Yesterday I noticed that Logos was offering the 20 volume NIV Application Commentary (New Testament) series for a mere $249.99 (retail is $477.99). I tried to resist buying this series, but I ended up figuring it’s such a deal that I mine as well pick it up. I already own four of these, so I’ll probably end up either giving them away or selling them. The series features commentaries by Scot McKnight, Craig Keener, Douglas Moo, Craig Blomberg, Gary Burge, Darrel Bock, and more. It certainly includes some fantastic scholars! The format of the commentary series can be really frustrating, but there’s no doubt that it’s quite practical and is a good commentary series to use when thinking about pastoral issues and application.
The following are some thoughts running through my mind right now after having several conversations with several people regarding the presence of Christ, the Second Coming, the Holy Spirit, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Feel free to interact with, expand, or push back on these quick thoughts…
(1) Christ does not “live” physically on earth. He ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9-11) and is at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33-34; 5:31; 7:55-56; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Pet. 3:22; cf. Ps. 110:1). He currently serves as our High Priest (cf. the book of Hebrews, especially chapter 8-9).
(2) Jesus is physically coming back to earth (Matt. 24:44; Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:16; Heb. 9:28; James 5:8; 1 John 3:2; Rev. 22:20).
(3) Jesus promised to go and prepare a place for his people so they could be with him (John 14:1-4).
(4) Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit in his place as the Helper (John 14:15-26; 16:4b-15; Acts 2:38-39; Rom. 8: 9-11; 1 Cor. 12:13).
(5) Christ dwells in the people of God (Col. 1:27; Eph. 3:17). This is where “pop-culture” theology enters. We are often told that Jesus lives in our hearts when we become believers, yet there isn’t a single verse in the entire Bible that states that Jesus lives in our “heart” in the way that people mean. When Paul writes that Christ “dwells” in Christians, I believe he is referring to a relationship by way of or through the Spirit that is really a metaphor showing the profound depth of being “in Christ”. This is somewhat of a “mystery” and probably demands that we recognize the doctrine of Union with Christ. Unfortunately, “pop-culture” theology leads us to view these truths only in relation to giving us warm fuzzies, missing some of the substance that brings real and substantial comfort. Moo comments on Colossians 1:27 by writing,
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“The goal of theology is the worship of God. The posture of theology is on one’s knees. The mode of theology is repentance.” – Sinclair B. Ferguson
[Many thanks to BibleWorks for the review copy. Due to the capability of BibleWorks 9, I'm going to review this in a series of posts. This will allow for comprehensive coverage and will give you a better idea of what BibleWorks can do.]
Installation
This is the fourth version of BibleWorks that I have used, so I’ve installed it a decent amount of times on a decent amount of platforms (Windows XP, Vista, and 7). The installation process has never given me a problem. In fact, installation is quite simple.
The software came on three disks, with the initial installation process beginning almost immediately after the first disk was installed. You will need the activation and unlocking codes in order for the software to install on your computer. The software includes an amazing amount of original language texts, resources, and much more (view full contents here). We’ll talk about this more later.
A helpful part of the installation process is having the ability to choose what Bible translations I want installed and in what languages. BibleWorks 9 comes with versions in the original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), English, and many other languages, including Polish, Danish, Latin, German, Japanese, Turkish, etc. This makes BibleWorks useful for missionaries in many different contexts. Yet with each additional translation, your computer’s hard drive will lose what could be valuable space. Thus, having the ability to choose with languages you will need is helpful, especially since I doubt I’ll learn Danish or Polish. And if I do, it’s
Like I said, installation was quick, easy, and worked perfectly. Within 20 minutes, the software was fully installed and I had it running immediately. Once opened, it gave me the option of downloading and installing software updates (which I did). The option to update software and manuscripts will occur each time the software is opened and those updates are available.
I give BibleWorks 9 five stars for installation ease and functionality.
Dear Normal Geisler & Albert Mohler,
I’m sure that the two of you are busy defending the Christian faith from the onslaught of opponents to the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m thankful that the two of you are passionate for many good things and I hope this open letter doesn’t come across harmful, arrogant, or mean-spirited.
