col 2:11-12 didn't get much of a look in as I think that is the only New Testament passage that mentions both circumcision and baptism so closely together.

4. Infant baptism is not consistent with the nature of the church

MacArthur think baptising infants confuses the clear identity of a redeemed church as there are many in the world who were baptised as a child but are not part of the visible church and the issue is, are then in the Church or not?

Sproul says there is not one word in the New Testament or the writings of the church fathers in the first 400 years that that over throws the practice of including infants in the sign of baptism. In fact the first reference outside the Bible mentions that it was universally practised in the church. (John Piper (Baptist) thinks the first reference by Tertullian possibly means the practice was in dispute around 200 AD). Sproul also refers to how Paul says that circumcision doesn't save anyone, only those who are inwardly circumcised are. You can have the sign without faith, but you can't have what the sign signifies without faith. Baptisms (or circumcision) doesn't justify anyone.

5. Infant baptism is not consistent with Reformational soteriology

MacArthur hold that there is no faith in the child so there is no comprehension of the gospel so there is no repentance in the child. Baptising infants confuses the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. It would be better and nothing would be lost if you deferred the sign until someone shows saving faith

Sproul's point above about the non saving effect of the outward sign of circumcision and baptism is relevant here. He also says that it is the parents responsibility to say to the child “You received a sign of the promise of God, you received the sign of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And let me tell you what that sign means: If you trust in this promise of Christ, you will be saved.”

Some Thoughts
I started to see that both sides have a slightly different take on the meaning of Baptism. Is it a sign of personal repentance or a (non-saving) sign that you are under a covenant of God. The Baptists take a straightforward reading of the Bible, saying that the model is you believe and then you get baptised as the sign is for all who repent. The other mainlines take a more holistic view of the signs of the covenants and lean on the promises of what they mean. Straightforward reading of the Bible is good, but you do get into trouble when dealing with texts like Revelations (and other passages with tricky contexts and generas) . Holistic readings are also good, but you do get into trouble when you might be drawing connections that are not there.

Another thing that I read by a Baptist actually made me think his last (9th) point shot himself in the foot. He was arguing against child baptism and suggests it is a western/cultural/individualistic trend, where as if you push that a little bit further, isn't the Baptists adult baptism an individualistic sign that forgets the large covenant promises of God to his people?

So I still haven't gotten my daughter baptised, but my thinking has moved slightly.

There are a host of other resources out that on the net and just a few days ago a link to this chapter on adult baptism and its connections to the covenants by Stephen Wellum came through my RSS feed. That looked interesting.

I am the 1%

2011-11-14T09:13:00.000+11:00

All these #occupy movements got me thinking a little bit. The groups are claiming to be made up of the 99% of the least richest people and they are protesting against the top 1%. Exactly what for is sometimes a little hazy, but the fact that the worlds richest 1% own and control so much of the worlds wealth and resources is a cause for protest. It simply does seem unfair. (I remember a friend of mine told me in jest that I couldn't be a communist any more after I took out a home lone because I was now owning private property. And technically the land in Canberra is only leased for 99 years so maybe I still can wear red while renting on commonwealth land).

I found this site, Global Rich List, and according to them if you earn over $US48,000 a year, you are in the richest 1% in the world. The data they are using is quite old now, so maybe this stat is unfounded. The site has the world's population out by a billion and their numbers for the world's medium income is from 1999. But I have a feeling (and so do 84% in Australia in 2008), that despite the great global financial crisis the division between rich and poor hasn't been reduced. This means I am am part of the 1%.

Again from the Global Rich List site, if you earn over $US10,000 a year you are in the top 13% of the wealthiest in the world. Don't get me wrong, I do think developed nations contain very poor people who struggle with the amount of money they get when compared to their local cost of living, but I wonder how many of the #occupy protesters are actually better off than they think they are, especially those in Australia. If you can tweet against the worlds richest people from your iPhone that is on a two year, $39 a month plan, then you are doing alright.

A few years ago I thought it was quite appalling that 6% of the 2008 US bank bail out could have helped give clean water to everyone in the world (not including on going cost, and yes I know just throwing money at the problem wouldn't solve it - but I think it would go a long way). That alone shows that the Western world cares more about banks then poorer countries. But it is easy for me to rage and protest against "the Western world" and the evil banks and forget about my own context and the territory that I live in.

Australia is quite well off, but Canberra (most likely because of its smaller population) does better compared to the national average. We have a lower unemployment rate and a higher average weekly income (fast facts, ABS).

Knowing that I am part of the 1% still makes me think the wealth distribution throughout the World is unfair, but if anyone is able to afford helping the poor, it should be the wealthy. The general wealthy may or may not have the same convictions that I do, but I think at least the wealthy Christians do and should.

So I put this out there: if you are a Christian and earn over $48,000 a year, really ask yourself: "What am I doing to help reduce the rich-poor divide?"

Related post:
Christian: give away your money

Starting Your Best Life Now

2011-11-10T15:24:00.000+11:00

I try not to be overly critical (hehe, this is a blog what am I talking about?), but Starting Your Best Life Now is a bad book. I haven't read The Secret, but my guess is, this book is just like The Secret with some Bible verses thrown in for free.

Joel Osteen is the pastor of American's biggest church. I think they meet in a football stadium every Sunday. I was hoping that since American is such a Christian nation (who am I kidding) that their biggest church would produce some good teaching. But sadly it seems that is not the case. (I really am not that surprised, he doesn't see the differences between Mormons and Christians) I don't mind that Osteen wasn't trained at a bible college, but I do mind that uni students in my own bible study could have written a more theologically accurate book.

Osteen sees that in order for you to live your best life now is that you have to visualise your success. If you dream it, it will come. If this was a secular book I wouldn't be so hard on it but but for a Christian book it seems to be forgetting sin and heaven. Sin surly gets in the way for us to live our best life now and if we could live our best life now, where does heaven fit into his scheme of things. Rob Bell got into trouble with possibly saying hell is empty, but Osteen book doesn't even mention heaven and impels that here on earth you can live your best, possibly removing heaven itself. I think that is kinda problem.

The book kick off with Osteen using an example of a beauty queen who won a pageant and how when she walked on stage she wasn't nervous as she had visualised her win many times over, so it felt natural for her to win. That is nice for the winner, but I am sure the other contestants also planned on winning and visualised a few times what it would have been like to win. Also if God's plan for you life is to win a beauty pageant, then I think your God is too small.

Osteen uses a few proof texts to make his point, but like someone trying to force the text uses fragments of verses in different translations (including The Message and The Amplified) to make his case. One of his first verses he uses is Ephesians 2:7 quoting: "He [God] wants to pour out "His far and beyond favor" on you" skipping the start which is about how this is going to happen "in the coming ages" for those who are "in Christ Jesus". Ignore heaven and Jesus. In fact Jesus only gets a look in when he is healing someone. No where does Osteen explain how people can live in light of God's promises, how they are in God's favor or why Jesus even came to earth in the first place. Instead God seems to be constantly for us and wants the best for everyone.

In fact "when God led the Hebrew people our of slavery in Egypt, the eleven-day journey to the Promised Land took forty years. God wanted them to move forward, but they wondered in the desert, going around the same mountain, time after time. They were trapped in a poor, defeated mentality, focusing on their problems...." According to Osteen the problem with Israel wondering in the desert for 40 years was because they were "fretting about the obstacles between them and their destiny." But this is not the reason we are given in Numbers 14:20ff - it was God who cursed them to wander for 40 years in the desert. In fact once they heard their curse Israel then tried on their own accord (visualising their destiny) to enter the Promised Land by force and got beat down (Numbers 14:39ff).

Osteen's main point is that in order to be successful you are to be completely focused on your success. That's ok for a secular book, for for a Christian book, I thought Christians should be completely focused on Jesus.You know, the whole living like CHRISTians has something to do with Christ..

If you do get close to the end I actually agree with Osteen's call to help other people. So that was a positive in the book. We should help people. I do think Jesus or Paul would go further than Osteen by saying we in fact should be helping people at our own expense, without seeking a reward, considering others better than ourselves. I am not sure how submitting to other people works with constantly trying to visualise your own personal success, carer and wealth.

It seems that Osteen almost forgets that the founder of Christianity was poor and died a painful death, and eleven of his twelve buddies all were imprisoned and killed for their beliefs, whiled the last one who died of old age was exiled to a small island, possibly before he was thrown in boiling oil. I'm not sure how you would gauge their success.

The book is very easy to read with lots of small chapters. I think I read it in one or two sittings off my phone screen late at night (which may explain my against). It is very much aimed at comfortable middle class people who don't really want to change their lives, unless it is to make them even more comfortable. I have no idea how this book would go over with the people working in sweat shops in Asia, or the people suffering in the Horn of Africa, or even to the Christians who lived in the first three centuries after Jesus.

Evolution is the Greatest Show on Earth

2011-11-04T16:09:00.002+11:00

Full disclosure: I didn't do biology past year 9 or 10, so please take my thinking within that context

The Greatest Show on Earth, by Professor Richard Dawkins is his defence of evolution. Unlike some other book he wrote where people said he was writing out of his field, this book is exactly his field. It is what he has been studying for much longer than I have been alive. I read this book as there seems to be some tension between some Christians and evolution and I think it is worth some time looking into the arguments. Before I went in reading this book I told a friend that I would be convinced of evolution if the following two issues I had could be explained:

I would like some example of how DNA grows. If we all started off as a very "simple" life form with less genes than we do now, how do we get more genes? I get how when mixing DNA certain genes get turn on and off (say eye colour), but in order for them to be turned on and off there needs to be the room for that switch in the first place.
Why did life have to come from one origin? I know it must be a complex thing for life to start, but were the conditions on our whole earth only suitable for to that one square millimetre where it arose? Why couldn't life have started the same way mould does on a piece of bread: in all sorts of different places?

I was already in agreement with adaptation and an old earth so I had no issues with the first half of this book. Dawkins pointed out how we selectively breed traits in flowers or dogs so that its offspring suit more of what we want. We put them in their own breading "island" so that they can not breed with others and introduce foreign genes into their pool. In the same way that we selectively breed traits in plants and animals, it also happens in nature, especially when an environmental change occurs. Some lizards from one island may end up on another and due to what food is available on this new island they might eat more plants and their stomachs may become more adapt at digesting this new food.

There was a really good E.Coli experiment, that I had only briefly heard about before, which Dawkins went into great detail. As I was reading about this and how he was going to reveal a great break through, I thought that this might solve my point 1 already and I would be pretty much on the evolutionist side. But the change that took place demonstrated how E.Coli adapted to cope with a limited diet and not that it grew another gene. All 59 of them had changed in the same direction, but there was no 60th one that grew. So I pressed on, as it was still early days in the book.

Dawkins went into a lot of explanation on how we date thing, which I only knew a part of. I was very impressed with how far back in time we can go with just tree rings and the whole field of dendrochronology. With the dating methods I was pretty much already on the same page, but now I think I understood the process even more.

There a chapter that went into great detail on how a normal embryo builds a new life form from local instructions and not from a top down approach. The method was quite amazing and complex with special enzymes and proteins that all have to work together in the right way, which are instructed by DNA on what to do next. But what I really wanted was an example on what goes on in evolution, when there is a mutation. What difference (if any) happens for one trait to be pushed in a certain direction or for more traits to grow. I still didn't get the evolving bit in the developmental stage of life.

When it came to arguing for new species, similarities in animals pointed to a common ancestor while also geographic or environmental change lead to the differences in animals. I found this first point more persuasive than the second. The common (mammalian) skeleton shared by people, monkeys, bats, dogs, horses (except for their feet) etc is the same skeleton, but different bones are different length. This is also the same for crustaceans like the lobster, prawn, crab etc. There are also some tubes in animals that seem ineffective or they take quite a long route to get to their point, such as the vas deferens in males and the laryngeal nerve (especially highlighted in the giraffe).

With environmental or geographical changes the idea that species got separated and turned into another species do not convinced me, mostly due to lack of micro detail. Species are those that can only mate between themselves and so I am willing to concede that both tigers and lions had the same ancestor for the reason they can mate between themselves (see ligers or tiglons), this is also true for zebras with horses and donkeys (see zebroids), and wolves, dogs and dingos. These animals were separated by great distances but they still can breed with each other. They may not want to in the wild as they are not attracted to them, but I wonder if this is the same with the iguana example in the book where the land ones don't mate with the water ones. It could be they are just racists towards their different iguana cousins.

There is much more in this book, and this is getting a bit too long, but I do have to say that it did make me pause to think about evolution and maybe brought me a few steps closer to holding it to be out right true. Maybe I am just too caught up with what I learnt in school with a basic (faulty?) understanding of genes and what Mendel got up to, that I am missing something in my understanding of biology (which is probably a understatement).

I do think it is possible for Christians to hold both Christianity and evolution to be true, but not in the sense that Dawkins was arguing for it. What also struck me about his book is that his world view comes with a bite and I found it a little unsettling. We are not designed by a creator, we are just like the animals. There is no ultimate reason or purpose for our existence and so I guess we can only subjectively make up our own reason and purpose (and that could well be to tell others there is no ultimate reason or purpose in life). Dawkins says even if we don't like the fact that it is true, we can not just reject this idea simply because we don't like it, which is right. But I think I am like Rich Suplita a university professor who became a Christian recently because he could not say that ultimately his daughters life had no ultimate meaning or purpose.

I should also say that I read this as an ebook off my phone screen, which in that format made looking at the footnotes hard. It also meant all the references to images on certain pages didn't fit and the images were a little small. Reading this off my phone convinced me that there is still some life left in the published book, but it is also easier to read a book off a back lit screen and to tap than to turn pages when you have a week old child in your arms at 1 in the morning.

Dawkins can make his main points very clear and writes at a popular level. I think the book could be about 25% shorter if he didn't go into so many digression. Maybe the extra stuff was for interest sake, or maybe to convince someone that he did know what he was taking about, but I think his audience wasn't aimed at the sceptic. He does say he wrote the book for the 40% of Americans that thought the world was young and didn't believe in evolution, but to people in that group they would only be offended by him. He calls them history deniers and questions their intelligence a fair bit. I know a few people who Dawkins is writing against, but I wouldn't recommend this book to them, as I don't think his tone would help, despite his years of experience in the field.

Reforming Good Works

2011-10-19T12:45:00.000+11:00

Martin Luther famously said that the Epistle of James was a strawy epistle. In his German translation of the Bible he put James after Revelation and didn't include it in the contents page. Today you wouldn't even catch some liberals moving the order of books in the Holy Scriptures. (To be fair I think he did relent on his issue of James later in life). After studying James for a few weeks, I think conservative Christianity, despite their defence of the Bible, may functionally not include James in their own personal table of contents.

Before reading James my vocabulary about the behaviour of Christians was something like "a Christian should do good", "a Christian should feel compelled to act". But after reading James I think my "should", has been turned into a "will" and a "must". A Christian will endure trials and temptations, and a Christian must endure trials and temptations. A Christian will not show favouritism, and a Christian must not show favouritism. A Christian will do good works, and a Christian must do good works. A Christian will not hoard up their wealth and a Christian must not hoard up their wealth. Doing good works is not an optional extra in the Christian life. It is a must.

But doesn't this make the Christian life about action and not faith? And won't this lead to judging others on their actions and not on their faith? To which I think James would respond, "So what?". James is not in isolation when he tells Jesus followers to do good works. In fact there are more references in the New Testament about doing good works than spiritual gifts. Jesus and James both warn people who think they are part of the Church that their actions (or lack of them) prove whether they are really saved or not. A nice Biblical framework I have heard in answer to the question ‘Who are Christians to do good towards?’ is: certainly to their family; especially to believers, always to the poor and needy and (if you didn't like those being too narrow) at all times to everyone. If you don't, James would say your faith is dead. Remember, Antinomianism is still a heresy.

Recently John Dickson lamented on twitter that his book, Vital Signs, which is about James' letter, was been remaindered. There are many reasons why books get remaindered but it generally has to do with lack of sales. Maybe people didn't know who Dickson is, so his book didn't sell, maybe it wasn't that good in the first place, or maybe the audience that Dickson writes for, and the circles I move in, don't pay that much attention to the letter of James. I wonder if today we functionally treat the epistle of James as one as strong as straw.

According to my church's sermon library, there have been no talks on James since December 2010 (which isn't really that long of a time period), but there has been two talks on 2 Tim 3:10-17 (which again isn't really that long of a time period). Pointing that out is most likely unfair on my church, but what is really challenging for me is, that I need to remember that I make up my church. It is made up of people like me, who must do good works.

And life goes on

2011-10-13T16:48:00.000+11:00

October seems to be a down time in blogging for me. Maybe because that is when all my final essays are due. But I have now finished writing 2,200 words on Judges 19 and 3,500 on Sūkyō Mahikari (that assignment is actually due tomorrow, but I handed it in on Tuesday because I am one of those mature age students). I am now free to write on other things (and hopefully not as long as these essays). Technically I still have some forum postings to do, but I don't think they will be so time consuming.

I have some books that I plan on finishing soon, some books I would like to start reading and I might have one more post on κεφαλὴ up my sleeve. But fatherhood is also coming up in a few weeks, so who know if I will meet my own goal of writing one thing a week. In the last two months that hasn't happened.

So we will see what the future holds.

I still post a series of links I find interesting on the web, so I am still contributing to the white noise of the Internet in some way.

Engage 2011

2011-09-12T16:14:00.001+10:00

As I am a person of tradition, this year, like past years, I went along to Engage 11. This year the speakers were John Piper and Rory Shiner which drew quite a crowed, and I think both weekends sold out. The theme was passion and eternity, which translates to seeking God's glory and been satisfied in that and a reminder about the future resurrection from 1 Corinthians 15. Over all the conference was just great.

John Piper was up first and his three talks were on how we should be seeking our most pleasure, which is really the same as seeking God's glory. Piper set out to argue this in each of his talks by saying that God is radically God centred and God exulting; God is most glorified when we are satisfied in him and that a life of love and risk for others is rooted in your own satisfaction. These three talks may seem counter intuitive at first but Piper argues that all people have some understanding of these concepts. I think Piper knew that he was the big name speaker and that he has a bit of a following, but he made every effort to show that this is not some great theory that he has come up with, but it is what the Bible says. He continually pointed us to texts to show that he was not making this up. His style was asking lots of questions and then trying to answer them from the Bible.

Piper challenged us to think why we follow God, is it really because we think God is actually for us that we like him? What happens if God is for Himself, do we continue to follow him, if we aren't God's end goal? Sometimes we actually don't mind been made small. People to go to the Grand Canyon or rock climb up a cliff and when they get to the top they look out and feel insignificant and yet still think they had the time of their lives. Where did that come from?

