Reading "Along" AND "Across" the Bible

I was perusing The Gospel Coalition materials again today and was reminded of this statement, in the Theological Vision for Ministry, on reading the Bible. Extremely helpful in how it brings together two ways of approaching Scripture often set in antithesis.

(2) How should we read the Bible?

a. Reading “along” the whole Bible. To read along the whole Bible is to discern the single basic plot-line of the Bible as God’s story of redemption (e.g., Luke 24:44) as well as the themes of the Bible (e.g., covenant, kingship, temple) that run through every stage of history and every part of the canon, climaxing in Jesus Christ. In this perspective, the gospel appears as creation, fall, redemption, restoration. It brings out the purpose of salvation, namely, a renewed creation.

b. Reading “across” the whole Bible. To read across the whole Bible is to collect its declarations, summons, promises, and truth-claims into categories of thought (e.g., theology, Christology, eschatology) and arrive at a coherent understanding of what it teaches summarily (e.g., Luke 24:46-47). In this perspective, the gospel appears as God, sin, Christ, faith. It brings out the means of salvation, namely the substitutionary work of Christ and our responsibility to embrace it by faith.

How this reading of the Bible shapes us. (1) Many today (but not all) who major in the first of these two ways of reading the Bible—that is, reading along the whole Bible—dwell on the more corporate aspects of sin and salvation. The cross is seen mainly as an example of sacrificial service and a defeat of worldly powers rather than substitution and propitiation for our sins. Ironically, this approach can be very legalistic. Instead of calling people to individual conversion through a message of grace, people are called to join the Christian community and kingdom program of what God is doing to liberate the world. The emphasis is on Christianity as a way of life to the loss of a blood-bought status in Christ received through personal faith. In this imbalance there is little emphasis on vigorous evangelism and apologetics, on expository preaching, and on the marks and importance of conversion/the new birth. (2) On the other hand, the older evangelicalism (though not all of it) tended to read across the Bible. As a result it was more individualistic, centering almost completely on personal conversion and safe passage to heaven. Also, its preaching, though expository, was sometimes moralistic and did not emphasize how all biblical themes climax in Christ and his work. In this imbalance there is little or no emphasis on the importance of the work of justice and mercy for the poor and the oppressed, and on cultural production that glorifies God in the arts, business, etc. (3) We do not believe that in best practice these two ways of reading the Bible are at all contradictory, even though today, many pit them against each other. We believe that on the contrary the two, at their best, are integral for grasping the meaning of the biblical gospel. The gospel is the declaration that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has come to reconcile individuals by his grace and renew the whole world by and for his glory.

The Worship Phenomenon

I was looking today at Robert Webber's book with its title that rivals the length of Edwards' treatises, The Worship Phenomenon: A Dynamic New Awakening in Worship is Reviving the Body of Christ. Dr. Webber has been associated with the Emerging Church, an association that in some ways is legitimate and in other ways is either an unfair insult or an unmerited compliment (depending on your view of the EC). Anyhow, some of the same concerns I have with some clearly identified with the EC, I have with this book.

Some of what I read includes:

I don't want more information about God. I want God!

I understand the sentiment. So many of us know what it is to sit through a church service or a chapel message or a theological lecture and all it is is dry pontification. No heart in it. The answer, though, is not the kind of statement made here, because we get more of God through information about him, not by neglecting such information. Consider the many statements scattered throughout the New Testament about the importance of sound doctrine and of handing down the apostolic message. The avenue to delight in God is not by skipping the mind and doctrine but by using doctrine as kindling for joy. Hence the name of this blog.

Later I read:

Worship is undergoing a shift . . . from the Newtonian world of mechanism and rationalism to a new concept of the world that recognizes dynamic movement and mystery at the very core of life. With the old world view, worship was static. It fit the mechanistic and rationalistic mind-set of the world. But now, with people's life expereinces changing to include dynamic movement and more participation, a worship that does not also move in this direction will become increasingly tedious and out of step with the world people are living in.

Really? That's the solution? To mold our worship to the forms people are already living in? I know we should be aware of the ways we are heirs of the Enlightenment, but . . . really?

Later:

This book sets forth an easy-to-follow blueprint for worship renewal in the local church.

Hmm. A blueprint for renewal. Sounds pretty mechanistic and rationalistic to me.

I'm being a bit hard on Dr. Webber; in truth, I was stirred at several points to wake up from my own lethargy when it comes to authentic worship, to rejoice all over again in the gospel. This post is not a condemnation. (It's a conversation!) I learned and was edified from this book at many points. But these are the kinds of statements I find in some recent Christian writers genuinely seeking to help the Church that make me concerned with their poor historical analysis (e.g. the Pietists, Watts, and Wesley are labeled as too "emotional" at one point in this particular book) and, even more, with the quest for spiritual experience through the avoidance, rather than the cultivation, of clear doctrine. Which, to me, is like the quest to try to get warm from a fire by avoiding the use of logs.

If I've earned a rebuke, let me have it. If I'm missing something, let me know. I invite your correction.

WOW

I can't believe I get to wake up in the morning, go study the Bible all day, and come home to my happy wife and adorable son.