Yet with all of my strength I want to push back against your recent shenanigans against Michael Licona. I believe Michael Patton already pointed out how much of a circus this “controversy” has become. There is nothing I can say that hasn’t been said better by Patton. Yet I continue to read and hear people following up on your “pleas” and “warnings” to avoid Licona as well as continued calls for him to repent and abandon his view. Are we in medieval Europe? Are you two the Pope’s of evangelicalism?
So in the spirit of your previous “warnings” and “pleas,” I would ask that you abandon your previous warnings and pleas. Defending the authority of Scripture is one thing. Defending your interpretation as the only authoritative interpretation is an entirely different issue.
Thanks for reading. I know you probably have been waiting for this post for quite some time. I just can’t stand to hear and read any more silliness again Michael Licona, one of the brightest evangelical NT scholars, apologists, and theologians that we have. He’s one of the good guys, fellas. Really, he is.
Sincerly,
Luke Geraty
While you are at it, go and pick up Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. It’s easily in my list of top two books on the Resurrection (N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God is the other).
When it comes to eschatology (the study of end times), I really want to be Amillennial. So much of that position attracts me and I think I would pretty much agree with all that it states… except for the idea that there will not be a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ! I just can’t take the leap into Amillennialism because of that. In fact, I have six reasons for believing that there will be a literal thousand year reign:
- “… and bound him for a thousand years…” (Rev. 20:2)
- “… until the thousand years were ended…” (Rev. 20:3)
- “… They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years…” (Rev. 20:4)
- “… until the thousand years were ended…” (Rev. 20:5)
- “… and they will reign with him for a thousand years…” (Rev. 20:6)
- “… And when the thousand years are ended…” (Rev. 20:7)
Seriously, Revelation 20:1-10 gives me six really good reasons to be Premillennial. I obviously say this tongue-in-cheek, but I don’t think it’s as ridiculous to hold to a literal 1,000 years just from one passage of Scripture.
This isn’t to say that I don’t find support for a Premillennial interpretation throughout the Old Testament or also within the pages of other parts of the NT either, because I do. It’s just that Revelation 20 gives me six really good reasons!
I think that one of the best defenses for a literal thousand year reading of Revelation 20 is found in Dr. Jack Deere’s “Premillennialism in Revelation 20:4-6″ (Bibliotheca Sacra 135, published January 1978, pp. 58-74) as well as the arguments made by Grant R. Osborne in his Baker Exegetical Commentary on Revelation (pp. 696-718).
This is not to be confused as an advocacy of Dispensational Premillennialism, because I’m not convinced of that at all! But one need not believe in a pretribulational rapture to be a Premillennialist… just ask the apostle John or Jesus.
The first time I ever clearly understood what an exegetical fallacy was occurred when I was reading through some books by Gordon D. Fee. I was a young uneducated whipper snapper who had no idea what the word hermeneutics was nor of its importance. No, I just liked reading the Bible and was trying to figure out what some passages of Scripture were about.
At the time, I was interacting with some people who were telling me that the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healings were not for today. Those gifts were simply evidence (signs) confirming the message of the apostles and had stopped happening when the Bible was completed. This was the standard explanation that many of my friends gave for spiritual gifts.
So I was very interested in finding out whether or not I was currently involved in a cult and around people who were deceived! Hence, I picked up a copy of Fee’s commentary in order to try and understand the subject of spiritual gifts better. It was while reading Fee that I came to understand today’s fallacy – Misuse of Subsequent Meaning.
That’s a mouthful.