If we are to continually seek God, how do we enjoy that? Wouldn't it feel like a duty and joy would be sucked from us as we are not seeking our own pleasure? Piper used many texts to show that we constantly seek joy and pleasure and that the very nature of faith, evil, conversion, Christian ministry and even self denial shows us that we flee from things that do not cause joy and go to things that reward us. If I was to say that nothing made me happier than to spend time with my wife as I am happy around her, why wouldn't I be labelled selfish? It sounds like I am only seeking my own pleasure as my wife make me happy, but something in us, especially in my wife, wouldn't think that. She would feel honoured and delighted.

So if we are to be self absorbed with ourselves and God, wouldn't that mean we pretty much ignore everyone else and be self serving to maximise my own pleasure? The Bible flat out shows that this is not the case. Many times people show generosity to others to show that God is worth more to them than money, or possessions, or their own time than, and that these acts were done joyfully and cheerfully. This doesn't mean everyone is all smiles and happy, in fact horrible things happened to the first Christians but they (especially those mentioned in Hebrews) risked everything to helping others and joyfully accepted being taken advantage of, because they had God, and that was enough.

Piper had some radical life altering concepts. He definitely took a very wide view of things and also showed that he took he Bible deadly serious - which sometimes the audience didn't get, they laughed when he said he had written a paper on how to drink orange drink to the glory of God but the Bible says we can drink in a way to give glory to God, so he wants to know how to do that and instruct others how. This may sound like he is a grumpy strict legalist, but he is the exact opposite. His life mantra is all about seeking joy and he coined the phrase Christian Hedonism.

Rory Shiner gave three talks on 1 Corinthians 15, and he was great. He used good analogies to make his points clear (he is the speaker at this years NTE, which would be worth checking out). Rory considered the doctrine of the resurrection like a box we may have in the shed - we know its there, but we don't really examine what is in it. Rory showed how Paul sets our reminding the church about things they have been taught about Jesus's resurrection (which historians love as it named eye witnesses and mentions five hundred people that could be asked at the time of writing if the events really did happen) and Paul goes on to show what the resurrection actually achieved, namely Jesus is the best and the first (fruit). If you were to observe an apple orchard for a few months up until just before Spring you may conclude that everything is dying, there is nothing good there. But when the first apple appears it shows that new life is on its way, and you can assume that more apples are going to follow. If you look at this world, it seems that death is in control, it gets everything. The world may seek after wealth, pleasure and experiences knowing that death is just off stage ready to take it all away, but Christians rebel against death. The secret of the world is that the first fruit has come and the world may look like death, but the harvest is going to burst forth.

Rory pointed out that our world has a love hate relationship with our bodies. Do we worship our bodies so much that we want to improve them, or do we improve them because we are unhappy with it? The latter part of 1 Corinthians 15 argues that we are going to have a real, physical body, like the same one we have, but also different. The relationships is like a seed to a plant. Everything the plant becomes is from the seed, but just looking at a seed and the result of a plant shows that they are different. Our image will be perfected and we will be buried (like a seed) only to rise again. It sucks to be Death, as he has been conquered and is only been used to plant new life.

Rory's last talk was just on the last verse in 1 Corinthians 15. What are we to do in light of the resurrection? We are faced with a choice: do we live now and die later, or do we die now to live later? We do not have to live like death is going to win over us. We do not need to step on people to get our way, this life is not our only shot. Our work is to be to the lord. That which is good (including our work) will find its way into the new creation. It is possible to live in a way for people to see our life and to ask about our hope. Our current life is not a vapour, we can use it to invest in the future creation.

There was some optional industry workshops offered on the Saturday, which I didn't attend, but heard good things about it (at the very least it helped people to meet others in the same line of work). The conference is aimed at trendy inner city dwellers, we all got a can of V at night and a trendy glass bottle of water (and a paper) in the morning. There were coffee stalls and late morning starts. The option to buy tickets for next was offered, even though the speakers were not announced (although the judgement of the organisers will probably be good). Since we are expecting a child in a few weeks, we didn't pre-purchase tickets as I am unsure if we will venture back to Engage with a little bub.

My past reviews of other Engage conferences:
Engage 10 - Steve Timms and Tim Blencowe
Engage 09 - Matt Chandler and William Taylor
Engage 08 - Mark Driscoll and Don Carson

Vintage Jesus

2011-08-22T16:46:00.001+10:00

This book is based off a sermon series that Driscoll gave in 2006 which I had heard before. The series was a good one, and if Driscoll didn't give the Christ on the Cross series a year earlier, I would have said Vintage Jesus was the best series on Jesus you should listen to. This book was less doctrinal than the Christ on the Cross sermon series and was more of a defence of Jesus. It looks at how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, argues for the Virgin Birth and Jesus' bodily resurrection, looks at the impact Christianity has had in light of Jesus and deals with some other questions someone might ask.

Driscoll's writing style in this book would politely be described as been in the common parlance. He explains things in quite a down to earth, quite gritty style with lots of references to pop culture. Because of these immediate references to 2006 some of the chapter introductions felt already a little dated. To be fair the book did come out in 2008, but like most books I read, I never get round to them until they are a few years old. This site (about half way down) has an extended quote of Driscoll's summary of the Gospel of Mark, I think the author has posted it to paint Driscoll in a bad light, but I rather liked the way he summarises.

I would have liked one more chapter about Jesus' life on earth. There was one chapter about why Jesus came to earth, but then it skipped to the Cross. I would have liked a chapter focusing on Jesus' teaching and how Jesus is our example today.

I think if I lent this book out to anyone in my bible study, they wouldn't learn anything really new. That is not a bad thing, as I think Driscoll gives a very good solid grounding and introduction to what Christians believe about Jesus, and I think that is the whole purpose of the book. It was a good reminder for me about the basis of Christology presented in a very easy to read format. This would be a good book to hand to a new Christian dude.

You can watch/listen to the sermon series this book is based off for free, and check out the book's website for more information.

My other reviews of books by Driscoll:
Death by Love
A Book You'll Actually Read on the New Testament
A Book You'll Actually Read on the Old Testament
A Book You'll Actually Read on God
Confessions of a Reformission Rev

I am not an Anglican minister

2011-08-08T12:40:00.001+10:00

I really wanted this to be more of a comment on a post and not a whole new rant but for some reason blogger isn't allowing me to comment (!) I'm not sure what is up with that. I tried to post the following in the comments on my post on the #MarkNoReligion campaign:

I noticed that this article states that I am an Anglican ministers, but just to clear things up: I am not.

I regularly attend an Anglican church and I am quite involved in it (lead a weekly bible study at my house, service lead ever now and again, attend church meetings etc) but sadly I am not paid by or ordained by the Anglican (or any other) church.

I am currently studying theology at C.S.U which is run out of St Mark's who are the training organisation for the Anglican church in Canberra, but at this point in time ordination is not on the table at the moment.

I do hope that the tag line at the top of this blog: (I have very little qualifications to speak on anything, yet since this is the Internet I'll do it anyway) and the message on the footer (I am just a random guy on the Internet, try not to get yourself too worked up over this blog) would give some weight as to how much my comments reflect the Anglican church or any other organisation.

Parenting Audio

2011-08-03T10:58:00.002+10:00

If everything goes to plan, I shall be a father come late October. Like marriage there is no training course that you have to do to be eligible for these life milestones (not that I am arguing that there should be). But like marriage, there are lots of Christian resources out there for those who are keen on the whole information overload thing. Like I did before I got married, here is a list of some parenting audio that I have listened to, plan on listening to or more likely due to time looked interesting but I probably will not listen to (I link to those mainly for my own sake so I can come back in the future if I have time). Hopefully they maybe of some use to others:

Proverbs by Mark Driscoll (part 16-19) - In 2001-2002 Driscoll went through the book of Proverbs and in that he did a min-series on parenting. I found these talks more thematic than really a talk on some verses out of Proverbs, but I found them setting a good framework. The one on eduction maybe a bit too American but I think these talks are still worth listening to.

Biblical Parenting by Tedd Tripp - In 2008 the Resurgence hosted this conference and put up their five talks by Tedd Tripp on Biblical Parenting. I have started this series and Tedd seems to know what he is talking about. He deals with discipline and the issue of spanking as well as a host of other ideas.

Shepherding Your Child's Heart Seminar by Tedd Tripp - Again another series by Tedd Tripp. He has written a book on this topic so I am assuming his content is repeating ideas from his book, and at least this audio is free. Each of the three talks are aimed at parenting a child in a different age range. I haven't listened to these, but they do look good.

Raising Children Who Hope in the Triumph of God by John Piper - It's hard to call this a series but rather they are a collection of talks Piper gave to his church on the topic of children. There are only four talks that span about 12 years and look at different bible passages. Being Piper these talks have pretty much one main point which is helpful to remember back on, and also you can always read the notes which maybe quicker.

Parents and Children by Tim Keller - I found this one talk by Keller on children that you don't have to pay for, but you still have to sign up to their site. This talk is pretty much worth the hassle of signing up. It is aimed at mostly 20 something single post-moderners and it make you think about your own relationship with your parents while also pointing out our current cultural bias towards parents and children. After thinking I was clever in finding this free audio, I then found a free four part series by Keller called It Takes a City to Raise a Child, which I think i might listen to.

How Not To Raise a Pagain by Al Mohler - This was a talk addressed to seminary students but anyone could really listen and apply it to themselves.

The Father and Moral Decisions by John Stott - I thought this would be a cracker on parenting as it was by Stott and under the parenting category on the Gospel Coalition site, but it was more about God relating to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane rather than how to raise your own child.

The Resurgence have a children category: Some resources look quite good in here but we are now over doing in on the information overload front, but wait just one more link

The Gospel Coalition also have a children category: In case the above link wasn't enough there are more resources here.

Related links
If you are interested, here are my links to some marriage audio.

The #MarkNoReligion campaign

2011-07-30T12:03:00.002+10:00

It seems that I agree with the atheists on this one: If you don't attend church regularly then maybe you should really consider what your religion is. For some reason there are lots of people who break the commandments of the Bible while trying to associate with it.

According to Anglican Diocese, the church I attend covers 8 suburbs in Canberra. According to the 2006 census data, the following people have indicated that they are part of the Anglican Church:

Suburb	No. Anglicans
Wanniassa	1,465
Oxley	342
Monash	1,008
Gowrie	587
Fadden	664
Macarthur	306
Bonython	586
Isabella Plains	764
Total	5,722

So according the to stats just over 5,700 people have freely identified themselves as an "Anglican", (remember this is not just as a "Christian" but specifically "Anglican"). On any given week our total church attendance is probably around the 500-600 mark, maybe about 10% of the total number. Now I know some people might be sick and house bound, some people might work shifts (although we do have mid week services and three on Sunday), on any given week some people might be out of town, but taking all that into consideration, I still think there are a lot of people fibbing on their census form.

To make things more interesting, a fair number, at least 30% of people who attend our Sunday night service, actually do not live in these suburbs. I also know that some people who attend our church put "Christian" down on the census form as they rather identify as a Christian first and Anglican second (or third or fourth...or ever). So even the people who do attend our church aren't included in these 5,700 people.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia have started a campaign to encourage people to mark "no religion" on their census forms. They encourage you to think about your belief and if you hold to the Nicene Creed. They say that if you don't, then sadly you are not a Christian and you should not say you have a religion. I think I want it to go even further, although a doctrinal test is a good start, and I want to say that even if you believe the Nicene Creed and do nothing about it, then maybe you should read James and then answer more honestly.

One group the atheists are trying to go after are the people who mark "Jedi" as their religion. According to Tom Frame, in the 2001 census the "no religion" margin remained steady from the previous census, but that didn't include the 76,000 people who said their religion was Jedi and so it should have actually risen a bit. Also if you say you are an atheist, agnostic, materialist, secularist, rational etc... they also do not get put into the "no religion" category. This campaign might make it harder to claim that atheism is on the rise if the "no religion" category grows, as some people who say they have no religion still believe in a god or "spiritual things" (whatever that really means).

I also think there is a bit of a historical issue here. Australian's for some reason or another have always identified with religion (Christianity in particular) despite having quite a bad attendance rate. Again from Tom Frame, in Brisbane in 1907 it had 354,244 people of which about 131,000 people said they were Anglican and although the combined seating of all the Anglican churches in that diocese could seat 23,145 people they actually only had a regular attendance of about 15,000. Even 100 years ago Australians were claiming to have a religion on the census forms while still failing to actually attend that church on a Sunday.

Every year there is a census the National Church Life survey also takes place. It is an op in thing and more Churches are not taking part in it, but in 2001 only 8.1% of Australians filled in the survey as you have to actually attend Church that day to fill in the form. The survey was represented by most (if not all) of the major denominations in Australia and was quite a big jump from the 68% of Australians who said they were a Christian on the census form in the same year.

I think it is a good thing that people are encouraged to think about what religion they really are. If anything my own church should start their own campaign and invite the 5,000 people in the local area who thinks they are part of church they don't attend to come back. It shouldn't be too offensive, as after all shouldn't someone who said they are part of the Anglican church appreciate someone from that church asking them to come along. If not, then why identify with it in the first place? A bit of honesty should never goes astray.

I'm even going to put this out there: I will gladly shout someone a coffee or a beer if they live in one of those suburbs above and who says they are an Anglican and yet do not attend a church, provided (yeah there is a catch) we can chat about their reasons for their answer on the census form.

A good book I have read on religion in Australia and the census form is Losing My Religion by Tom Frame. It is definitely worth a read.

How has kephalē (κεφαλὴ) been used in lexicons?

2011-07-26T12:06:00.001+10:00

In my last post in this series I tried to summarise one of Wayne Grudem's articles advocating for κεφαλὴ to mean "ruler" and not "source". In that last article Grudem made reference to the main Greek lexicon and was a bit unhappy on their definition of κεφαλὴ. He said:

The omission of the meaning “authority over” from the Liddell-Scott Lexicon is an oversight that should be corrected (but it should be noted that that lexicon does not specialize in the New Testament period)

and later:

...the evidence we have cited above showing around forty examples of this meaning indicates that the omission from Liddell-Scott must have been an oversight that we hope will be corrected in a subsequent edition.

A few years after Grudem made these statements, he sent his article off to the editors of the LSJ to see what they thought. P. G. W. Glare got back to him.

I remember once hearing that Glare had been at Oxford for about 40 years studying languages and in that time he had taught no subjects. He has been a straight researcher of languages for 40 years. In his time at Oxford, P. G. W. Glare has edited the Oxford Latin Dictionary as well as the LSJ's Revised Supplement. I think it is safe to say that this guy knows Greek (and Latin) quite well.

Anyway the start of Glares' response to Grudem went like this:

Thank you for sending me the copy of your article on κεφαλὴ. The entry under this word in LSJ is not very satisfactory. Perhaps I could draw your attention to a section of Lexicographica Graeca by Dr John Chadwick (OUP 1996), though he does not deal in detail with the Septuagint and NT material. I was unable to revise the longer articles in LSJ when I was preparing the latest Supplement, since I did not have the financial resources to carry out a full-scale revision

I have no time at the moment to discuss all your examples individually and in any case I am in broad agreement with your conclusions. I might just make one or two generalizations. κεφαλὴ the word normally used to translate the Hebrew ראש, and this does seem frequently to denote leader or chief without much reference to its original anatomical sense, and here it seems perverse to deny authority. The supposed sense ‘source’ of course does not exist and it was at least unwise of Liddell and Scott to mention the word. At the most they should have said ‘applied to the source of a river in respect of its position in its (the river’s) course’.

Glare also ends his letter suggesting that applying the meaning of "pre-eminence" to κεφαλὴ is also quite unsuitable. I think that kinda settles the argument. Grudem published that letter in another long article in 2002 reviewing more uses of the word κεφαλὴ which I don't feel like I need to summarise, the link to the full pdf is below.

I also happened to get my hands on BibleWorks 8 and in that it has a few lexicons other than the LSJ. Below are what they have for κεφαλὴ.

Friberg's Analytical Greek Lexicon

literally, of a human or animal head (MT 6.17);
figuratively;

metaphorically, of Christ as the head of which the church is the body (EP 1.22);
of persons, designating first or superior rank head (1C 11.3);
of things uppermost part, extremity, end point; of buildings keystone, capstone (MT 21.42);
leading city, capital (AC 16.12)

Gingrich Greek NT Lexicon
head:

lit. Mt 5:36; 8:20; 27:29f; Mk 6:24f, 27f; 15:29; Lk 21:28; J 13:9; Ac 21:24; Ro 12:20; 1 Cor 11:4f, 7, 10; Rv 10:1; 17:3, 7, 9; 18:19; 19:12.
fig.

head denoting one of superior rank 1 Cor 11:3; Eph 1:22 ; 4:15; 5:23; Col 1:18; 2:10.
head as extremity, end γωνίας cornerstone Mt 21:42; Mk 12:10; Lk 20:17; Ac 4:11; 1 Pt 2:7. Capital or frontier city Ac 16:12 v.l. [cephalic] [pg 108]

Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the NT

head 8.10 - In some languages it may be necessary to distinguish clearly between the head which is still a part of a body and a severed head. It is this latter meaning which is obviously involved in Mk 6.25. In rendering 1 Cor 11.4, it may be important to indicate that the covering is not one which is designed to cover the entire head including the face, but only the top of the head. The same applies, of course, to 1 Cor 11.5 and 7.
superior 87.51 - (a figurative extension of meaning of κεφαλὴ, 'head,' 8.10) one who is of supreme or pre-eminent status, in view of authority to order or command - 'one who is the head of, one who is superior to, one who is supreme over.' Eph 4.15; 1 Cor 11.3.