"Note then the kindness of God . . ." --Rom 11:22

God's Beauty

Today I was browsing my way through Buswell Library at Wheaton and came across an early book by my college prof Sam Storms called The Grandeur of God. I read this:

I believe it may properly be said, indeed must be said, that God alone is beautiful in an absolute and unqualified sense. All created reality, be it the raw elements of nature untouched by human hands or the paintings of Rembrandt, is beautiful in a derived sense and only to the degree that it reflects the perfections of God. In God alone are perfect order, harmony, magnitude, integrity, proportion, and brilliance. In Himself, independent of any benefit or blessing of His which we might enjoy, God is beautiful.

--The Grandeur of God: A Theological and Devotional Study of the Divine Attributes, 149-50

One of the ways Sam has helped me is in thinking of the glory of God in terms of beauty.

Wright-Ehrman: Suffering

After critiquing N. T. Wright a few times this week I ought to say something nice, which is easy to do after reading the exchange between him and Bart Ehrman, the UNC religion prof who left the faith in his 40s on account of the problem of evil and suffering. Here is the exchange - they each wrote three short statements, responding to each other. I was very moved by what Wright said and how he said it.

HT: JT

Seyoon Kim's Forthcoming Book

Just noticed this: Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke by Seyoon Kim, due out by Eerdmans in Sept 2008. In light of recent personal wrestlings with N. T. Wright's understanding of the gospel, I hope Kim can help me. At this point in my development, I think Wright sets as a controlling analogy ("gospel" in Greco-Roman usage; i.e., the proclamation of who is lord) what is undeniably present but ought to be placed in the background, and passages such as Isa 52:7 in the foreground, of Paul's concept of "gospel."

When Wright is asked for his down-and-dirty definition of the gospel, reduced to its core, 15 words or less, footnotes and caveats aside, he goes to Rom 1 and defines the gospel as "Jesus is Lord" (see interview below, Apr 23, for an instance of this). I would go to 1 Cor 15 and define it as "Christ died for our sins."

I continue to fail to understand how the proclamation of Jesus as Lord is good news to those who know themselves (as I do) to be treasonous rebels against that Lord (as I am). Jesus as Lord is only good news to me if the lordship that he exercises is lordship on my behalf, a kingdom of which I am a citizen, and that can only be the case if a still more fundamental problem is dealt with: sin.

Why We're Not Emergent

Just finished Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. Kevin is a 30-yr old pastor in Michigan and grad of Gordon-Conwell, and Ted plays arena football, is a published sports writer, and a member of Kevin's church. They don't write the whole book together as one voice but alternate chapters--Kevin writes a longer, more substantive chapter, followed by a shorter, more anecdotal chapter by Ted, a strategy that I thought worked well.

Maybe in days to come I'll have a chance to write something more substantive but I do want to say now that I found the book very helpful. Fair, humorous at times, and most importantly gets inside the EC before critiquing it. Also, it's written by those in my own generation rather than the one above us. So far almost all of the literature advocating the EC has been written by guys under 40 and under (with the exception of Scot McKnight) and the literature critiquing the EC by guys over 40. At times, therefore, it feels like a battle between generations. Until this book. It is a book I will gladly recommend to peers who are working through the strengths and weaknesses of the Emerging "conversation."

The book has a website here.

See reviews by:

Josh Harris

9Marks

Tim Challies

Immanuel

Happy to see the website for this new church is almost complete--with the best picture for a church home webpage I've ever seen.

SoulTsunami

I'm trying to get my face into the Emerging Church these days to try to understand why they're saying the things they're saying and was fascinated to discover the following statements from Leonard Sweet in his 1999 SoulTsunami. (The basic idea in the book is that postmodernism is a tsunami that is washing over us, and we can either deny it and become irrelevant, fight it and drown, or see the tremendous opportunities it presents the church.)

In the postmodern age, what you don't know, or what you know wrong, can hurt you. It can also kill you. (146)

Bad information is toxic. Get the wrong information, and it poisons the entire system. (147)

That is precisely the premise of the name of this blog. We must get the recipe right (doctrine) in order to maximally enjoy the pie (doxology).

This is not, however, what Professor Sweet is saying. In context, his statements are not about the fundamental value of theological knowledge. He is talking about the fundamental value of cultural knowledge. He goes on to talk about how crucial it is to know and understand our postmodern times.

And gets it, in my opinion, precisely wrong. There are many helpful things I'm learning from Dr. Sweet. But the flavor of the book is that knowing our culture is the key to ecclesial health in the twenty-first century. I believe knowing our God--through the Bible, in clearly demarcated propositional statements couched in a larger story of redemption--is the key to ecclesial health in the twenty-first century.

Wright at Asbury

Fascinating video interview of N. T. Wright at Asbury Seminary (with Ben Witherington pitching him softballs). Includes Dawkins, The Golden Compass, C. S. Lewis, the role of doctrine, Piper, the gospel defined, justification, imputation, the Reformation and its reading of Paul, baptism, and American Episcopalianism. Lots that is helpful and insightful, lots that is frustrating (e.g. unfortunate caricatures).

HT: MB