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There are a lot of books on spiritual gifts. The following ten books are my personal picks for the best books on what I’m calling “Charismatic Theology” – the perspective that sees the miraculous spiritual gifts as still continuing until Christ returns (healing, prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, etc.). I’m working from least to greatest, from #10 to #1…
#10 – Empowered Evangelicals: Bringing Together the Best of the Evangelical and Charismatic Worlds, by Rich Nathan and Ken Wilson. This book is super influential within the Vineyard Movement and is well known by most Third Wave people. It’s quite practical and is easy to understand. My only complaint is that it is not nearly as fun to read as Jack Deere books nor as exegetically rigorous as Grudem or Carson. What it does have is a forward by J. I. Packer and a good deal of practical synthesis. In fact, I think it’s strength is in the area of theological reflection because it provides plenty of food for thought with how the local church should think through this issue. Plus, the title alone is gold.
#09 – The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT), by Gordon D. Fee. This commentary covers the entire book of 1 Corinthians, so it isn’t as focused as Carson’s Showing the Spirit. However, the crucial texts related to the continuation of the charismatic experience are covered splendidly (e.g., 1 Cor. 13:10). The golden rule of “it can’t mean for us what it didn’t mean for Paul” is fleshed out well. Fee’s commentary is still considered to be one of the best commentaries on 1 Corinthians by many NT scholars. It also provides some excellent commentary on why 1 Cor. 1:4-8 is extremely important to the discussion regarding the continuation of the spiritual gifts.
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For the past five years I’ve had my hair cut at one business, primarily by one lady. Prior to that, my hair was cut by just about everyone. Seriously – I had friends do it, my wife tried to once, and random barbers and ladies at the mall salons all trimmed my mullet. Everyone had access to my lovely locks and I basically never returned to the same location twice. But that all changed when my lovely wife told me I should go to the lady she goes to and never go anywhere else.
So I’m a repeat customer!
At first, I was just going where my wife told me to go because I was doing the “trying-to-be-a-good-husband” thing. Then I started thinking about this from a missional aspect and considered the strategic wisdom of doing such. Plus, it’s amazing how the people that I meet regularly play a surprisingly bright role in my life, be it Ashley, who cuts my hair, or a couple of the waitresses that serve my meals or pour my coffee. Boy, my wife is so smart (and beautiful too!).
For the past three years I’ve taught a class on being missional and often spend time discussing this concept. There’s something about being a repeat customer that feels extremely missional to me. It’s probably because I’ve found a ton of opportunities to share my faith with people that I regularly see, so being regular has that advantage. Actually, just being present in their lives makes a difference in the same way that their being present in mine affects me.
Being present. That’s missional 101. Being consistently present is missional 101.1
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In my experience, the most consistent problem in most small groups has to do with one person doing all the talking. And many times this problem goes unchecked or the person who does all the talking repeatedly ignores the “small group rules” or warnings or other obvious suggestions implying, “Shut your mouth and stop talking!”
Seriously, this is a significant problem within relational groups because people already don’t feel like they are understood or that people listen to them. It’s kind of the standard default setting for most people. So when you throw them into a situation where they are clearly ignored or not given an opportunity to voice their thoughts or concerns or questions or problems, the small group will quickly lose its momentum.
When it comes down to it, there are a number of reasons why people don’t like being in a small group dominated by one person and why people should practice the art of listening over and above the “art” of doing all of the talking. Here’s a variety of reasons:
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What is a “rural church”? What does “small town U.S.A.” look like? I’m honestly perplexed by some of the definitions that are floating around out there on this subject and I think a great deal of people who use the term “rural America” or “small town” need to reevaluate their usage because those of us who are actually living in this context do not recognize what you are calling “small town.” I mean, seriously, do small towns always have movie theaters, malls, and Starbucks?!?! If so, I want to move! Ha ha!
Let’s define some terms here. There’s a lot of confusion about what is “rural” or “small town.” When I say “rural,” I mean a location that is popularly called “country.” Others refer to it as “living in the sticks” or “being out in the middle of nowhere.” I can safely say that I pastor a church that is all of the above – ha ha!
Anyway, according to the Bureau of the Census (Department of Commerce) the United States is broken into three “classifications.” We have the following:
- Urbanized Areas (UAs) of 50,000 or more people;
- Urban Clusters (UCs) of at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people.
- Rural Communities. “Rural” encompasses all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area.