κεφαλὴ γωνίας - cornerstone 7.44
κατὰ κεφαλῆς ἔχω - have one's head covered 49.16
τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνω - lie down to rest 23.83
ἐπαὶρω τὴν κεφαλὴν - have courage 25.160

(I didn't bother expanding on the meanings in the sub-categories)

Thayer Greek-English Lexicon of the NT
the Septuagint for ראש; the head, both of men: Matt. 5:36; Mark 6:24; Luke 7:38,44 (Rec.),46; John 13:9; Acts 18:18; 1 Cor. 11:4 ; Rev. 1:14; 4:4, and often; and of animals: Rev. 9:7,17,19, etc.;
on the phrases κλίνειν τὴν κεφαλὴν, ἐπαὶρειν τὴν κεφαλὴν see κλίνω, 1 and ἐπαὶρω;
on the saying in Rom. 12:20, see under ἄνθραζ.
Since the loss of the head destroys the life, κεφαλὴ, is used in phrases relating to capital and extreme punishments: so in to, τὸ αἷμα ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν ὑμῶν (see αἷμα, 2 a., p. 15{b}), Acts 18:6, and similar phrases in classical Greek; see Passow, under the word, p. 1717{a}; Pape under the word, 3; (Liddell and Scott, under the word, I. 3 and 4).
Metaphorically, anything supreme, chief, prominent; of persons, master, lord: τίνος, of a husband in relation to his wife, 1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5:23; of Christ, the lord of the husband, 1 Cor. 11:3 (cf. Buttmann, 124f (109)); of the church, Eph. 4:15; 5:23; Col. 2:19 (cf. Buttmann, sec. 143, 4 c.); τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας, Col. 1:18; πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας, Col. 2:10; so Judg. 11:11; 2 Sam. 22:44, and in Byzantine writings of things: κεφαλῆς γωνίας, the corner-stone, see γωνία, a. ((From Homer down.))*

All of these lexicons seem to not include "source" in any variant meaning and only Louw-Nida suggests that "pre-eminent" maybe used when dealing with someones status. This site has a quick summary of some of the above lexicon definitions in case you think I am lying.

To me it seems that κεφαλὴ means "head" and is used to metaphorically to denote someone who has authority over someone else, like the head-honcho or a big-wig.

Works Cited

Grudem, W. A. (2001). The meaning of kephalē ("head"): an evaluation of new evidence, real and alleged. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 44(1), 25-65. 2002 [Full PDF here, this contains the letter in full by P. G. W. Glare on page 188]

Other works I could have read but didn't, due to time

Fitzmyer, J. A. (1993). Kephalē in I Corinthians 11:3. Interpretation, 47(1), 52-59. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Polidoulis Kapsalis, M. (2004). St. John Chrysostom's interpretation of Kephalē in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16.Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 49(3-4), 321-356. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

The Everlasting Man

2011-07-20T17:04:00.000+10:00

This book marks the end of my G.K Chesterton phase. I started reading this book in January but then put it down for a long time and only recently did I decide to finish it. In this book Chesterton tries to survey human history from the cave man to his present time. In the forward he explained that this book is more of a response to something H. G. Wells had written. It is more of a look at the different political systems of history rather than theological systems, but there is an overlap.

The book is broken into two half's defined by the coming of Jesus. Chesterton starts off with the cave man and states that we know nothing about the pre-historical man simply because he is pre-historical. The caricature of the cave man clubbing a cave woman on the head to have his way with her is in fact false, or at least speculation as what we find in the caves is not female skulls that are broken, but art work on the walls.We know they painting on caves, but we do not know why. For all we know the caves could have been a nursery for the babies to draw on the walls. What we do know is that no other animal started to finger paint and over time it was the humans who perfected it.

And then after the cave man there is evidences of civilisations, not small civilisations, but ones that have left their mark on the earth for thousands of years later with their structures and craft work still standing. Chesterton also speculates on some other primitive cultures and how they perhaps were ruled not by the strongest man, but maybe more like a democracy, but points out that either way there is no evidence for one or the other.

On religions he points out that polytheism was the dominate religion. Chesterton states that over time polytheism got more complex over time, and so wonders if it was possible to go back to the beginning what it would look like. The Hebrews seem to be the only anomaly here. They came out of Egypt, went into Canaan, were captured by Babylon and then dominated by the Greeks and yet they remained monotheistic. But perhaps that was not as strange as we might think. Chesterton talks of Aborigines (later changed to be the American Indians in the second appendix) when told of the one head God by missionaries, they responded "they are talking about Atahocan". It seems that in polytheism there was a God of the gods. Chesterton also wonders if people were really monotheists as they would really only worship their own local god and only worship others if they felt the need arise. Chesterton also wonders if they really took their gods as seriously as we think they did. Chesterton points out that in polytheism science never met with religion. What the Egyptians knew about astrology was never connected with Khepera, the dung beetle who rolled the sun across the sky every day. What Aristotle taught on the sciences and philosophy was never joined with his knowledge of Zeus. Chesterton points out that there was always a chasm between religion and philosophy until Christianity.

Christianity came on the scene in the same way the book started, in a cave or sorts. The story itself was quite a strange one of a man claiming to be God who died and rose again. The teachings of Jesus were not things you found in Aristotle or the like the moral standards were not from that age or any other, they were from another world all together. Christianity did not come in force but became quite powerful, but it was completely different from the culture. In fact it is quite a anomaly that it arose and stood tall after the Roman Empire declined. Christianity could not be called a movement but maybe rather a revolution and it had this nasty habit of outliving every other social/political structure ever since.

Like this review, the book was quite wordy and I found I had to read some bits quite slowly. There were a few nice paradoxes presented but not in the neat way Orthodoxy was written. The first half of the book to me did feel a bit long, and I know Chesterton must have skipped entire cultures and religious examples (you would have to in order to do a brief history of the world) he went into some (maybe too much) into others. He did show he understood a lot more religions and gods than I think your average 21st century person had heard of. The best bits I think came in the second half of the book. It was much smaller and tied some loose ideas together.

This book will maybe make you think and questions your Western assumptions about past cultures. It presents some ideas that seem a little off the cuff mixed in with some others that probably are well researched. His appendixes give the impression Chesterton was not one hundred percent happy with his book. If nothing else, I think Chesterton debunked our modern idea of all religions being the same and he does raise some challenging questions as to why Christianity ever rose in the first place and how form a humanist perspective it has continued on for so long.

You can read it all online

Other books by Chesterton that I have read:

Manalive

Orthodoxy

The Man Who Was Thursday

How has kephalē (κεφαλὴ) been used in academic debate? (Part 2)

2011-06-29T13:27:00.000+10:00

This series is looking at the argument of the Greek word κεφαλὴ (head) and how it could mean "source" and not "ruler" or "authority over". Hopefully at the end of this series something practical will be produced. For now this series is still in the middle of an academic debate. This post looks at Wayne Grudem's response to the people in the last post.

Grudem responded to Cervin (and also to Payne and some others) a year later in the Trinity Journal 11.1 (1990) which was reprinted in an appendix to a book Grudem co-edited (link to pdf down the bottom).

Grudem says that even if he was to agree with Cervin's article in full it is still not an egalitarian position, but rather a modification of his own position, not a rejection of it. Grudem see that Cervin states that the use of κεφαλὴ as "source" is rare and not common. Grudem then sets out reasons why he thinks Cervin's article was wrong.

On the rejection of the 12 New Testament verses that Grudem used to show κεφαλὴ meaning headship, Cervin argues Grudem couldn't use them as that was what Grudem was setting out to prove. Grudem showed that Cervin concludes his own article citing what the New Testament means when using κεφαλὴ but never once looked at those verses. Cervin's conclusions were not based on anything he had argued for, except by implication of other Greek texts. The least he could do was look at the use of κεφαλὴ and retort back to Grudem as to why these verses do not mean "authority." If a word in Aristotle's writings was disputed, the first thing a scholar would do would be to look at all the referenced in Aristotle of that word and see the context and how that word was used. Why can't the same method be used with Paul?

Cervin didn't like Grudem using the Septuagint as it was a translation (from the Hebrew), but Grudem points out that it was a common translation at the time period of the New Testament and shows how the language of the Septuagint was used in the same time period (give or take a little) as Paul. The main New Testament dictionary, Bauer, in the introduction mentions that the Septuagint is the most influential text in translating the New Testament. After a few other specific examples Grudem concludes that Cervin leans too much on lexicons on Plato or Thucydides and not enough on writings that are closer to Paul's.

Grudem looks at what Cervin says about the few references to κεφαλὴ possibly meaning "source" which were already addressed in his first article and there is some agreement on these possibilities. There are some more examples of κεφαλὴ meaning "source" from Payne, which Grudem will deal with later.

The four examples that Cervin states that are clearly and unambiguously mean "leader" are from examples that are quite close the the New Testament, three from the LXX and one from Hermas (Similitudes 7.3). Cervin also made reference to two other examples in Joseph Fitzmyer's work which were not included in his four examples of "leader".

Cervin disregarded 11 of Grudems examples because they were questionable due to variant texts. Grudem does says they are less weighty examples, but they are not obscure variants and the texts that uses κεφαλὴ are quite major works. To be consisted if disregarding variant texts Cervin then needs to then remove one of the "source" examples (Orphic Fragments 21) as that also is a variant text. Some more examples are considered and discussed and Grudem concludes revises his 49 examples to be 36 legitimate examples, 2 possible, 2 using head as a simile for leader, 5 for a literal head to rule over body and 4 illegitimate examples. Grudem then wants to add (or sneak in) a few more to his tally drawing from Joseph Fitzmyer's work (and one of his own, Lam 1:5), bumping the legitimate examples of κεφαλὴ meaning "authority over" to 41 and 6 references for a literal head to rule over body.

Grudem also questions Cervin's translation of κεφαλὴ to mean "preeminence" as the LSJ doesn't suggest this is possible and Grudem wonders if this same type of speculation that the Mickelsens did to suggest κεφαλὴ to mean "source". Grudem teases out the ides of κεφαλὴ to mean "preeminence" and suggest that this would produce a "distasteful male chauvinism that has no place in the New Testament".

Grudem then turns his sights onto 10 other works that had been produced since his first article. I will only look at the first three, as that is what I dealt with in my last post (and this one is getting quite long already, man academics like to write).

With the Mickelsens chapter (along with Paynes) Grudem sees their argument based on the Septuagint translators use of κεφαλὴ, as of the 180 cases where "leader" or "ruler" is meant in Hebrew only eight times did they use κεφαλὴ. This shows that it is uncommon to use κεφαλὴ to mean "leader" or "ruler". Grudem argues that κεφαλὴ shouldn't be used in all 180 cases as there already is a Greek word for ruler (ἀρχή) and that κεφαλὴ is used only when "ruler" or "authority" is used in a metaphorical sense of "head". On the flip side what this argument fails to show is any example of κεφαλὴ to mean "source" in the Septuagint, in Gen 2:10 ἀρχή is used to mean "source" not κεφαλὴ. Also to arrive at only eight examples from the Septuagint they dismiss one of the main manuscripts used in translation (Codex Alexandrinus) due to other variants from other works. Really κεφαλὴ is used 16 times in the Septuagint to mean "leader" or "ruler": Deut 28:13, 28:44; Judg 10:18; 11:8, 11:9, 11:11; 2 Sam 22:44; 1 King 8:1; Psalm 18:43; Lam 1:5; Isa 7:8, 7:9, 9:14-16; Jer 31:7. Having 18 examples (or even eight) is plenty to build a case that the readers of the time of the Septuagint understood κεφαλὴ to mean "leader" or "ruler". There is no case from the LXX to argue for it to mean "source" and to not use variant texts again means the example from the Orphic Fragments 21 also should not be considered.

The Mickelsens point out that LSJ does not continent the meaning for κεφαλὴ to include "ruler, leader or authority over" to which Grudem argues is an oversight and points to his 41 examples where in the context it can mean that. Grudem also points out that κεφάλαιος ("head like") in the LSJ does include the meaning "the head or chief" and κεφαλουργός means "foreman of works", which all imply that κεφαλὴ would have been understood in these terms as well (hopefully it will be in the next post where there will be a comment from the editor of the LSJ about Grudem's statement of their entry).

In Tucker's response to the Mickelsens chapter, Grudem agrees with her findings of κεφαλὴ to mean "authority over" from the church fathers and that this adds some support that this meaning was understood at the time of the New Testament. (Summarising is quicker when they both agree)

In Payne's response to the Mickelsens chapter, Grudem picks up on the examples cited for κεφαλὴ to mean "source of life". Grudem shows that one references is ambiguous, as it could mean "source of life" or "ruler, authority over", another examples fit with the direct meaning of a physical "head". With a reference to 1 Cor 11:3 Grudem shows that Payne use of the verse demonstrates he has misunderstood the Trinity. Payne also shows no support from other lexicons to back up his examples.

Grudem concludes stating that there are at least 41 ancient uses of κεφαλὴ to mean "ruler, authority over" and that the use for it to mean "source" is far far weaker, and possibly hasn't been established convincingly enough yet. Even in the texts that are argued for the meaning of "source" the person who is called the κεφαλὴ (head) "is always a person of leadership or authority".

Works Cited
Grudem, W. A. (1990). The meaning of kephalē ("head") : a response to recent studies. Trinity Journal, 11(1), 3-72. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. [Full PDF download here - from a book, not from the original journal]

Manalive

2011-06-23T19:11:00.000+10:00

This was the first book that I read completely off my phones 4.3 inch screen. This book isn't that long and I am not sure I would recommend reading anything that is longer than this book off a small screen, unless it had nice short chapters (I started reading Fight Club off my phone, but I have kinda forgotten about it).

I read Manalive because it is by G. K. Chesterton (which is reason enough) but also some review said it was one of the funniest books he had written. The book was quite an amusing tale, not so much a laugh-out-loud read, but one that in true Chesterton style, presented quite an amusing logic. The story is set in a home, Beacon House, made up of about six quirky characters who live there, where one day this new guy, Innocent, climbed over the fence chasing his hat in the wind ended up also moving in to the place. This place was self run and early on they decided that this place would be a power unto itself, but as the book puts it:

...the string of solid and startling events— which were to include a hansom cab, a detective, a pistol, and a marriage licence—were all made primarily possible by the joke about the High Court of Beacon.

The book is broken into two parts. In the first part Innocent turns the place upsides down in various ways including asking one of the ladies to marry him, and then after a scuffle fires his gun at someone while also a man from America turns up saying he had been hunting Innocent down for some time as he is a violent and dangerous man. Innocent appeals to the High Court of Beacon which kicks off the second half of the book which is all about the trial of Innocent. (If you don't find it slightly amusing that the character on trial is named Innocent then really this book isn't for you).

Not wanting to spoil the trial of Innocent, the charges against him are murder, burglary, desertion of his wife and polygamy. On each charge the American presents letters from eye witnesses to events that do seem quite air tight until the defense present other letters from an eye witness who was closer to the crimes. For example, in one case a letter from a janitor claims to have seen Innocent fire at a professor who was hanging off his balcony, while the defense then produce a letter from the professor himself to acquit Innocent of the charges.

This was an entertaining read, but the setting was a little drab. The whole second part was pretty much a court trial. But the crazy logic of the case, for me, did make we want to continue reading.

There is a Chesterton appreciation club that is even trying to make this book into a movie. To be honest the trailer didn't do much for me as it doesn't even keep to the original lines.

This book is free online form many places, and also in epub format.

Other books by Chesterton that I have read:
Orthodoxy
The Man Who Was Thursday

How has kephalē (κεφαλὴ) been used in academic debate? (Part 1)

2011-06-07T16:15:00.000+10:00

This post continues on from my last one which looked at the ancient Greek dictionary definition for κεφαλὴ and an article that Wayne Grudem wrote looking at over 2,300 referenced to that word in ancient Greek. He argued for κεφαλὴ to mean "authority", "ruler" or "superior rank" and not "source" or "origin". Below are some counter arguments that I have tried to summarise. The full links to the source (where possible) are provided at the bottom.

The next year after Grudem published his article mentioned in my last post a counterpoint book Women, Authority and the Bible, dedicated Chapter 6 to the topic of What Does Kephalē Mean in the New Testament? This chapter was written by Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen and responded to by Ruth A. Tucker and Philip B. Payne. The Mickelsen's point out that the LSJ does not give the meaning "authority", or "superior rank" or "leader" in their definition for κεφαλὴ. They point out another Greek dictionary, Bauer's which does say κεφαλὴ can have the meaning "superior rank". They look at the supporting text for this definition and point out that they are from sources from 500 A.D, from the Septuagint (Judges 11:11, 2 Sam 22:44) or from the New Testament where "Bauer personally thinks κεφαλὴ means this" and that the "facts do not support this assumption". They then go through these seven references of κεφαλὴ in the New Testament and show that they really mean "source of life" in Col 2:19 and Eph 4:15; "top" or "crown" in Col 2:10; Eph 1:20-23; "source" or "base" or "derivation" in 1 Cor 11:3; "Exalted originator and completer" in Col 1:18 and "one who brings completion" in Eph 5:23. (This purple site has a simplified article of this chapter, full chapter is linked below)

Ruth A Tucker, in her response to the above chapter responded as a historian to see how the church Fathers have used κεφαλὴ. Tucker could not find κεφαλὴ in the writings of Clement, Tertullian and Cyprian but they did talk about headship.Clement says both are spiritual equal but the man is the head of woman. Tertullian more than any other ante-Nicene father uses the meaning "source" or "author" when talking about headship. Cyprian does not even imply the meaning of "superior rank" or "authority" in Eph 5. Ambrose said men are not under the law in the case of divorce, unlike the woman because of male headship. Augustine argues that there is a created beauty and order and understood headship in terms of authority. Lastly Calvin says that in 1 Cor 11:3 an inequality exists and that Paul did not want to disturb the civil order. Tucker concludes that Calvin, like most people in church history takes κεφαλὴ to mean authority, superior rank or pre-eminence and questions some of the Mickelsens' assumptions above.

Philip Barton Payne, in his repose to the Mickelsens' chapter pretty much agrees with them and that they even "understated their case from Greek usage". Their criticism of Bauer's dictionary definition is well founded. Payne does disagree with some of their nuances for them meaning of κεφαλὴ and says that it meaning "source of life" and "top or crown" is adequate to cover all the examples cited. Payne also shows more examples of κεφαλὴ to mean "source of life" in ancient Greek. He looks at a few New Testament references and concludes that in Pauline writings the word means "source" [of life] or "top".

In 1989 Richard S Cervin responded to Grudem directly in an academic paper. His rebuttal got printed in the Trinity Journal 10.1 (1989). Cervin disagreed with Grudem's assessment of the word κεφαλὴ and Grudem's assessment of the 49 references where κεφαλὴ can mean "authority over". Cervin states these references do not mean what Grudem wants them to mean and that they have been misrepresented.

Cervin looks at Grudem's method of consulting just the LSJ as limiting and ignores a whole host of other Greek dictionaries. New Testament scholars also should be looking at sources around the New Testament time and not drawing parallels from works such as Plato. "Leader" is never mentioned as a meaning for κεφαλὴ in any Greek dictionary, but it does in Latin, which is more popular in Western thought but it is not in Greek thought. Cervin also had access to the same database that Grudem used, but had a different edition, so his numbers were different, which means and so Grudem could not have possibly found every reference in the sources he cited. Cervin draws on what Payne (1986) mentioned above said.

Cervin goes through the 49 references Grudem did which mean "leader" or "authority over". 12 references are disregards up front because they are from the New Testament text, which is what Grudem was setting out to prove, so he can't use those meanings to apply back to the text he is building a case for. Of the remaining 37 examples, after examine them (except for two which don't really exist) Cervin states that only four uses of the word κεφαλὴ clearly mean "leader".

Not to take this sitting down Grudem responded to all these people, and a few more that I haven't mentioned in the Trinity Journal 11.1 (1990). I will look at his article in my next post.

Works cited
Cervin, R. S. (1989). Does kephalē mean "source" or "authority over" in Greek literature : A rebuttal.Trinity Journal, 10(1), 85-112. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. [Preview of the pdf here, I can email you the full article if you want it]

Grudem, W. A. (1985). Does kephalē ("head") mean "source" or "authority over" in Greek literature : a survey of 2,336 examples. Trinity Journal, 6(1), 38-59. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. [This was mentioned in the last post. Full PDF download here]

Mickelsen, A., & Mickelsen, A. (1986). What does kephalē mean in the New Testament. In, Women, authority and the Bible (pp. 97-110). Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Pr. [Full Google book preview]

Payne, P. B. (1986). Response in Women, Authority and the Bible, ed. Mickelsen, pp. 118-132.[Full Google book preview]

Tucker, R. A. (1986). Response in Women, Authority and the Bible, ed. Mickelsen, pp. 111-117 [Full Google book preview]

Works I couldn't get my hands on

Bedale, S. (1954). Meaning of kephalē in the Pauline Epistles. Journal of Theological Studies, 5(2), 211-216. [This would have been useful to start off my last post]

Johnson, A. F. (2009). A review of the scholarly debate on the meaning of "head" (kephalē) in Paul's writings. Ashland Theological Journal, 4135-57 [This most likely would have made an appearance in my next post, if I could have gotten it]

Perriman, A. C. (1994). The Head of a Woman : The Meaning of Kephalē in 1 Cor 11:3. Journal of Theological Studies, 45(2), 602-622 [I am not sure if I would have used this article anyway]

How has kephalē (κεφαλὴ) been used outside the New Testament?

2011-05-29T11:08:00.038+10:00

This post continues from my last one which started from a few ideas that I have heard recently where I have heard the Greek word κεφαλὴ can mean "source" or "origin" and not "have authority over". I thought the debate had been settled years ago, but I guess not.

In trying to work out what a word means, it is generally best to consult a dictionary, and classical Greek is no different. One of the most definitive Ancient Greek dictionaries is the Greek-English Lexicon edited by H. G. Liddell, Robert Scott, and revised by Henry Stuart Jones (it is also called the LSJ). Their entry on κεφαλὴ (1940) initially says "A. head of man or beast" and after a few other meanings does it say: "II. of things, extremity d. in pl., source of a river... generally, source, origin...starting-point." The condensed version of the LSJ from 1889 (also called Middle Liddell) doesn't have the source definition and has the basic definition as: "I. the head of man or beast." Georg Autenrieth's, A Homeric Dictionary (2009) has both meanings stating: "head; typical of life...as the source of voice." The wikipedia entry doesn't list "source" as a possible meaning (remember it's a wiki it has to be true!).

Judging from these definitions, at least in the LSJ (which really is the one that counts), does suggest that κεφαλὴ can mean "source." Now what would be good is, if it was possible (and easy and quickly) to look at all the referenced to κεφαλὴ in ancient Greek and then see how that word has been used in different examples and contexts. The LSJ did link to some examples, but a massive list would be really useful. Because of the power of the Internet, this site states that there are 2,301 references to κεφαλὴ (it states that κεφαλὴ is mentioned 77 times in the New Testament, which is strange as I only found it 76 times) in a bunch of ancient Greek texts.

Now my Greek skills are very poor. I did two subjects of Biblical (koine) Greek last year and in my second semesters I only just scraped through. I also don't really have the time to look at 2,301 references in Greek from Classical Greek (which is slightly different to koine). But luckily there are academics who have the time and one actually did.

Wayne Grudem knows his Greek. He was one of the general editors of the ESV, which some people may suggest is biased in some areas, nevertheless I think to be an editor of a bible you would have to know a bit about the Greek language. I have also heard a debate between Grudem and Mark Strauss about the translation of the TNIV and Grudem got Strauss to say: "Well, it [adelphos] refers to a brother in Christ. I think the TNIV doesn't quite have it right here [referring to Mat 7:3]" which is pretty big, considering Strauss was on the TNIV committee.

Anyway in 1985 Grudem looked at 2,336 references to κεφαλὴ (he mustn't of used the site I linked to above) from Greek texts spanning from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. He published this article in a journal (Trinity Journal, Spring 1985 Vol 6.1) which can be downloaded here.

In this article he goes over some arguments (and refutes them) for κεφαλὴ meaning "source" or "origin" (as Eve came from Adam) and looks at the LSJ meaning and how κεφαλαί (the plural of κεφαλὴ) can be used to refer to the "heads" of rivers but in the singular it is the "mouth" of a river and that the dictionary states that this use is only related to "things" not "persons".

There is one case that κεφαλὴ could maybe mean "source", the Orphic Fragments 21a calls Zeus the "head" of all things or maybe the "source" of all things. There is also another copy of the same text that uses the word ἀρχή (beginning, ruler or even authority) instead of κεφαλὴ, which means there are just as many ancient copies of the Orphic Fragments that agree with one argument as those that don't. To use this one case that is by an unknown person, form an unknown date is a little shaky to make a huge case out of it, especially in the face of all other (well) known references.

Grudem then he states there are probably 12,000 known references to κεφαλὴ in all of the know ancient Greek texts but that was too much time to look at, so he investigated at all of the major authors of classical Greek works totaling texts from 36 authors, spanning over 1,000 years, making 2,336 references for him to look up. From Grudem's findings he found no uses of the word meaning "source" or "origin" and 49 (16.2%) references to mean "ruler" or "person of superior authority or rank" which he lists and comments on them.

Case closed, right? The dictionary meaning says κεφαλὴ could mean "source" only when used as a plural and in reference to "things" and not "persons". Grudemn look at over 2, 300 references to the word and didn't find anything of interest... But in the academic world, this paper only served to start a debate, which I will look at next.

How has kephalē (κεφαλὴ) been used inside the New Testament?

2011-05-22T15:48:00.001+10:00

I think I might live in a bit of a complementarian bubble surrounded by like minded people. I thought this debate about the meaning of κεφαλή had been killed years ago, but in the last month or so I have heard that κεφαλή can mean "source." I first started this post after I heard the guy who wrote the prepare marriage course, (which my wife and I did before we got married), bring this argument up. Later at Easter Convention someone asked Don Carson about this issue after he gave a talk on Ephesians 5, to which Carson said that this argument had been settled years ago and that the egalitarians had lost this point in the debate.

Around this time ESV online release a 30 day trial on their ESV GreekTools to which I had a play around with (my trial has now expired, which shows how long it takes me to write some rants). From their GreekTools this is what I found on the word κεφαλή:

Contextual
English: head
Greek: κεφαλὴ
Translit: kephalē
Parsing: NNSF— Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine

Lexical
Greek Root: κεφαλή
Translit: kephalē
Strongs: 2776

Not been happy with just this, I went on and used their word search (I wanted to get my monies worth), and search for all the uses of κεφαλὴ in the New Testament (not sure if that link will work now). I got back 76 references, which break down to:

Matthew

11 of 12 times meaning an actual head: Matthew 5:36; 6:17; 8:20; 10:30; 14:8; 14:11; 26:7; 27:29-30; 27:37; 27:39
1 of 12 times meaning cornerstone: Matthew 21:42

Mark

8 of 9 times in Mark meaning an actual head: Mark 6:24-25; 6:27-28; 12:4; 14:3; 15:19; 15:29
1 of 9 times in Mark meaning cornerstone: Mark 12:10

Luke

6 of 7 times meaning an actual head: Luke 7:38; 7:46; 9:58; 12:7; 21:18; 21:28
1 of 7 times meaning cornerstone: Luke 20:17

John

5 of 5 times meaning an actual head: John 13:9; 19:2; 19:30; 20:7; 20:12

Acts

3 of 5 times meaning an actual head: Acts 18:6; 21:24; 27:34
1 of 5 times meaning cornerstone: Acts 4:11
1 of 5 times meaning hair: Acts 18:18

Romans

1 of 1 times meaning someone's head: Romans 12:20

1 Corinthians

7 of 10 times meaning an actual head: 1 Corinthians 11:4-5 (4 times); 11:7; 11:10; 12:21
3 of 10 times meaning authority: 1 Corinthians 11:3 (3 times)

Ephesians

4 of 4 times meaning authority: Ephesians 1:22; 4:15; 5:23 (twice)

Colossians

2 of 3 times meaning authority: Colossians 1:18; 2:10
1 of 3 times meaning an actual head (maybe): Colossians 2:19

1 Peter

1 of 1 times meaning cornerstone: 1 Peter 2:7

Revelation

19 of 19 times meaning an actual head: Revelation 1:14; 4:4; 9:7; 9:17 (twice); 9:19; 10:1; 12:1; 12:3 (twice); 13:1; 13:3; 14:14; 17:3; 17:7; 18:19; 19:12

From this overview of the word κεφαλή it seems the NT uses this word 61 times for an actual head; 9 times as authority; 5 for cornerstone and one time for hair. In the sense of κεφαλή meaning authority I mean it in the same sense that today we may call someone the head honcho, or say that someone will head up a meeting or someone is the head of a company. When someone is called the head, they are in the position of authority and this is normally in a relational sense.

Now online Greek dictionaries are not new. After doing a quick search (and after I had crunched the numbers above) I found strongsnumbers.com which has the following for κεφαλή:

Original Word: κεφαλή, ῆς, ἡ
Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
Transliteration: kephalé
Phonetic Spelling: (kef-al-ay')
Short Definition: the head
Definition: (a) the head, (b) met: a corner stone, uniting two walls; head, ruler, lord.
NASB Word Usage: chief (4), hair (1), head (50), heads (19), very (1).
From the primary kapto (in the sense of seizing); the head (as the part most readily taken hold of), literally or figuratively -- head.

κεφαλαὶ (kephalai) − 3 Occurrences
κεφαλὰς (kephalas) − 13 Occurrences
κεφαλῇ (kephalē) − 15 Occurrences
κεφαλὴν (kephalēn) − 28 Occurrences
κεφαλῆς (kephalēs) − 15 Occurrences
κεφαλῶν (kephalōn) − 1 Occurrence

(That could have saved me a bit of time.) All this above seems to suggest that in the New Testament κεφαλή isn't used to mean "source."

Objections
One objection to this could be that all the people (to my knowledge) who edited the ESV are complementarian. That maybe, but that strongs numbers site isn't using the ESV, it is using the NASB, which according to one guy on the internet may have its shortcomings but gender issues and the definition of κεφαλή is not one of them. Also with James Strong's dictionary his only agenda (to my knowledge), was to make a reliable Greek (and Hebrew) dictionary to help people know what the words mean. His concordances was first published in 1890, well before this gender debate even started.

The other main objection to this could be that the New Testament doesn't have a wide Greek vocabulary. Wouldn't it be better to look at all of the ancient Greek writings to see how κεφαλή has been used? After all the objection that κεφαλή means "source" comes from an argument from Greek writings outside of the New Testament. This objection has some weight, and is where I hope to turn to in my next post in this series.

Heavenly Citizenship

2011-05-15T10:18:00.001+10:00

(Warning long post). Last night I spoke at an International Trivia night to about 30 or so young adults. Below is more or less what I said. For the size of the audience I felt this talk was too formal. For some reason I was expecting more people to be there. At the end, for the application, I drew heavily on this talk that I had heard Don Carson give at this years Katoomba Easter Convention.

Intro - Present Day
I have a bit of an issue. Hannah and I are planning on making an overseas trip to England sometime next year, but I don’t have a passport. I am torn as to what passport I should get. My Dad is a Maltese citizen, he does not have duel citizenship with Australian and he flies on a Maltese passport. Because of my Dad I think I am allowed to get a Maltese passport, which could be handy as Malta is part of the European Union. My wife Hannah was born in England and has duel passports for Australia and England. I think because I married her, I might be able to get a British passport. And of cause I was born in Australian, and so I am entitled to get an Australian passport. So my issues is, which country should I identify myself with? Maybe the answer is clear, after all I live in Australia and have never been anywhere else. But there are advantages for identifying as a citizen of another country. So I am not sure who I should tie my allegiances with.

Just out of curiosity how many of you have become Australian citizen by taking a citizenship test? I had been told that to be an Australian citizen there are three rights and three responsibilities that you have to be aware of. Now not having been taught this at school I didn’t know what these were, so I was going to ask Hannah who did the citizenship test...but she wasn’t around so I looked it up on Wikipedia, and I found out there were actually 6 rights and 4 responsibilities to be an Australian citizen. Does anyone have an idea what they could be?:

As a citizen of Australia you are entitled to

have an Aussie passport,
you can leave Australia and return without any immigration restrictions,
you can’t be deported,
you can register your children as Austrian if born overseas,
you can work for the Government, and
you can run for public office.

But with those entitlements you have the following four responsibilities:

you have to obey the law,
defend Australia if the need arises,
you have to enrol to vote and to actually vote, and
if called upon you are to serve on a jury. [1]

Now realistically the idea of citizenship today comes down to where you want to work or what line in the airport you want to queue in. Although there are these rights and responsibilities that come along with being a citizen of a country; our country in is pretty relaxed about it (which to be honest I am quite glad).

Citizens of God
But back in the Apostle Paul's day your race and citizenship was pretty much who you were. Your whole identity was built around who your parents were, what they did and where you lived. The Romans were the conquering country who gave their own citizens special privileges. They were free to roam the know world without fear of been harassed by the local occupying army. Not only was there the Romans with their privileges, if you were a Jewish citizen you did not hang out with the Gentiles nor did you hang out with your neighbouring half cousins the Samaritans. Back in the first century, your identity was wrapped up in your citizenship. That’s what makes Paul’s statement so radical. He says in the letter to Philippians that Christians have a new identity, a new citizenship, he says:

...our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Phil 3:20-21)

Paul says that Christians await their Savior Jesus, who one day will transform us to be like Him.

Don’t earn our way in
Now most countries have their quirks. They have their sayings or actions or things that they are known for. I hear that when travelling overseas people tend to fall back on these quirky or stereotypical behaviours. I’ve been told that these actions help tourists keep their own original identity. Such as the overseas Australian who starts to say “G’day” to people, when back home they never greet their friends that way. The actions a tourist falls back on, or the homesickness they feel, doesn’t make them a citizen of their home country. Instead they do or feel these things because they are from that country. The actions they do not make them a citizen, but because they are a citizen, they do the action. That is a bit abstract, so lets bring this in.

Christians are called to be part of this new citizenship under Jesus and they are called to certain behaviours. The key point is, that it’s not the behaviour that makes them part of the kingdom of God, instead its the other way round. Its because they are a citizen of God that they behave in a certain way. As citizens of God’s Kingdom we get to live a certain way under God. Because of what Jesus has done for us, because of the grace of the gospel shown to us, we can reflect grace to others. We are privileged to know God and what He wants us to do, and we are privilege to do them for our good King.

What does citizenship look like?
So what does this look like? What are Christians called to do as citizens of Jesus? Well many books have been written, and will be written on this, but for just this talk I want to focus three things in the next 9 verses after Paul mentions citizenship. He starts with a “therefore” meaning because of what was said previously, because our citizenship is in heaven, God is going to transform us. He says:

Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, loyal yoke fellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Phil 4:1-9)

In this Paul lists a stack of things that Christians are to do[2], but from this short passage and for the sake of time, I just want to focus on three of them: our gentleness, our anxiousness and our thoughtfulness.

Expand on three ideas
Gentleness
Our gentleness is to be evident to all. With this word “gentleness” other translations use the word “reasonableness” (ESV) or “gentle spirit” (NASB) or “moderation” (KJV). John MacArthur says on this word “This refers to contentment with and generosity toward others. It can also refer to mercy or leniency toward the faults and failures of others. It can even refer to patience in someone who submits to injustice or mistreatment without retaliating. Graciousness with humility encompasses all the above.”[3] Graciousness with humility encompasses all the above.

I’m not sure if you have noticed, but our culture teaches us to be the best in something. We are to excel and to be known for our abilities. But here it says we are to be gentle, or humble. We are to be known for not being known. We are to have a spirit of gracious humility. Think back just in the last few hours. When you were preparing for this event what did you what people to notice about you? How did you want others to see you? Or think back in the past week, what Facebook statuses about yourself have you put forward to the world for everyone to read? What are you being know for on there? For your appearance or abilities, or to be a gentle, thankful encourager, who points to the grace of God?

Tonight when playing trivia when a disagreement comes up over an answer how are you going to react? Are you going to speak louder and try and get your way or are you going to show contentment with and generosity toward someone? Now what if it turns out they were wrong and you were right? How then are you going to react? Tonight how can you show mercy or leniency toward the faults and failures of someone?

We are to be moderate and gentle. Not extreme, or as we would say, not a drama queen.

Paul also gives a bit of a motivation for us being gentle or humble, he says because “the Lord is near”. This could mean the Lords return is near, or it could mean that Jesus is watching us and is close at hand right now. Either way how would you like Jesus to find you? What do you want to be known for? How do you want others to remember you by? How do you treat others? Do the answers to these questions change when you remember that Christ is near?

Remember, we are not just to be gentle or humble, but we are to be known for our humility.

Anxiousness
Paul also says that Christians are not to be anxious about anything, but instead they are to pray with thankfulness. This does not mean we don’t have concerns. We are being told more about worldwide disasters and issues and wars than any other generation in history. We are constantly told about the dangers of any and everything and about the troubles not just in our own local community, but globally. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about this stuff, nor is Paul. We still should be concerned for these things, but we shouldn’t worry about them. Instead we are to pray. The solution to worrying is prayer. Prayer is what is needed the most and is often what is most lacking. Let us replace our worrying with prayer. After all will not our judge do what is right? Trust in God. Be content that he will look after us in all things and be thankful. Be thankful that our just Father in heaven hears our prayers and is looking out for us.

Paul gives us the outcome for praying to God. He will grant us peace, knowing that God is ultimately in control. This is a hard peace to explain as it “transcends understanding.” My man J. C. Ryle has said:

Jesus can make those happy who trust him and call on him, whatever be their outward condition. He can give them peace of heart in a prison, contentment in the midst of poverty, comfort in the midst of bereavements, joy on the brink of the grave. There is a mighty fullness in him for all his believing members - a fullness that is ready to be poured out on every one that will ask in prayer. Oh that men would understand that happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart.[4]

We need to set aside time to be still before God and pray.