So the basic criteria for a location in the U.S. to be considered “rural” is to have a population of less than 2,500 people. “Small town” is not a classification, but I’ll grant that it’s a useful term and basically can mean the same thing as “rural.”
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“With regard to the conception, the Old Roman Creed, of very great antiquity, says He ‘was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.’ The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (AD 325, 381) says He ‘was made flesh of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man.’ The Nicene Creed really carries over the affirmation of the Apostles’ Creed of which the origins lie in the second century. Any one who doubts the church believed, confessed and taught this from the very earliest time should read the evidence cited by John G. Machen in The Virgin Birth of Christ. One of the very earliest of the writing Fathers, Ignatius of Antioch (martyred not later than AD 117, perhaps as early as AD 107) mentions the virgin birth and miraculous conception. The writer’s phrases appear as if not needing confirmation among his Christian readers, viz.: ‘conceived in the womb of Mary … by the Holy Ghost’ (both in To Ephesians, xviii). Twice in To Ephesians xix, he says ‘the virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of the world.’ Other similar statements showing acceptance of the virgin birth by Ignatius and his readers will be found in To the Smyrnaeans chapter 1 and other places. Justin Martyr, who lived from about AD 110 to AD 165, is similarly at ease with the virgin birth, even devoting two chapters of his Dialogue with Trypho to prove from Old Testament prophecy that Christ was born of a virgin. The matter was not seriously challenged so far as we know until post-Reformation times.” – Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology, 470
Grant Osborne writes,
“The root fallacy, a common error, assumes that the root of a term and its cognates carries a basic meaning that is reflected in every subordinate use of the word(s).” (The Hermeneutical Spiral, 84-85)
I want to flesh out that definition a bit by providing some thoughts on the way that words work. This will probably make sense to anyone who speaks or reads. As you know, words have etymological information attached to them, meaning that words have historical origins in their development and usage as well as unique sources that helped shape the way that they came into usage. And sometimes words are “created” and come into usage because we put words together to form new words. In English grammar, we might think of prefixes and suffixes (e.g., “pre” in “preconceive” or “ary” in “honorary”). And as boring as it might sound, there are scholars who actually spend all of their time deep in the field of linguistics studying etymology (the study of historical linguistic change)! When related to biblical studies, these scholars spend much of their time analyzing Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words in order to best understand how those words were used and should be understood by the modern reader.
Let me state as a matter of fact that these studies are extremely important to exegesis and hermeneutics. So even though these studies lead some into logical fallacies which in turn equate to bad interpretations and applications of Scripture, we can’t assume that these studies are a waste of time. Osborne helpfully reminds us that,
“At times a study of roots can be highly illuminating. As I already mentioned, some compounds do maintain their root meaning. In 1 John 2:1, parakl?tos does follow its root meaning of “advocate”: “If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (NASB). On these occasions, the root meaning adds richness to the exegesis.” (86, emphasis mine)
Okay? Good.
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First Piper Book to Be Legally Published in China (The Legacy of Sovereign Joy).
6 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started Leading Small Groups.
You can’t really talk about the Protestant Reformation without thinking about Martin Luther, right? And even though he stood on the shoulders of others who went before him (Tyndale, Wycliffe, etc.), he most assuredly changed the world. Europe was not the same after Luther, both the landscape of Christianity and the landscape of society.
Thus, Lutheranism has become one of the main branches of the Christian tradition and finds representatives throughout the world. From North America to Australia, Luther’s theology has impacted people’s understanding of the Christian faith in many ways. Be it positive or negative, people have opinions on Martin Luther!
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This meal will feed a family of six and can be served both spicy or “neutral.” It’s a mixture of what I’ve eaten in Nepal and Kenya (Kenya has a large influence of Indian food). It can be served over rice or with chapatis or bread.