Holy thoughts
The last thing I wanted to focus on from this passage, is the instruction for us to think holy thoughts. It is sometimes a scary thing to realise that God knows your thoughts. There is a old proverb that I have heard Don Carson say: "You are not what you think you are; but what you think, you are." I’ll say that again: "You are not what you think you are; but what you think, you are."

Where does your mind go to when you have free time? What do you think about and what emotions does that raise? Do you build up bitterness, or anger when thinking about past events? Do you rehearse past events over and over in your mind and in this parallel universe do you come out the hero and the other party made to look dumb? How often do you self-promote or boat in something? How often do you complain and make yourself out to be a martyr?

Christians are to transformed their minds to think the ways of God[5]. We are not in the dark as to what the things of God are. It says right here that we are to think about anything that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy. These things we are to focus on. Martyn Lloyd-Jones famously said[6] that we have to stop listening to ourselves and start talking to ourselves. We need to fill our mind with scripture, so we can re-tell ourselves its truth in times of tempting and in times of need. We should use the word of God to fill our mind to transform our actions towards others.

We are to rejoice and be thankful. If you can not think of anything to rejoice and be thankful for, then you really are not thinking. Rejoice and be thankful for this day that you have had, for warm food and good company, for light entertainment and healthy competition, for this moment, to pause and reflect on what is truly ultimate in your life.

Think about how you could be an encouragement to someone tonight. Think about something that is true and noble or admirable in someone and tell them what it is.

Wrapping it up
So tonight lets be patient and humble, and not be arrogant or complain. Lets rejoice about the good things that God has given us. Reflect on your thoughts, if you are stressing about something or you’re thinking about something that you shouldn’t, then stop and pray.

Remember, our citizenship is already in heaven, tonight lets live like it.

[Pray to close]

-----------

[1] From: Rights and Responsibilities of Australian Citizens

[2] I have found at least 8 piratical things mentioned in this passage: [1] to stand firm in the Lord (v1); [2] to mediate differences between fellow Christians (v3); [3] to rejoice in the Lord always (v4); [4] to let your gentleness be known to everyone (v5); [5] to not be anxious about anything, but pray with thanksgiving (v6); [6] to let the peace of God, guard your heart and your mind [this surpasses all understanding] (v7); [7] to think about whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, excellence and worthy of praise (v8); [8] to put into practice what you have heard and seen by Godly examples (v9)

[3] MacArthur ESV Study Bible Notes (I used the 30 day free trial to get that quote)

[4] A Call to Prayer by J.C Ryle

[5] Romans 12:2 - Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

[6] I fist head this by C.J Mahaney from this talk: The Troubled Soul: God’s Word and Our Feelings from the New Attitude (or Next) 2008 conference. There is also an extended Lloyd-Jones quote here: https://wordsofgrace.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/talk-to-yourself/

Easter Commitment

2011-05-02T16:34:00.008+10:00

It is now a tradition for me to attend the Katoomba Easter Convention. This year was no different, well this time some of my family did say with us, which was nice. This years Easter convention had the topic: Commitment in the age of disposable love, and in a general sense the talks stuck to this topic. The speakers were Don Carson, Dale Ralph Davis and Simon Flinders.

Don Carson gave four talks on how the good news of Jesus' death, resurrection and example impacts on a Christian's life. Christians are called to do some good, moral and ethical things, but the Christian life is not just about moral living. It is only because of the Gospel that we can be transformed to do these good works, out of response to what Jesus has already done. Carson appealed for us to resolve to rejoice in the Lord, to be content, to be know for our gentleness, to not to be anxious but to pray, to grow in grace and courtesy and to think holy thoughts. He looked at the relationship of marriage in Ephesians 5:21-33 and how it is a symbol or typology of Christ's relationship to His Church and how human marriage can (ideally) point back to this symbol. Carson did not want anyone to feel beat up over the talks or to go away and try harder but instead he wanted us to look to the Cross for forgiveness and as a model on how to live.

Dale Ralph Davis was great. He gave four talks from the Old Testament on God's covenant and he definitely knew his stuff. In fact he was reading directly from the Hebrew text and translating on the fly, which was quite impressive. He talked about how our God is a committed God who made a staggering and gracious covenant with Abraham (who was an idol worshipper) to be God to him and his descendants. God made His will known to His people via the Ten Commandments which was different to the pagan gods of that time. Before entering the Promised Land Israel remembered the commitments God made to His people and Joshua then in turn made a commitment to follow only Yahweh which also was unheard in pagan culture as no god demanded exclusive worship. Joshua also didn't think that death was the end of God's commitment to him or his people. In Ralph's last talk he looked at 1 Samuel 12 and showed that God sometimes uses extreme measures to make His point, and that we should tremble before a frighting God. We should continue to live in God's unchangeable grace and if we stuff up, not wallow in our self pity as that is not our atonement. We can't reverse our actions but we can return to our restoring God.

The night time speaker was Simon Flinders. After his first talk we commented that he had a narrow focus while talking and that he didn't much more than repeat the passage he was speaking from, but in retrospect I think he did his task well. Simon gave three talks from Romans 8 and each talk had a clear point which he laid out at the beginning as a proposition and then he proceed to back that statement up. It was simple and logical and was squarely based on Romans 8. He reminded us that there is no condemnation from God to those who are Christians, that our present sufferings are nothing compare to our future glory and that nothing at all can separate Christians from the love of God.

After each night session there was a question time. I went and saw Ralph on the first night and he was a joy to watch as he answered questions on the fly and pulled out all these verse from memory. It was impressive. The second night we went and saw Carson and he was good, and talked about a who host of things. My wife even asked him about the context of Philippians 4:13 and how it gets taken out of context on postcards or at the bottom of notepads etc. On the last night both Ralph and Carson took the main stage for questions so people could ask questions both on the Old and New Testaments. I would have been good if that went for longer.

Al Stewart lead the sessions and did a good job at it, trying to summarise each talk into one sentence. Sons of Korah also came and played both during the morning and evening sessions on Sunday. The weather changed every day from sunny to rainy to sunny to foggy, and I also bought a book by Ralph. All in all it was a good Easter convention.

Easter Convention charge $2 for the talks, but after a quick search I was able to find these talks which maybe similar to the talks that were given at the conference:
Don Carson - Rejoice in the Lord Always (Phil 4:4-20) (His second talk)
Dale Ralph Davis - Farewell with an Edge (17mb mp3) (1 Sam 12) (His fourth talk)

Past Easter Conventions I have been to:
KEC 2010 on Christians in a Sceptical World (speakers: John Lennox, Stephen Um Ray Galea)
KEC 2009 on Time (speakers: Frank Retief, Kirk Patston and Jonny Gibson)
(I also attended KEC 2008 but I didn't write a review of that one)

Its the end of the world, again

2011-04-19T15:42:00.001+10:00

In my last rant I mocked Harold Camping saying he was wrong. I still think he is now, but this time I found another series of "logical" steps he takes to conclude that May 21, 2011 is going to be the end of the world. Lets have a look:

Jesus died on the cross on April 1, 33 AD
There are 1,978 years from April 1, 33 AD to April 1 2011
The number of days in 1,978 years is 722 449.072 (assuming a solar year is 356.2422 days)
The number of days between April 1 and May 21 is 51
722449 + 51 = 722 500
Also (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722 500
Based on some biblical numerology the above formula means (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven) squared

Again, this is all so clear and convincing! There are 722 500 days since Jesus died on the cross, and that number can also be made by multiplying 5 by 10 by 17, twice. Again, I am not making these logical steps up.

First off I am not sure about April 1, 33 being the day Jesus died, just Monday a new story came out arguing for April 3rd. I haven't really looked into it (this was interesting), and even scholars seem to vary between the year 30 and 36 based on a host of assumptions, such as: what eclipse is mention in Mat 27:45 and Mark 15:33 (Cassiodorus mentions a possible eclipse on in 31 AD); when John the Baptist was executed (some say it was around 35 AD as he was criticising a marriage that took place in the same year); and even the age of Jesus when he died (Irenaeus argued that he was over 40 when he was crucified based off John 8:57). Now I don't know how much weight each point has, but lets just assume Camping is right. After all if he is out by one day his maths formula doesn't work out (see the next point).

Secondly when I worked out the date difference between April 1, 33 and May 21, 2011 I got 722 501 days. That's right, his numbering system is out by a day! It seems there are 50 days, not 51 days between April 1 and May 21 in any calendar year (work it out yourself). But lets move on.

Thirdly, Biblical numerology is made up. I'm sorry, but the numbers in the Bible can not be added up, multiplied or squared to prove your point. Besides, no one can agree on what each number "really" means. This site says the number 5, 10 and 17 means Grace; Testimony (or Law and responsibility) and Victory. Another site says 5, 10 and 17 means Grace; Completeness and Perfection of spiritual order. I actually couldn't find one number system that has five equalling atonement, which is kind of the thing that (possibly/maybe) took place on April 1, 33 AD and is the basis of Camping's magical number. Also why square a number? There is nothing I could quickly find about the importance of squaring some combination of numbers.

Biblical numerology is for hacks who do not understand the basic context of a passages. I have done a few Bible subjects and intro the Bible subjects and not one has ever taught these strange and subject numerical ideas.When Don Carson gave a 14 part series on the whole overview of the Bible he never mentioned what each number means according to some Biblical formula because they are not important and are completely subjective. It is important to read the Bible like all forms of writing in the genre it was made for, eg when David picked up five stones, I do not think it is a symbol of grace or atonement. I think it means David picked up five stones, nothing more, nothing less (that actually is an example from Graeme Goldsworthy's book Gospel and Kingdom teaching people how to read Bible passages in context of their story).

I think Camping is forcing the numbers to say what he wants them to say. Kinda what he has done with the Bible. I don't understand why someone needs to do all sorts of mathematical equations to work out when Jesus will return. All you have to do is read some pretty clear passages. Jesus said concerning his return:

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only (Mat 24:36)

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. (Mark 13:32-33)

I think that is pretty clear. No one knows when Jesus is coming back. There isn't a clause that if you do some flaky maths, you might be able to predict it. Jesus Himself said he doesn't know. And maybe while I'm in this mood, perhaps people who are into predicting when Jesus is coming back again and who also say they trust the Bible should have a quick look over 1 Timothy:

As I [Paul] urged you [Timothy] when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. (1 Tim 1:3-7)

I worry about all the people who have bought into Camping's confident assertion which he knows nothing about that promote speculations and vain discussions (not to mention leading people astray and wasting their money). At the moment eBible Fellowship, We Can Know, The Latter Rain, and Camping's family radio station seem pretty keen on pushing his ideas. I'm hoping these groups are not very big. I think they need to start reading their Bibles for themselves (hows that for a radically reformed suggestion?).

Anyway, I think I have spent enough time on Camping.

Its the end of the world!

2011-04-12T17:02:00.000+10:00

I'm putting in out there: Harold Camping is wrong. You can quote me now. I do not think Judgement Day is a bit over a month away (hey if it comes before, I don't think anyone will post on this blog to saying I was wrong so its a bit of a win win). If you don't know, Camping has mathematical proof that Jesus is gong to Rapture His church on the 21st May 2011. I don't believe in the Rapture, but I do believe in the logic of maths and the Bible so lets check out his argument:

Noah loaded all the animals onto the Ark in 4990 BC
"do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8)
"after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth." (Genesis 7:10). Based off point two these seven days really equal 7000 years
7000 - 4990 = 2010
There was no year 0 so add 1 to 2010 = 2011
" in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened." (Genesis 7:11). When you convert the 17th day of the 2nd month in the Jewish calendar you get May 21st
Therefore the rapture is going to happen on May 21st 2011

It is all so clear! The scary thing is, I am not making this up. There are so many things wrong with this I just don't know where to start.

Let just assume the first premise, although to me it seems more like an assertion than anything else. There are a host of other suggestions for the Ark going as far as 2348 BC by James Ussher which is a 2600 year error of margin.

The whole "day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day" is not some exact mathematical conversion formula to work out the ratio of God's time to human time. It just doesn't work (and is probably kinda the point of the verse in the first place). The verse also says that a thousand years is like a day. I don't know why this guy doesn't also apply this logic to the six days of creation and immediately assume creation took 6000 years, after all 2 Peter 3:8 says so (by his own logic).

Also if a day is equal to a thousand years (which the text doesn't say - it says it is like not equal to a thousand years) then does that mean an hour is equal to 41 years? I think Camping needs to work out what time the Ark set sail, as if it wasn't at midnight on the 17th day of the second month but at 1am. If there is one hour difference in this equation the Rapture could come in 2052 instead. You might not think that logic is fair as after all they didn't have our 24 hours measurements back then, but they also didn't have "May" or 2 Peter either. Again, we can assume that the Ark was around the Middle East somewhere, which is between +2 and + 4 GMT and America is -8 to -4 GMT. I hope Camping catered for time zones as well...

I also have no idea about the connection between the Rapture and Noah. Maybe the whole "as in the days of Noah" thing that Jesus says in Matthew 24 and Luke 17, but that very same passage also has Jesus explaining what those days of Noah looked like: "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" (Matt 24:26-27; Luke 17:26-27) which doesn't really tie His second coming to a particular date or generation down, as for a long time now (throughout all of history maybe?) people have been eating, drinking, getting marrying and divorced....

I also don't know why the focus on the seven days it took to load the ark. Why no focus on the rain that fell for 40 days? "Forty days" is mentioned at least four times in the Noah story or why not look at the two mentions of the150 days the water hung around for? If that is the case Camping could be out by 40,000 to 150,000 years!

If this guy takes the Bible so seriously maybe he should read:

"when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him." (Deut 18:22)

"when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.” (Jer 28:9)

"When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them." (Ezek 33:33)

You might say, based off the above verses, that maybe we should give Camping the benefit of the doubt and wait for the time to come to pass, so we can then call him on it. You know, not pounce on the guy. The thing is, Camping already said Jesus was going to come back on September 6, 1994! (article, video) He was wrong then, so I think that means he isn't a prophet. My money is on him being wrong on May 21, 2011.

While writing this rant, I found another mathematical proof Camping uses to get to May 21, 2011 as being the date for the end of the world. I might also spend some time looking at that other proof.

Counterfeit Gods are Idols

2011-04-06T10:07:00.001+10:00

The last book that I read over my summer holiday was Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller. In this book Keller expounds an idea that I have heard by Driscoll and Stephen Um speak on (who both attribute their stuff from Keller).

Keller starts by justifying what an idol is and removes the concept from little carved images, but being anything really that we make an ultimate thing, and most of the time it is a good thing. Keller then spends each chapter on focusing on some idols he thinks present day people might have such as family, romantic love, money, success and power.

Instead of going to some propositional statements like "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" or "God opposes the proud and give grace to the humble," Keller goes about telling stories from the Old Testament. I think this is to draw the reader into a living example and we probably remember and enjoy stories better than dry statements about what we should and should not do. Anyway it made the book more enjoying to read, than a series of doctrinal statements.

When looking at the idol of family the testing of Abraham with the binding of Isaac is looked at . With romantic love the story of Jacobs love for Rachel and him being tricked into marrying Leah is looked at. Keller uses the phrase "in the morning it was Leah" as a parable of most idols. At night we thing we are seeking after our desires, but in the morning it is Leah. Our idols are always Leah... The book also tells the story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5 and Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2 and 4 to show how power and success are fleeting. Then the book turns to the story of Jonah and to the topic of hidden idols. Sometimes it easy to see idols in other people, such as the topics of the other chapters, but we have secret idols in our own hearts. Ultimately the goal is really to replace our idols/functional saviours with the true God. One that we can not control and who challenges us.

Like other Keller books, this one was easy to read and very clear. Keller seems to be well read and knows how to engage/communicate to his reader. It is well worth a read.

Other books by Tim Keller I have read:
The Prodigal God
The Reason For God

Why the Gospels were written about 25 years after Jesus

2011-03-15T14:26:00.000+11:00

I am finally wrapping up this series that has taken me way longer than expected to write (I started in July 2010).

After reading chapter 4 of Dean Overman's A Case for the Divinity of Jesus: Examining the Earliest Evidence I changed my mind on the dating of the Gospels. This series will pretty much be based off that chapter from his book title: "Reliability of the Canonical Gospel Accounts is Supported by the Historical Evidence".

From looking at a range of historical events, church fathers and modern scholars I think the Synoptic Gospels were written about 25 (give or take 5) years after Jesus' death and resurrection. 25 years after the events may seem like a little gap in time, but it is well within living memory and this date doesn't include possible other sources in the Synoptic Gospels that were either written down before hand or orally kept in memory.

One argument that the Gospels were written after 70 AD is based on a prophecy that Jesus said about an "abomination of desolation" (in Matthew and Mark) or Jerusalem being surrounded by armies (in Luke) which kinda took place in 70 AD. Since prophecy can't happen, the words Jesus is recorded to have said must have been written post the event. The problem with this is the specifics that Jesus is recorded to have said would have been bad advice in 70 AD for the hills he tells people to flee to were in the hands of the army for a good two years before that.

Another problem I have with a post 70 AD date comes form my assumption that Mark was written first, as both Matthew and Luke borrow/copy from Mark and that Acts was written after Luke.

Acts makes no mention of the fall of Jerusalem which kinda goes against the point of the book, which was to record an orderly account of what happened in the early church. If Luke was written after 70 AD and Acts was written after this, then the destruction of Jerusalem is quite a bit oversight. But that isn't the only historical oversight that Acts leaves out if written post 70 or even post 62:

Paul's death is missing from Acts which people assume happened around 67 AD.

Peter's death is also missing from Acts (around 67/68 AD), and the next generation thought that Mark wrote his Gospel before Peters death, so at least the Gospel of Mark had to have been written before this.

Paul cites the Gospel of Luke in 1 Timothy, and if Paul died before 67/68 AD then the Gospel of Luke had to have been written before that.

James' death is missing from Acts which people assume happened around 62 AD.

Nero's persecution of the Christians is not mentioned in Acts (around 64 AD), which again if written post 70 AD would have been an important event in early church history or overlook.

To be fair I should point out that some scholars and sceptics may say that some of my argument is one from silence, as I mention what Acts doesn't include. But I think the omissions point to an early writing of Acts which then pushes the Synoptic Gospels to be before that.

Overman argues:

The most reasonable explanation for the absence of any reference to the death of James, the outcome of Paul’s trial, and the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple is that Luke wrote Acts prior to any of these events. In other words, Acts was most likely written no later than AD 62, the year of James’s execution.