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups of Plain Yogurt
- 1 cup of freshly chopped cilantro (one small patch)
- 3 or 4 onions
- 2 cups of coconut milk (Thai Kitchen Pure)
- 2 tablespoons of masala powder
- 2 1/2 tablespoons of curry powder
- 1 chopped garlic clove
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of coarse kosher salt
- 6 large chicken breasts
According to George W. Peters’ A Biblical Theology of Missions, the apostle Paul gave eight logical reasons for world-wide missionary work:
- The whole universe is the creation of God. It is manifesting God, is under His sovereign rule, and is therefore responsible to Him (Ro 1:18 ff).
- The whole human race is an organismic unit created in Adam. The organic unity of the entire human race is never questioned in the Bible Paul firmly holds to it (Ro 5:12-21).
- The whole human race fell in Adam and became sinful because of this (Ro 5:12-21).
- The whole human race followed a course of sin and therefore became guilty before God (Ro 1:18-21).
- The whole human race was represented in Christ, and in Him salvation was provided for all mankind not only by substitution but by identification and representation (Ro 5:12-21).
- God has provided only one way of salvation – the way of justification by faith in Jesus Christ. This holds true for the Jew as well as for the Gentile (Ro 3:21- 5:21).
- God’s way of salvation is not discovered by man. It comes to him by revelation, and it must be preached to him from the revealed Word of God. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Ro 10:8-17; cf. 16:25-26).
- Paul knew himself called of God and separated unto the gospel of God to bring men and nations to obedience of faith. This was his apostleship; for this he labored, always pressing onward. For this he suffered, and in this he gloried (Ro 1:1, 5, 14; 11:13, 25; 15:15-16, 18-23; 16:25-27).
Though I wouldn’t state that “salvation was provided for all mankind” in the same way that Peters does (I’m Reformed, after all!), I think this is a decent attempt at providing a biblical theology on missions from Paul’s Romans. Peters’ work was the first example of biblical theology that I’d ever read… how fitting that it was on missions.
As I said last week, on Friday’s I’ll be posting a variety of fallacies related to exegesis and hermeneutics. This Friday’s fallacy is found in Grant R. Osborne’s The Hermeneutical Spiral - the lexical fallacy. Remember, a fallacy is a misleading or unsound argument. So when we’re talking about theology or biblical interpretation, we’re stating that fallacies should not be used to establish our understanding of both the text and of doctrine. Exegetical and hermeneutical fallacies lead to bad interpretations of Scripture, which lead to bad theology and praxis.
The lexical fallacy is quite popular amongst those who do “word studies.” Since there are an assortment of lexicons and bible dictionaries available to most Christians, it’s easy to understand why this fallacy happens consistently in many of our small group bible studies. Allow me to explain:
If you pick up a lexicon and look up a word, you’ll find that most words have a number of possible definitions, which means that the way those words are translated might be different from verse to verse. For example, if we looked up the Greek word sarx, we’d find that there are a variety of definitions and a variety of possible translating words. It’s translated as “flesh,” “sinful nature,” “body,” and even “people,” depending upon the translator’s choices. Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words lists five possible definitions and The Theological Dictionary of the New Tesatment (Kittle, Bromiley, & Friedrich) has eight sections referencing it’s meaning and use in the NT.
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Today is World AIDS day… a day to not only unite in the fight against AIDS, be it through medical support, research, and financial support, but also to support those who are currently suffering from AIDS or who are close to those who are suffering (spouses, siblings, parents, etc.). I’m thankful that we have a day set aside to help create this awareness.
AIDS presents a formidable challenge opportunity for the church of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, Christians were historically slow to engage on the front line due to the initial assumption that AIDS was a “gay plague” upon a group of people that “deserved it.” I don’t have time to address how foolish such statements are, so I’ll simply clarify that I think that initial opinion was light years beyond foolish.
My first memory of AIDS was when I heard the story of Ryan White, a teenager in the 80′s who was initially kept from attending high school when his sickness was made public. His story inspired me and raised a lot of interest on my part for those who were afflicted by AIDS. Both my wife and I have had friends/family who have either had or currently have AIDS, and the several times I’ve traveled to Kenya I’ve had the opportunity to interact with people who were HIV positive. According to WorldAidsDay.com, “an estimated 33.3 million people have HIV. More than 25 million people between 1981 and 2007 have died from the virus, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history.” Imagine how many lives around us have been shattered due to this disease.