Because Acts was written after the gospel of Luke, the gospel account must have been written before AD 62. Luke appears to have relied on Mark. This means that the most accurate date for the composition of Mark would then be before the late 50s. We are now looking at dates of composition within the first two decades after the crucifixion of Jesus. (p 87)

Conclusions
So what is the point of this whole series? So what if the Gospels were written around 70-90 AD and not 50-60 AD? In all honesty, I don't think much. Both time periods are within eye witnesses life spans meaning the Gospels can give a first hand account of what took place. I more just want an alarm bell to ring in your head when you hear people taking about the dates of the Gospels and to question the underlying assumptions that they are making.

A third of Overcoming Sin and Temptation

2011-03-07T15:14:00.000+11:00

Overcoming Sin and Temptation is a collection of three books by John Owen which has been very lightly edited. You can tell it is going to be a hard task when the first 50 pages of the book contains a warning from the editors that John Owen is hard to understand. The editors wanted to keep the spirit of John Owen in his works, so this is not a paraphrase of his ideas, all the editors have done is change the spelling of the old English words to contemporary American spelling, changed the bible references from Roman numerals into our numbers and they have put in some sub headings along the way. They also lessened the significance of the chapter breaks as it seems John Owen didn't put them in logical spots when related to his whole argument. In this volume the three John Owen books are, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers; Of Temptation: The Nature and Power of It and Indwelling Sin. They all seem to have a common theme....

Anyway I tried to read this whole volume, but only managed to get through the first book and then call it a day. This wasn't the first time that I have tried to read John Owen. When I was getting into the Limited Atonement debate I heard that Owen's Death of Death in the Death of Christ book was the definitive work on the issue, and maybe it is, but for the life I me I don't think I really understood what he was saying.

In the Mortification of Sin in Believers Owen argues that believers should war against their sinful nature and to be ever on their guard. They should reflect and take note when they are most likely to be tempted and they should repent and also feel free from the guilt as Jesus has forgiven them. One thing that I did notice about this book when compared to modern day books on fleeing from sin and striving for holiness, is that Owen didn't (at least what I could understand) stress anything about living in a community or about confessing your sins to people who are around to help you out in life. Maybe it was a given back then, but today it seems that community and confession are the big things that gets written about. You Can Change comes to mind as a good modern book that I think says what Owen wants to say as well as including a community support idea.

Because the original books were written a long time ago they are out of copy write and so should be free online in their original English, but after a Google search it seems that this exact volume is free online (pdf). So maybe download that and see if you could read Owen. If anything maybe the introductions to each book and the outlines at the end might be a good quick summary of what Owen has said.

Another book that I couldn't get to the end of:
The Gagging of God by Don Carson

Pouncing in the Evangelical World

2011-02-28T12:09:00.004+11:00

I once was in a bible study where pouncing on someone was banned. Not the physical act of jumping on someone (although it probably was banned but that (hopefully) went without saying), but the act of verbally jumping in on what someone is saying before they finished what they were saying or immediately after what they said. Most of the time when you immediately counter what someone had said, it means you weren't listening to everything been said, as you were busy thinking about how you would respond. Now having this rule might indicate who I am (or was a few years ago) but I think it has merit, especially on blogs.

Rob Bell has a new book coming out called Love Wins. I haven't read this book but I know about it from what some people in the evangelical world have said about it, and apparently Rob Bell is now a universalist. I say "apparently" because the people who have written about Rob Bell's book haven't actually read the book.

John Piper tweeted "Farewell Rob Bell" and linked to an article by Justin Taylor where Taylor admits:

I haven’t read the whole book yet and was hesitant to say something based on the publisher’s description (which usually isn’t written by the author). But this video from Bell himself [link] shows that he is moving farther and farther away from anything resembling biblical Christianity

And then point 4 on his update to the original article Taylor has said:

I highly doubt that this is a mere marketing stunt or that Bell is merely asking questions or playing Devil’s Advocate. If it turns out that the full book is diametrically opposed to his publisher’s description and to the conclusions he wants you to reach in the video, I will make that clear on this blog.

Josh Harris also tweeted and linked to the same article by Taylor and then posted a follow up blog saying:

Many people have challenged me for tweeting my dismay over Rob Bell's new book when it hasn't been released yet. I think the content of his video alone is concerning enough to be challenged. But I will read the book and if it contradicts the publisher's description and the content of the video I will rejoice and I will apologize to Rob for jumping to conclusions. (At which point I hope Rob will forgive me and also thank me for helping to make his book a best-seller.) Honestly, I would loved to be proved wrong and look stupid on this one.

What I think is that their judgements about Bell might be a bit premature. I think these guy would humbly apologise if they are wrong, but why pounce on the guy based off a teaser video or a publishers description about the book? Surly it is possible to hold your judgement until you have actually read the book before you label the guy a universalist... isn't it?

Kevin DeYoung also blogged about Hell and Rob Bells book but he gives me the impression that some of his judgement about Bell is on hold:

I am eager to read the book, not to pick a fight (though sometimes we need to fight, and this is one of those times), but because a book like this from a prominent pastor like this needs a response, many responses. We should be thankful for the clarity, but saddened by the content.

I have read one of Rob Bell's books and I wasn't overly impressed, but I think we should give the guy the benefit of the doubt until we have actually heard what he thinks, rather than what the teasers say about the book. You know the idea of waiting for the other guy to finish speaking before we pounce on them. I think someone once said something about being quick to listen and slow to speak...I think the bible also says something about Christians having a patience character...

If it turns out that Rob Bell holds that Hell is empty and everyone who has ever existed goes to Heaven, then sure label the guy a universalist and even a heretic (by which I am using in the tradition sense of the word, which doesn't apply to someone like Richard Dawkins, as Dawkins isn't part of, nor claiming to be part of the Church).

If anything Bell might sell some more books, which is kinda what the publishers wanted in the first place... which again should make you think about their agenda for the blurb and teaser trailer that sparked this whole debate in the first place...

Update (2nd March)
Kevin DeYoung has weighed in again in Two Thoughts on the Rob Bell Brouhaha saying that Bell says enough in the promo video as it is possible to make a point by asking questions (which I do agree with).

The upcoming Gospel Coalition conference is now going to have a special session with Don Carson on universalism, exclusivism, the love of God and heaven and hell as kinda a response to this book (remember it isn't out yet).

Al Mohler has commented on his blog wondering if Justin Tylor was too early to comment but he says the publishers blurb is enough to nail Bell on.

Christianity Today has also written about Rob Bell's Upcoming Book on Heaven & Hell Stirs Blog, Twitter Backlash on Universalism and links to some others who have commented.

ABC Religion have quite a good article on the people behind the situation and a little bit of a focus on the poor guy who's twitter name is @RobBell (not @RealRobBell). There are some points between praxis and doctrine that I might differ with...

Death by Love

2011-02-23T19:14:00.000+11:00

The first sermon series I ever listened to by Mark Driscoll was Christ on the Cross. Each talk looked at one aspect of the Atonement and I thought they were all really good talks (the first one might have been a bit graphic, but seriously download them, they are free). This book, Death by Love is a adaptation of that sermon series. Rather than being a bit intellectual or a bit of abstract theology this books sets each chapter as a letter to someone Driscoll has had contact with. The point is to show how a theology of Atonement relates to real life.

Each chapter is addressed to a wide range of people who are paedophiles, religious legalistic, business men, a guy who's wife had cheated on him, Driscoll's youngest son, drug addicts, a rape victim, Christians and non-Christians. Driscoll see the Atonement as jewel that has many sides, so rather than just focusing on one theory of what happened on the cross, each chapter deals with a different aspect of the Atonement, such as: Christus Victor, Christus Exemplar, substitution, ransom, redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, expiation and the tension between unlimited and limited atonement. These theories are then applied to each person to meet them where they are at. Some of it is to comfort them (Jesus cleanness you from your sin) others are to kick them up the pants (Jesus hates your sin).

A few chapters felt a little repeated, as Driscoll would find an issue someone is experiencing, be it hate for someone, or a sense of justice or debt that someone owes them, and then after explaining how that issues may well be justifiable in their circumstance, Driscoll gets them to think about their relationship with God and how that issues would relate between them and God. Most of the time people don't come off very good in relation to God.

A very minor issue I had with the book is Driscoll's attempt to relate with two of the guys in the book. In one chapter Driscoll says he was once similar with a guy who was struggling with lust as they "both went to college intent on fighting, partying, and having lots of sex with hot girls." (p67) but two chapters over Driscoll again says to the self righteous man they they are similar as when growing up Driscoll thought he was "a 'good,' moral, religious person who was good at rule keeping" who "never did drugs or drank" and was voted the most likely to succeed (p93). Now I know there is a difference between why you think about yourself and what you actually are, and that people are multi-dimensional, but (and like I said this is a very minor point and about the only negative I could think of in the book) I wasn't sold on his relating to the two guys. Maybe you shouldn't read the chapters too close together...

Perhaps the book is also a bit edgy just for the sake of being edgy. Driscoll picks some extreme examples of people maybe to show the extent of how much God will forgive people, but then again perhaps examples more like the average reader might also have been helpful...

Overall I liked the book and what it set out to do, and I would even recommend it to people. I wish I had read the book about six months earlier when I had to write an essay on the Atonement.

You can read chapter 1 online and watch the book's video below (from the book's site):

My other book reviews by Driscoll:
A Book You'll Actually Read on the New Testament
A Book You'll Actually Read on the Old Testament
A Book You'll Actually Read on God
Confessions of a Reformission Rev

Why the Gospels were written before 62 AD - part 2

2011-02-09T10:25:00.003+11:00

I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without any prejudice in favour of the conclusion which I shall now attempt to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tübingen theory had at one time quite convinced me. It did not lie then in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvellous truth. In fact, beginning with the fixed idea that the work was essentially a second-century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first-century conditions,.

Regardless of how right Luke got other peoples names and titles right it still needs to be pointed out that Luke doesn't mention any Emperor at all. But, likewise with the siege and fall of Jerusalem, or the death of prominent early Christian figures, the Roman persecution of Christians isn't mentioned in Acts. This might not be seen as a big deal, but if you were giving an account on the first generation of Christians and how they went under the ruling class, it is a bit strange not to mention the persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire. James and Peter both write to Christians who are part of the "dispersion" (James 1:1, 1 Peter 1:1) which most people think is a reference to the Christians fleeing from the Romans. James and Peter mention it, because it had happened, Luke may not have mentioned it as it hadn't happened yet.

Overman finds this argument from silence compelling that Acts was written before 64 AD. He also quotes another guy to make his case:

Luke gives no indication whatsoever of the slaughter and massacre of Christians under the Neronian persecution of AD 64. John A. T. Robinson, in examining this remarkable silence, rightly concludes that the burden of proof is on those who would maintain that Acts was composed later than AD 62:

The burden of proof would seem to be heavily upon those who would argue that it does come later, and there is nothing, as far as I can see, in the theology or history of the Gospel or Acts that requires a later date if the prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem do not. From the internal evidence of the two books we should therefore conclude (as did Eusebius) that Acts was completed in 62 or soon after, with the Gospel of Luke some time earlier. (p 96-97)

Confessions of a Saint

2011-02-04T09:26:00.002+11:00

The Confessions of Saint Augustine is a "classic" work, which I think because it is quite old. The book is still in print and new covers of it come out quite regularly which is not bad for a book written sixteen hundred years ago. I doubt anything I ever write will even make it press in the first place.

There are many outlines of this book, wikipedia has a summary of it that you can check out if your interested in it's structure, I'll just comment a few things that come to mind from the book.

Augustine talks about his conversion and the key people who helped him come to be a Christian. In it his mother gets a very long look in and he seems to regret the pain he caused her in his childhood. Even though the book was written in the fourth century, astrology is treated as something that is used to fool people and that it shouldn't be trusted. He confessed himself to be quite a smart man, and his travels (to study and teach) and conversations seemed to indicate that. He got caught up in Manichaeism (I had to look it up) and after meeting one of the top dogs of the religion he became disillusioned as he didn't seem to be able to answer his questions. Augustine was then very cautious about joining another religion but over time he became a Christian. He also struggles with the idea of eternity and time which was interesting to see what their thinking in the fourth century was back then.

But the main thing that anyone should get from reading this book is Augustine's reverence for God. Augustine comes across as someone who is overwhelming grateful to God for saving him from his sins. Although he mentions his intelligence he comes across quite humble and indebted to his mother.

On the down side some chapters in this book go off into some theoretical ideas that don't seem to fit with the rest of the book, kinda like a stream of conscience experiment. I don't really read autobiographies but I guess if you are going to read one, maybe you should read on that isn't written in our own language, country or time period to further your horizons and all that.

Confessions is well past its copyright so you can read it online (in Latin as well), download the pdf, or in epub for mobile devices.

Chesterton on the Orthodox Faith

2011-01-31T09:25:00.001+11:00

I started reading this book on my phone as I found out it came with an epub reader. I then got some book vouchers for Christmas and dumped about $7 to get this in a book. I had read one other book by G. K. Chesterton which I loved, and this one met my expectations. In fact it was one book that I really looked forward in reading.

This book comes as a response to another book Chesterton wrote called Heretics where he refuted others without really putting forward his own world view. In this book he attempts to argue for the rationality of the Christian faith and of all places starts by arguing for fairy tales.

Chesterton is a brilliant writer and for a short period of time I even tried to tweet some of his lines (at least from the from the first 3 chapters although 140 characters sometimes doesn't give his statements much justice). He writes in paradoxes and he has this twisted reason that kinda works. About half way in I did think Chesterton must have been a little mad, but that is what made him so good to read. After reading this book I thought that anyone who was going to enter into some (Christian) religious debate should read this book first, as even though this is about 100 years old the same issues about Christianity are still coming up.

This book is a little autobiographical as Chesterton explains how he came to trust in orthodox faith. He says his rise to the Orthodox faith was like a guy who discovered England only to realise that many other people before him already had. Chesterton did not become Orthodox by learning the faith from the church, but actually by listening and reading things from sceptics of his day and seeing that they didn't have a case. Throughout the book he disagrees with determinism (and Calvinism), pragmatism, evolution, atheism, agnosticism, and argues for reason, free will and fairy-tales. He is quotable and even in the past I have quoted from this book here twice.

I do not think this review had done this book justice. All I have to say is that in 2011 you must read at least one book by G. K Chesterton. You can download Orthodoxy for free in pdf, word or audio formats and for your mobile device.

Another review of a Chesterton book I have read:
The Man Who Was Thursday

You Can Change

2011-01-27T21:23:00.000+11:00

I got this book for free at the last Canberra Men's Convention. The organisers picked this book, not because there were lots of copies lying around in book stores (in fact they had to specially order a bunch of these books from the UK and then get a truck from (I think) Brisbane to drive them down to make it in time for the convention) but they thought this would be a good and helpful book for people to read, and I think they were right.

You Can Change by Tim Chester sounds like yet another self help book, but really it is quite to opposite. Really it should be called something like: God Can Change You.

This book looks at sin and encourages us, by God's grace that we can overcome these struggles in our life. That sounds ever so nice but the book is also realistic. Chester admits that no one can ever be perfect this side of eternity, but the challenge of the book is for us to flee from sin as much as we can. It challenges us to look at our hearts and see where our true desires are. Chester tries to understand the human heart and argues that just by resisting something is not enough to deal with deep seeded problems. Our root problems are our desires, and the point is that we should have stronger desires for God and a hatred for sin. We are to prepare ourselves for a life time of daily struggles, but also we should remember that in Jesus we have a life time of hope under grace. There is also a strong emphasis on confession and community.

I think the best way to read this book would be in pairs or maybe a small group or say no more that four people. You are encouraged to pick one area of your life as your "Change Project" and at the end of each chapter there are questions about your change project and how you are going to overcome these struggles. This makes the book deeply practical and forces you to really think about your heart and what your desires are.

Some of the chapters move a little slow and sometimes it becomes a bit of a doctrine text book dealing with topics like holiness, justification and sanctification but despite that I think maybe this year I might re-read this book with one or two other guys. It is worth a read, especially if you think through the questions at the end of each chapter.

Read your Bible in 2011

2010-12-31T17:16:00.004+11:00

"I charge every reader to remember that God’s written Word is the only rule of faith, and to believe nothing to be true and soul-saving in religion which cannot be proved by plain texts of Scripture. I entreat him to read the Bible and make it his only test of truth and error, right and wrong." - J.C. Ryle; The Upper Room, Our Profession

About this time of year people start to make resolutions. Resolutions are not bad in and of themselves, in fact Jonathan Edwards has famously made a few. Anyway for 2011, can I encourage you to make a resolution to read the bible in 2011.

I tried a few years back before I was married and I went OK. When the Canberra winter came in (so probably in March :), I found it hard to get out of bed in the morning. The reading plan I was also doing involved reading from four parts of scripture, so a simpleton like me found it hard to hold the four parts in my head together. Over at The Gospel Coalition, they have a great article on reading plans and list the same short comings I found with the plan I started. They then offer a pdf with a modified reading plan that takes two years. It seems alright.

If macro is not your thing then over at The Resurgence they are "Partnering to Remember" all of Philippians before Easter 2011. They also have a pdf resource that you can download to help you out.

And for those who think these two reading plans don't work for them, YouVersion have a few to choose from. When I stopped reading the 4 sections of scripture a day, I jumped across to use their Chronological one, and with YouVersion you can use your RSS reader on their plans, so if you read articles anyway in your feed reader, why not also add the bible?

Is incest the new homosexuality?

2010-12-21T12:11:00.000+11:00

A professor in New York has been accused of incest with his adult daughter. Both sides were consenting, so why is this still illegal? Most stories are drawing parallels with homosexuality and incest. If both parties are consenting then why is this so bad?

My first answer (besides claiming some moral grounds based off a standard set by God, which I doubt would fly for most people) is the biological one. Think of the offspring! But now days there are so many contraception tools that offspring need not be connected with sex anymore. And if a biological argument against incest can be made, why isn't there one for homosexuality? No offspring can be produced in a homosexual relation, therefor it is against biology. This argument is generally counted by something like: this is about love between two people, that knows no bounds. Why isn't it same with incest in this case?

An argument that says homosexuality is different to incest isn't based off consent, (or even faithfulness and monogamy) but its based off who you are. But if who you sleep with defines who you are if you are gay, why isn't it also the same for heterosexuals?

Back in the day it might have been a news story if a professor was gay, and he probably would have been socially stigmatized for being so. Today that is not the case. Although some backwater places still deem homosexual behavior illegal, (look at recent news stories about FIFA, Qatar and gays). I wonder if the same thing will happen with incest? In say 50 years (or less) will people look back on us and think we had backward, oppressive laws?

Maybe in the future, people in Australia won't need to sign a stat dec before they get married to say they are not related to each other (and that they are not already married to someone else). One day we might be progressive and open to all people. It seems that China, France, Israel, the Ivory Coast, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain and Turkey have already beaten Australia to the mark.

William Saletan on Slate.com runs through an argument as to why homosexuality is ok and incest is bad: because Incest is Cancer to the family (but doesn't everyone have a right to do what they want in their own family? 8 other countries don't seem to have an issue with this). Al Mohler also posted on this topic, responding to the Slate article: So Why is Incest Wrong?

Finally Doug Willson sums up his article with: "Do you object to a guy bonking his sister? You, my friend, are clearly filled with hate."

2010 Conference Talks

2010-12-14T12:03:00.001+11:00

Well NTE has come and gone from my fair town (and I missed all the talks, this time they were charging $10 for each and I was busy when it was on. Hopefully they will put the audio up for free like they have with last years NTE), which is a reminder to me that I normally list out some conferences that I have attended for the year, or that I have downloaded for free. And this year is no exception, so on with the list for 2010:

Think Conference: I thought this was one of the best conference for the year and well worth downloading. The challenge was to get people to think deeply about God, culture and their lives. I am also going though a Francis Chan and Kevin DeYoung phase and this conference had both guys. Other speakers also included: Rick Warren, Randy Alcorn, R. C. Sproul, Thabiti Anyabwile, Al Mohler, Tullian Tchividjian and John Piper

Plant and Build: This conference was the 2010 Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference and is well worth a listen to, especially the one on The Advantage of a Small(er) Church and The Savior Sees. The first one I mention is refreshing as normally big conferences get big name speakers from big church, but this talk is from a guy who has about 250 in his church and I thought had a more normal view of the life of a church pastor. The second talk I mention is a good challenge for us to tell more people about Jesus. One of Kevin's talks was the same at the one from the conference above, but it was a good one on the mission of the church. The speakers at this conference were: C. J. Mahaney, Rick Gamache John Loftness, Kevin DeYoung, Jim Donohue, Dave Harvey

Together for the Gospel 2010: This conference happens every two years and they are pretty top notch. I did think R. C. Sproul (who, like the Think Conference spoke again from a video and not in person) was a bit philosophical/intellectual. Matt Chandler spoke about suffering (as Mahaney offered to give up his time for Chandler to speak, but the organisers made an extra slot for Mahaney at the end anyway). I'm going through a bit of a history phase at the moment and I really enjoyed Lig Duncan's talk on the early Church Fathers. Other speakers include: Al Mohler, Mark Dever, John MacArthur, John Piper and Thabiti Anyabwile

Next 2010: Next always has good talks at their conference. There is even a talk on the end times, which could be seen as a polarizing topic, but I thought it was handled well (some would probably disagree with me on this). The speakers at this conference was: Joshua Harris, Mark Dever, C. J. Mahaney, Kevin DeYoung, Don Carson and Jeff Purswell.

KEC - Living Proof: Christians in a Sceptical World: I attended this event (and already have blogged about it). The idea was for us to be thinking Christians in our world (a bit like the Think Conference above). John Lennox was there and next year, if you get a chance he and Piper are going to be at the Oxygen conference in Sydney. Stephen Um and Ray Galea also spoke at this conference. The talks aren't free

Engage 10 - Working for Good: Another conference by the Katoomba people that I attended this year (and also blogged about). This was a great topic about how we connect our lives on Sunday in Church to that on Monday at the work place. It is well worth a listen to, I think Tim Blencowe did a really good job and Steve Timmis also wasn't too bad either. Again, the talks aren't free :(

CCMC 10 - Walking Straight: Being Men of Integrity: This was a men's convention in Canberra that I attended (also previously blogged about). Mike Raiter was the speaker and he did a good job at going through Luke 12, 18-19. At the conference we also got a free book, so that made this conference one of the best this year. All the talks for past Canberra mens conventions can be found here for free.

Don Carson at Ridley on the Psalms: I had a mate who went to this and found that the audio was up for free, so I thought it would be worth checking out. Carson gives a talk on 5 Psalms, teasing out what they say and mean. Every now and again throughout he would point out what he would say if giving the talk to his Church as a way of instruction to show the audience of bible students how he would preach. This link not only has the five talks Carson gave, but also other talks he gave while in Australia.

Resolved 2010: To be honest, I don't remember the talks from this conference, except for C. J. Mahaney's one titled "I wish I'd Been There" which has me wondering if I actually listened to the other talks, or if Mahaney had given that talk some where else. Speakers at this conference were: Rick Holland, Al Mohler, Steve Lawson, C.J. Mahaney and John MacArthur. I could have downloaded the audio and not listened to it, as I did that with the next conference below...

Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright: This conference looked interesting and I even downloaded all the audio, but I never listened to any of these talks. There were lots of speakers here, and if you do listened to these talks, let me know how they go :)

Exchange Conference: This conference looks really cool, but the resurgence site is only slowly putting up the videos (not the audio) of this conference here. It seems to be on how Christianity is to engage with different parts of life and society. I'm going to check back in a while to see if they put the audio up, as it looks like it would have been good to listen to. The speakers were: Peter Jones, Mark Driscoll, Francis Chan, Kevin DeYoung, Pamela Frost , Joel Pelsue, Linda Harvey and Jefferey Ventrella

The God who is there: Last year Don Carson gave an overview of the bible in 14 talks. Those talks were turned into a book, but now you can download the audio for free. I have only just finished the 3rd talk and they seem to be pretty good. They are aimed at people who have limited or no knowledge of the bible, but I think it still is helpful for people who have read the bible to be reminded about the big narrative of the bible. There are also little bits from the wise Don that are new to me.

The Gospel and Personal Evangelism Conference: In my RSS read I have this item stared to remind me that I thought this conference looked good. This audio from some 9marks guys who went over to Dubai to speak to some ministers over there. The topics look "basic" but like the Carson link above, I think they would be helpful to all Christians to get a good grasp of the fundamentals.

Previous conference talks posts:

2009 Conference Talks

2008 Conference Talks

2007 Conference Talks

Why the Gospels were written before 62 AD - part 1

2010-11-29T14:46:00.001+11:00

After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies, since indeed he did not use woolen vestments but linen and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels' knees. (Chapter 2 of De Viris Illustribus)

I say all this to point out that James was well respected and no less a key player in the early church than Peter and Paul and yet Jame's death is not recorded in Acts and he died about 5 years before Peter and Paul in 62 AD.

Josephus' (30-100 AD) second reference to Jesus in his Antiquities of the Jews is more of a reference about James' death than Jesus (which makes it less likely to be doctored than his first reference to Jesus. You can read my take on each Josephus quote in my other series on Jesus outside the Bible). The quote in question is:

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned... (Antiquities of the Jews, 20.200)

It should be noted that Hegesippus also comments on Jame's death, adding a bit more drama to Josephus' account, saying:

The aforesaid scribes and Pharisees accordingly set James on the summit of the temple, and cried aloud to him, and said: “O just one, whom we are all bound to obey, forasmuch as the people is in error, and follows Jesus the crucified, do thou tell us what is the door of Jesus, the crucified.” And he answered with a loud voice: “Why ask ye me concerning Jesus the Son of man? He Himself sitteth in heaven, at the right hand of the Great Power, and shall come on the clouds of heaven.”

And, when many were fully convinced by these words, and offered praise for the testimony of James, and said, “Hosanna to the son of David,” then again the said Pharisees and scribes said to one another, “We have not done well in procuring this testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, that they may be afraid, and not believe him.” ... So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to one another: “Let us stone James the Just.” And they began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said: “I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

And, while they were thus stoning him to death, one of the priests, the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom testimony is borne by Jeremiah the prophet, began to cry aloud, saying: “Cease, what do ye? The just man is praying for us.” But one among them, one of the fullers, took the staff with which he was accustomed to wring out the garments he dyed, and hurled it at the head of the just man.

And so he suffered martyrdom; and they buried him on the spot, and the pillar erected to his memory still remains, close by the temple. This man was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. (Acts of the Church, Book 5, fragment 1)

Since Acts was written after the Gospel of Luke, and if the Gospels were written after 70 AD, there seems to be some massive historical events that Luke didn't include in Acts. It's almost as if he wrote Acts unaware of these events even happening...

There is one more key figure that Luke fails to mention in his early Church account that I want to look at, (before I try and tie this series all together) that person is Nero.

What the "Infographic of the Day: What The Bible Got Wrong" Got Wrong

2010-11-16T13:04:00.000+11:00

On the 11th of November the fastcompany's website put up an infographic from project reason that was made in 2009. According to fastcompany's about us page they "set the agenda, charting the evolution of business through a unique focus on the most creative individuals sparking change in the marketplace. By uncovering best and "next" practices, the magazine and website help a new breed of leader work smarter and more effectively." So clearly the topic of the Bible falls into their brief...

The same day fastcompany's post went up the Resurgence highlighted it and the next day Doug Wilison responded to two random contradictions and found them wanting. Today the Resurgence have highlighted another image that looks a bit like the image of the 439 contradictions in the Bible, only this is showing the 63,779 cross-references found in the Bible. That epic image can be downloaded in full here and I am pretty sure came out before 2009... is someone copying?

Check out the contradictions in point 7 and 9

Anyway the fastcompany's article says this image (the contradiction one, not the cross reference one) manages to make the ancient text "look downright silly" and that "the guy who compiled the data, cites 439 -- 439! -- questions the Bible equivocates on, often in several places." The amusing thing about the article is that in their own zoomed in image of the list of contradictions you can clearly see that point 7 and 9 are exactly the same. I wonder if this makes the article look downright silly? But it should also be noted that points 263 is the same as 264 and point 323 is the same as 324 (both are right next to each other). So really it should be 436 contradictions found (view the full size pdf to check)... Have fastcompany uncovered the best and "next" practice for smarter fact checking.... maybe for the Christians who looked at the details of the image they wrote about....

Since Doug Wilison looked at two contradictions, I might have a look at ~~four~~ two. I'm thinking point 7 (and 9) and point 323 (and 324) to test my faith in the consistency of the Bible. As Matt Perman has pointed out, when he was in college he saw that already every single "contradiction" had an answer. After all, the Christian religion has been around for some time now... (Although I do wonder if the contradictions that Doug found have been written about before as they seem pretty unique and might even stretch the meaning of contradiction).

Men Walk Straight

2010-11-04T20:32:00.000+11:00

On the 16th of October I attended the Canberra Christian Men's Convention. The speaker at this event was Mike Raiter who is the Principal of the Bible College in Victoria. The title of the conference was "Walking Straight: Being Men of Integrity" and rather than being exactly on integrity and what that is all about, it was more on been free from hypocrisy (which does have to do with integrity) and thinking about dependence on God and things that have eternal significance. There were four sessions that day where Mike gave three talks, from the Gospel of Luke and one session where there was a bit of a Q&A. The Q&A was a bit "meh" and I think Mike might have missed the meaning behind some of the questions, but the talks he gave were quite good. Mike was a good communicator, he spoke well, was down to earth and very easy to listen to. (A week before this event, I was at another conference in the same lecture theater, and it seemed that there was about twice as many men at this convention than there were for people to learn about Moodle - even when ANU offered 100 free tickets for its staff to attend...)

Mike's first talk was on Luke 12:13-32 where he challenged us to think about what ultimately last. God has made an appointment with each of us that may come at an inconvenient time, but regardless of the inconvenience He will call the meeting and we will make it. Mike pointed out studies that have concluded that since World War 2 people in the western world are more wealthy but also more stress. It seems that there isn't an exact coloration between happiness and wealth. Mike challenged us to think about being generous with our wealth and about our own eternal life. It is trusting in Jesus that lasts and He should be Lord over our wallets.

The second talk Mike gave was on Luke 18:9-19:10 where he drew a nice theme of dependence and asking for help throughout this whole passage. He saw that in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector that only the tax collector was dependent on God, and that both men went away with what they asked for (the Pharisee didn't ask for anything). With Jesus and the Little Children, the point is that children are depend on their parents for things, so likewise we should be dependent on God. With the rich you man, if he was to give away all his money he would then have to be dependent on Jesus who he was then to follow. The blind man also is dependent and asks Jesus for sight. With Zacchaeus we see the impossible happen. Jesus has said it is impossible for the rich the enter the kingdom of God, but here Zacchaeus is saved. From all this we are to approach Jesus on our knees, humbly like a child asking for help. We are not to think in our pride that on our own we can be right with God, or that we don't need help in our lives.

The last talk Mike gave was on Luke 19:11-27, the Parable of the Minas. Mike challenged us to think about how we are using the gifts God has given us for His kingdom. We should engage to do God's business till He comes again. It is important that we do not lose the fear of the Lord, as sometimes we think no one can see our sins, but Judgement Day is as sure as our balance sheets. We should aim to touch people's lives for eternity and to be greedy for the kingdom of God.

The organisers said that over the past few years their conferences had been making a profit, and so to give back to the people who attended, they thought they would give us all a book, You Can Change. They even had to specially order the book from England and truck it down from Brisbane for them to make it to us on time. I think getting a free book made the conference one of the best I have been to. The book sounds like a self help book, which goes against the whole dependence on God thing, but we were assured that it fits in with the them of trusting in Jesus. The book is about $12 and on top of the subway lunch, I think I got my monies worth for the conference.

Because the conference is run by some guys who aren't trying to make a buck (and who buy books for others with the profits they make), the conference audio will be online for free, probably appearing in this list of their past conference messages.

For more info on past Canberra Men's Conventions you can read my reviews here:
- 2008 Men's Convention on Ambition by Dave McDonald and Paul Dale
- 2009 Men's Convention on Tough Times by Al Stewart

An update about more updates

2010-10-26T09:48:00.000+11:00

a lot goes on but nothing happens
but this time that's not true - Ben Lee by The Araries

Over the last month I have been a bit busy with finishing some uni subjects so it has been rather quiet online. (I have been posting some interesting things I have read online on my series of links blog). Now that I have finished all my assessments I might start blogging again. Two weeks ago I finished an essay on the relationship between Mission, Evangelism and Apologetics and another on on Penal Substitution. I am pretty sure I will pass both those, but my Greek 2 subject might be touch and go this time round... I guess we will see.

If you are interested in what I have been up to, you can always check out my phone's blog for some snapshots of things I have been doing. It is kinda like a visual twitter, and speaking of which, I have now jumped on the 160 character band wagon and signed up. The main reason for this is that I got a new phone with HTC Peep with it, so I use that which is then linked to my Facebook status. This way it is easier to update my (so very important) status updates than opening up a browser, but it does mean I don't quickly see the responses people make Facebook...

On this blog I do want to finish my Dating the Gospels series and argue for an earlier date than 62 AD. Hopefully I will also write a review of the Canberra Men's Convention where everyone got a free book, You Can Change, which I want to read and will post a review of that when I am finished (along with all the other books I have put off over the last few months).

In other news a friend of mine who is doing a Doctorate of Theology and Ministry over in Durham has started his own blog that might be worth checking out. And today a mate of mine has written an article in the Punch.

Why the Gospels were written before 67 AD part 3

2010-09-24T15:20:00.002+10:00

And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. - Luke 10:6-8

For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” - 1 Tim 5:18

It is clear from the 1 Timothy reference, that Paul is relying on something that has been written down, not something that was in the oral tradition as he calls his reference "Scripture." The thing is, this good Jewish man, who must have read the Scriptures a few times in his years, doesn't quote his current cannon of Scripture (what we know as the Old Testament), he quotes a line from Luke. Regardless if you think the Gospel of Luke is actually scripture or not, from the text it seems that Paul thought so and for him to have thought that, it had to have been written before he wrote 1 Timothy.

Which brings us to an issue that does rest on this point, (but I don't want to dig into that much here) is that there is a debate as to weather Paul wrote 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. Perhaps that is another series I might write on. For now I will just say that it seems the current argument for Paul not writing these letters is getting quite small and I would like to point you to two hefty commentaries who's introduction deal with the authorship of these letters extensively:

The Pastoral Epistles by Ian Howard Marshall (1999) - His conclusion I don't agree with, but he looks at different views in detail and does hold to the letters having the mind of Paul;
Word Biblical commentary Pastoral Epistles by William D. Mounce (2000) - This guy literally wrote the text book for Greek and he looks as the original text of the letters in stacks of detail and concludes that the arguments for Paul not writing 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus do not hold ground.

For now this pdf document may give a quick summary of the reasons as to why people think Paul wrote these texts.

If Paul did write 1 Timothy (and I think he did) then it seems that Luke had to of been written before he was killed, hence before 67 AD

Why the Gospels were written before 67 AD part 2

2010-09-21T08:20:00.001+10:00

Eusebuis quotes Clement (96 AD) in Church Histories Book 6.14.5-7:

Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner: The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it.

Eusebuis quotes Papias (~140 AD) in Church Histories Book 3.39.14-15:

...now we must add to the words of his [Papias] which we have already quoted the tradition which he gives in regard to Mark, the author of the Gospel.

“This also the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.” These things are related by Papias concerning Mark.

Irenaeus (180 AD) comments on the authorship of all the Gospels in Against Heresies Book 3.1.1:

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

Tertullian (160-220 AD) in Against Marcion Book 4 Chapter 5:

I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew—whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s whose interpreter Mark was.

Eusebuis again cites another guy, Origen (185-254 AD) in Church Histories Book 6.25.5 who briefly mentions:

The second is by Mark, who composed it according to the instructions of Peter, who in his Catholic epistle acknowledges him as a son...

All these quotes are for me to make one point (although more could probably be made): it seems that people in the second century thought that in the first century (ie within living memory) that Mark wrote his Gospel when Peter was alive. Epically the earliest reference from Clement, which has Peter learning of the Gospel and being quite neutral about it.

"new" e-Sword resources

2010-09-19T12:50:00.000+10:00

A while ago I posted some old resources I made for e-Sword (a free bible software program that is worth checking out). Then, about six months ago I found e-sword-users.org which is like a central database for home made resources for e-Sword. I submitted my two resources and now they have been approved for download. I think you do have to register with the site, but the content is free and I haven't been spamed by these guys (in fact I completely forgot I sent them my home made resources until this morning when I got an email to confirm that they have been published.)

Anyway here they are, and if you find any mistakes in them, let me know (all bible references should be linked to the bible passage in e-Sword):

Spurgeon's Sermons - Volume 1 (1855) - This is a collection of all 50 unique sermons (he repeated 3 of them which aren't listed, just referenced) that Spurgeon gave in his first year of preaching (from Jan 7th to Nov 11th 1855).
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ - John Owen - This is a weighty book defending Limited Atonement. It also has a long forward by J. I. Packer which is worth reading by itself and is its own chapter in the book In My Place Condemned I Stood.

(mis)Quote on Doctrine

2010-09-10T16:46:00.001+10:00

A while ago a friend of mine posted on facebook "doctrine. Discuss" to which I replied:

It's like blood: meant to help you live. If you just store it up and collect it, your weird (and you might not be invited to parties).

My friend saw me at Engage 2010 and told me that he cited me and that quote in some resource that he was writing (I think it was for Moore college). So to anyone who is studying there, or anyone who comes across this blog post, I just want to be clear: I stole that quote. It is not mine, it is from Kevin DeYoung - from a talk he gave in at the Next 2010 Conference on scripture (mp3 link) around the 29:55 mark.

Engage 2010

2010-09-04T10:21:00.002+10:00

Last month I went to the first weekend of the Engage conference in Katoomba. The main thrust of the conference is to encourage Christian in the work force, and I think this year they really nailed their goal. The format this year was a little different from the last two I have attended. They put on two short talks on the Friday night and not just one long one. I thought the Friday short talks was a great idea, especially since we had traveled from Canberra and a 40min talk may have been a little bit of a struggle.

On the Saturday night there was a panel discussion where you could tweet or text a question to the panel members. The panel discussion I thought was a but "meh" but others seemed to have liked it. It was helpful to see how people did live a real Christian life in "secular" jobs. There was an ex-member of parliament and someone who worked in a high pressure law firm as well as Steve Timms and Colin Buchanan. Colin was pretty much the comic relief on the panel.

The two speakers this year was Tim Blencowe and Steve Timms.

I should be upfront that I might be biased about Tim, as I did Beach Mission with him, but I thought Tim was excellent and that his tone and assumption of the audience was spot on. He shook up the idea of us doing good works and drew from Titus, 1 Timothy and 2 Corinthians to show that Christians are to do good works to all people. He did stress that its not our good works that save us, but it is because we have been saved that we are to do good works. He showed convincingly that the Christian life is about doing good works and attacked the idea that because we are sinful can't do anything good. It is true that not all we do is good, but every good work does come from faith, and that there is no false choice between doing "God's work" and doing "good work." Tim hammered out the idea that there are no three ways to do "good works". Instead he set a framework for doing good and told us to just get out and do it. Tim elevated our weekday work to have significances and drew a connection between Church on Sunday and work on Monday. He challenged me to work harder at my job and to see that my job does have significances outside of my immediate field. I do think it would be worth the $2 for his talks.

Steve Timms talked on 1 Peter and probably stuck more to a passage than Tim did. Steve showed how the Christian are not in with the in crowd- they are not the cool kids, and it is a worry when Christians try to gain some social status at the expense of their faith. Instead Christian's identity comes for the image for God and how they are a chosen group, prepared to do goods works in the world. Some of the way Christians do this is by working along side all people, not just the "important" and giving all people respect. Another way is by fleeing from sinful desires (not behavior, as the desire dictates the behavior). Steve also stressed that Christians are called to live in community with each other.

Some quick negatives: The weather was freezing; the talks to download are $2 each; they had way too much bottled water; the election wasn't decided on that weekend and my engage bag got a rip in it the first day I took it to work (it was caused from the corners of a bible, I now put books spine down in the bag).

Some quick positives: The conference had 10:30am starts; they had Steve Morrison playing Saturday night (and Colin Buchanan also got up for an amusing impromptu scat song); they sold tickets for next year with John Piper and it was a good time to hang out with friends.

My negatives are quite small and some are out of the organisers control. Pretty much the conference was great, and I possibly had the best "experience" compared to past Engage conferences I have attended. If I published this blog post before their second weekend I would have encourage everyone to go, but then again that was already sold out anyway.

Some more links:
- Acts 29 have three more talks by Tim on themes from his book Total Church
- My reviews of Engage 09 and Engage 08

Why the Gospels were written before 67 AD part 1

2010-08-18T14:58:00.001+10:00

It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero. This account of Peter and Paul is substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of that place even to the present day....

And that they both suffered martyrdom at the same time is stated by Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in his epistle to the Romans, in the following words: “You have thus by such an admonition bound together the planting of Peter and of Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both of them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth. And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time.” I have quoted these things in order that the truth of the history might be still more confirmed.

Eusebius quotes Dionysius' letter to the Romans (~180 AD), which we have only have segments of it, but what we do have mentions:

Therefore you also have by such admonition joined in close union the churches that were planted by Peter and Paul, that of the Romans and that of the Corinthians: for both of them went to our Corinth, and taught us in the same way as they taught you when they went to Italy; and having taught you, they suffered martyrdom at the same time.

Which sounds a bit like the Eusbius quote. Also First Clement (88-97 AD) 5:1-9 mentions Peter and Paul's death, but not in any great detail.

The thing is, Acts doesn't mention the death of Paul at all. Like the destruction of Jerusalem, this is a huge deal that is left out, as the last half of Acts is all about Paul. Acts mentions Paul a whopping 132 times which by contrast, Jesus is only mentioned 72 times. Needless to say the death of Paul probably should have gotten a look in, but instead Acts ends almost abruptly with Paul under house arrest in Rome, where he was able to continue with his teachings. If Luke was written after 70 AD and Acts was written after it, there is no good reason as to why Luke would stop his account with Paul in prison.

It's also not like Luke doesn't avoid the death of Christians. Luke mentions in passing James the brother of John being killed by Herod and he goes into detail around the of the stoning of Stephen, who is not a big player and isn't mentioned in any other New Testament writings. If Luke and Acts were written after 70 AD it seems we are meant to believe that Luke skipped over the death of the main character of his book who was also the personal travelling companion of him.

Overman says:

The abrupt ending to Acts is remarkable and uncharacteristic of Luke’s thorough style. If Luke wrote after the outcome of Paul’s trial and failed to describe that outcome, it would be in some respects similar to his gospel account ending with Jesus being delivered to Pilate without any indication of his trial, his flogging, and his suffering, or his disciples claiming that he rose again. Luke gives no indication whatsoever of the slaughter and massacre of Christians under the Neronian persecution of AD 64. (p96)

Why the Gospels were written before 70 AD part 2

2010-08-13T12:46:00.002+10:00

After reading chapter 4 of Dean Overman's A Case for the Divinity of Jesus: Examining the Earliest Evidence I changed my mind on the dating of the Gospels. This series will pretty much be based off that chapter from his book title: "Reliability of the Canonical Gospel Accounts is Supported by the Historical Evidence". (Page numbers in this post come from this book.)

Pretty much everyone agrees that Acts was written by Luke who also wrote the Gospel of Luke. It is also agreed that Acts was written after Luke. The major proof of this is that they both start off addressed to the same guy, Theophilus, and Acts references a first book about the life of Jesus. Near the end of Acts (around chapter 18) the author writes themselves in with travelling around with Paul, and Paul seems to reference Luke three times in his letters. Also the earliest copies of Luke is ascribed to him, and people think that there is no good reason for the church to ascribed these works to a small figure like Luke, unless he was the guy who actually wrote them. And some people say that the writing styles are the same...

If the Gospel of Luke was written after 70 AD then the big question is: why did Luke not mention Jerusalem or the Temple been destroyed when he wrote Acts? It's not like Luke didn't talk about Jerusalem. The Gospel of Luke refers to Jerusalem the most out of the other Gospels (30 times), and Acts refers to Jerusalem the most out of any other New Testament writings (58 times). Jerusalem plays a key place in the book of Acts. It starts off set in Jerusalem, where the first Christian church started and then the Christians who were travelling all over the shop go back to Jerusalem to visit key people there (like Peter - the leader of the Apostles, James - the brother of Jesus and John - the beloved disciple), or plan going back there as it was the place where the first church had started. In Acts 15 there is even an important council that took place in Jerusalem. Paul also started raising money for the church in Jerusalem.

The destruction of Jerusalem would have been a big deal, and for Jewish people it would have probably been the biggest event that century for them, as their temple was destroyed. Back then it is good to remember that religion wasn't some private personal thing separated from politics; religion was ingrained in all parts of the Jewish culture. It seems strange that Luke doesn't record this war. He was after all trying to give an account on the early acts of the first Christians, and since Jerusalem was where it all started and where some key people were located, it would have been strange for him to just skip over it, that is if it was written after 70 AD. There isn't really a good reason as to why this is left out, unless it hadn't happened at the time of writing.

Overman quotes Gregory A Boyd:

For an author where narrative is centrally structured around Jerusalem (Luke 24:13; Acts 1:8) and who makes frequent mention of the temple (Acts 2:46; 3:1–2, 8, 10; 5:20–25; 21:28–30; etc.), their omission is most surprising. For an author who took the time to mention the much less significant expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius (18:2), the omission is indeed astounding. And for an author who is interested in how persecution of the church helped spread the Gospel around the world (e.g., 8:4), this omission comes close to being inexplicable—except on the supposition that he had no knowledge of these events! (p90)

Overman also quotes John A T Robinson on how none of the New Testament writings mention the destruction of the temple:

One of the oldest facts about the New Testament is that what on any showing would appear to be the single most datable and climactic event of the period—the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and with it the collapse of institutional Judaism based on the temple—is never once mentioned as a past fact. It is, of course, predicted; and these predictions are, in some cases at least, assumed to be written (or written up) after the event. But the silence is nevertheless as significant as the silence for Sherlock Holmes of the dog that did not bark. . . . Explanations for this silence have of course been attempted. Yet the simplest explanation of all, that ‘perhaps . . . there is extremely little in the New Testament later than A.D. 70’ and that its events are not mentioned because they had not yet occurred, seems to me to demand more attention than it has received in critical circles. (p90-91)

Is this journal article by Richard Carrier real?

2010-08-10T11:32:00.003+10:00

A while ago I asked the web if a quote was real and eventually the good folks on the internet helped me out. I am hoping this will happen again.

I'm after an article by Richard Carrier. Richard is a real life historian (Wikipedia after all cites an article from the NY Times about a movie to prove it) who denies the existence of Jesus (or that "it is very probable" he never actually existed) and so I wanted to read some peer reviewed journal articles by him. I am after one that for the life of me I can not find, but it is listed on a few places.

Wikipedia lists:
"Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity." Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2005).

Richards website lists:

"Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity," Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2005)

Richards CV on page 5 has:
"Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity," Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spr 2005): 22-34.

Richard also cites himself a year earlier here, here and here:
Richard Carrier, "Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity," Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2004).

But the problem I see is that the Journal of Higher Criticism website says that "The final issue of the Journal (Volume 10, No. 2) appeared in fall, 2003." Even Wikipedia repeats this "The final issue of the journal (Volume 10, No. 2) appeared in fall, 2003."

So where is this article? Or even anything else in Volume 11 of the Journal of Higher Criticism? I have tried a few journal databases and they come up blank...

A bit of help... anyone?

Why the Gospels were written before 70 AD part 1

2010-08-09T09:13:00.001+10:00

After reading chapter 4 of Dean Overman's A Case for the Divinity of Jesus: Examining the Earliest Evidence I changed my mind on the dating of the Gospels. This series will pretty much be based off that chapter from his book title: "Reliability of the Canonical Gospel Accounts is Supported by the Historical Evidence". (Page numbers in this post come from this book.)

We saw that the "abomination of desolation" that Jesus predicted is one of the main hinges as to why the Gospels were written post 70 AD, but if they were post the event, you would think that the authors would have Jesus giving clearer and a more accurate advice. Matthew 24:15-18 and Mark 13:14-16 has Jesus telling the people in Judea to flee to the mountains when they see this "abomination of desolation." The only problem was, that by the end of 67 AD, we learn from Josephus's The Jewish War (written around 75-80 AD) that the Romans controlled the hills.

Flavius Vespasian had an army and in 68 AD and was waiting for orders from Nero to take out Jerusalem, but Nero committed suicide (9 June 68). Galba took his place but was killed (15 Jan 69) by Otho who then ruled but also committed suicide (16 April 69). Vitellius then became the Emperor until Vespasian got jack of it all (until June 69). Vespasian, who was twiddling his thumbs (not really), still waiting for orders, named himself Emperor and left his son Titus to take out Jerusalem. (Josephus was tight with Titus and so was a first hand eye witness to all that was going on in Jerusalem).

If Jesus's advice was to flee to the hills when people saw the army coming, it would mean that they would have been told to run towards the army occupied territory. Pretty bad advice really. In fact the Christians did take some advice about fleeing from Jerusalem, but it wasn't to run to the hills as Jesus said. The advice they received (and took) was given "before the war" (making it before 66 AD) to run to Pella, according to Eusebius's Church History (Book III Chapter 5.3) (some people say he was quoting from the Memoirs of Hegesippus that was written around 165-175 AD). For some more info on the Christian movement to Pella see here and here.

Overman argues:

In AD 70 everyone would have known that the hills were in the hands of the Roman army at that time. An admonition to run into the hands of the Roman soldiers about to attack Jerusalem would make no sense. (p94)

Overman then quotes Robinson:

"It is clear at least that “the abomination of desolation” cannot itself refer to the destruction of the sanctuary in August 70 or to its desecration by Titus’ soldiers in sacrificing to their standards. By that time it was far too late for anyone in Judea to take to the hills, which had been in enemy hands since the end of 67." (p94)

Don't like this reason for the pre-70 AD date of the Gospels? There are more...

Why the Gospels were written after 70 AD

2010-08-05T11:58:00.023+10:00

Even using the more skeptical later dates of composition, the dates are sufficiently early for the authors of the canonical gospel accounts to have interviewed and learned from eyewitnesses to the life and death of Jesus. The presence of eyewitnesses available to correct any errors is sufficient whether the documents have the earlier dates or the dates given by a majority of contemporary scholars. (p85)

There still are some historical reasons as to why they were written earlier.

Now, its a historian's job is to weigh the historical evidence against different theories to make sure that they fit, and the best historical theory would fit with most of the historical evidence. Of cause there can be some things that might not fit correctly, but you would assume that overall you would want to have as much evidence fitting together. Keep this point in mind during this series, as at the end I'll bring this back up.

Overman has a section in this chapter titled "Later dating is based not on historical facts but on a metaphysical presupposition against prophecy or against even efficacious insight." (p91). The major assumption that the Gospels were written after 70 AD is because of Matthew 24:15–22, Mark 13:14–20, and Luke 21:20–24. In these passages Jesus talks about an abomination of desolation (Matthew and Mark) or Jerusalem being surrounded by armies (Luke) and we learn off Josephus in his War of the Jews how the Romans took out Jerusalem in 70 AD.

The theory is that there was no way Jesus could have know that Jerusalem would have been destroyed 40 years after his death, so this text must have been written after the event to have taken place. That is all very well, and does sound like a fair historical statement. Events have to come after the writings. If there was no other historical evidence for this, then the Christian would have to take the text on face value and "trust" or "believe" or "have faith" that the text wasn't tampered with after the event. But Overman thinks that it "is a questionable conclusion based on a metaphysical presupposition against the possibility of prophecy, not a historical analysis." (p92)

We will see.

Why Mark was written before Matthew and Luke

2010-08-02T09:34:00.001+10:00

After reading chapter 4 of Dean Overman's A Case for the Divinity of Jesus: Examining the Earliest Evidence I changed my mind on the dating of the Gospels. This series will pretty much be based off that chapter from his book title: "Reliability of the Canonical Gospel Accounts is Supported by the Historical Evidence".

It seems most likely that the Gospel of Mark was the first of the Gospels written. This is mainly due to Mark having the lease original content with about 95 percent of it found in Matthew or Luke or both. Other theories that have Matthew or Luke written first do not successfully explain why Mark would cull down a version of Matthew or Luke and leave out the birth and infancy narrative, most of Jesus’ teaching and Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance.

Mark also uses the most words to tell the least amount of things. This means that the stories Mark tells contain lots of little details, that Matthew and Luke didn't put in, which might mean they culled down these details, but overall they added more stories to the framework of Mark. For example when Jesus calms the storm in Mark 4:35-41, Luke 8:22-25 and Matthew 8:23-27; Mark decided to mention a cushion, and the weather in more detail. In the ESV Mark uses 152 words to describe what happened whereas Luke and Matthew use 120 and 96.

Mark seems to mentions random people like Simon of Cyrene who was the father of Alexander and Rufus and names Bartimaeus where the others don't. Some people suggest that Mark was writing when these people were still alive and was name dropping them, so you could go out and ask them for yourself.

Anyway the main logic is that Matthew and Luke added to Mark, therefor Mark was written fist. I don't think this is a very controversial point at all. At the moment I am not debating when Mark was written (or how Luke and Matthew overlap or even the existence of Q), I just want to make the case (or assert it enough to be convincing) that Mark was written before Luke, whenever that was...

When were the Gospels written?

2010-07-29T11:55:00.001+10:00

After reading chapter 4 of Dean Overman's A Case for the Divinity of Jesus: Examining the Earliest Evidence I changed my mind on the dating of the Gospels. This series will pretty much be based off that chapter from his book title: "Reliability of the Canonical Gospel Accounts is Supported by the Historical Evidence". (Page numbers in this post come from this book.)

F.F Bruce, admits that "a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85–90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80–85; John, c. 90–100." (p84) Although he personally thinks that it is more likely "Mark around AD 64 or 65, Luke shortly before 70, and Matthew shortly after 70" (p84). Overman also says that "the more skeptical of contemporary New Testament scholars date Mark around AD 70, Matthew in the 80s, Luke and Acts in the 80s, and John in the 90s." (p84)

Even the trusted Wikipedia articles list: Matthew, c.70-100; Mark, c. 70; Luke, c. 80-90 (with some discussion on earlier dates) and John, c.80-95. Or on this page Wikipedia has: Matthew, c. 60-85; Mark, c. 60-70; Luke, c. 60-90 and John, c. 80-95 and again on this page it has the tradition dates of Matthew, Make and Luke being written between the 40s-60s with John been written c. 60-115. The wiki article on Luke's date is interesting, as most scholars think that Mark was written first so if Luke was written earlier then that would also push Mark earlier. If Mark was written in the 70's then that makes it quite possible for Luke to have written it by the 80's or 90's.

Now these dates are quite removed from the 33 AD that Jesus was meant to have died. Of cause the dates are still in a lifetime of eye witnesses (think about asking your grandparents about their late teens or early 20's, you might be able to reach back to World War 2- if not themselves, they might remember their own parents telling them stories about it and World War 1 or before). After reading Chapter 4 of Overman's book, I think Mark was written around the 50's some 20-25 years after Jesus's death and reported resurrection, and Luke was written around the early 60's at the latest with Matthew not far from that. I have no idea about John (as his writings were a bit off the norm) and may well have been around 80-95 AD.

In this series I will look at why Mark is considered to have been written first, why scholars think they had to have been written after 70 AD and then look at the many problems with the post 70 AD date for Luke in particular and by extension Mark.