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In Family Shepherds: Calling and Equipping Men to Lead Their Homes, Voddie Baucham gives three reasons to prioritize your marriage above your children:
1. Our children will eventually leave home. Prepare your marriage for the empty nest:
To my knowledge, I’ve never talked to a person who divorced after twenty-five or thirty years who didn’t say something like this: “Once the kids were gone, we realized we really didn’t have much of a marriage.” Building a marriage on the foundation of the preeminence of children is like building a house on a rented removable slab. You may have days or even years when you feel completely secure, but the day is coming when the lease will be up and the foundation upon which your home stands will be taken away. A family shepherd must not allow his family to fall into this trap.
2. Our marriage forms the cornerstone of our children’s security:
Ironically, those who prioritize their children above their marriage are not only jeopardizing their marriage, they’re actually depriving their children of the very thing they desire to provide them. The greatest source of security our children have in this world is a God-honoring, Christ-centered marriage between their parents. Putting the children first is like a police officer putting away his badge and gun in order to make the public feel more at ease. A family shepherd must put his marriage before his children in order to provide them with the security they both need and desire.
3. Putting your marriage first will actually prepare your children for marriage:
Prioritizing your children above your marriage is both foolish and dangerous because it sets a precedent that contradicts one of the greatest lessons you’ll ever teach your children—how to be good husbands and wives. We must first and foremost model a commitment to marriage. Failure to do this will communicate ideas that are contrary to what we believe—starting with the narcissism it tends to create in our children—including the pitfalls that may follow them into their marriage. For example, if we prioritize our children above our marriage, we teach our children that marriage exists for children. If this is the case, how will our children react to the early months or years of their marriage when there are no children? How will they respond if, God forbid, they should struggle with infertility? If the heart of marriage is “living for the kids,” these scenarios could be difficult at best.
HT: Crossway Blog.
This past week I was having a conversation with someone who was really frustrated with some people because of how selfish they were. Given the situation she was going through, I could understand where she was coming from; there was clearly some really self-centered actions taking place with absolutely no regard for others. As we were talking about the situation and she was looking for some prayer and encouragement, she asked, “Do people know when they are being selfish?”
I said I didn’t know. And I think that’s probably still the best answer because I don’t know everyone’s heart and I can’t read people’s brains.
But I’ve been thinking about that question a lot the past couple of days. It’s interesting to watch how people act when they are in crowds because it’s fairly easy to spot people who are selfish. You know, taking the last portion of food without asking if anyone else wants it or making sure to get the best seat available without regard for others or ignoring those who clearly have significant needs (children, elderly, disabled) in order to focus on themselves… things like that.
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Grant R. Osborne writes,
“Luther (in The Bondage of the Will) proclaimed the basic clarity of Scripture in two areas: external clarity, which he called the grammatical aspect, attained by applying the laws of grammar (hermeneutical principles) to the text; and internal clarity, which he called the spiritual aspect, attained when the Holy Spirit illumines the reader in the act of interpretation. It is clear that Luther meant the final product (the gospel message) rather than the process (recovering the meaning of individual texts) when he spoke of clarity. In the last century, however, the application of Scottish Common Sense Realism to Scripture has led many to assume that everyone can understand the Bible for themselves, that the surface of the text is sufficient to produce meaning in and of itself. Therefore, the need for hermeneutical principles to bridge the cultural gap was ignored, and individualistic interpretations abounded. For some reason, no one seemed to notice that this led to multiple meanings, even to heresy at times. The principle of perspicuity was extended to the hermeneutical process as well, leading to misunderstanding in popular interpretation of Scripture and a very difficult situation today. Hermeneutics as a discipline demands a complex interpretive process in order to uncover the original clarity of Scripture. Again, the result is clear but the process is not; this should govern the sermon as well!” (Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral, 27)
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Phil. 4:4-6)
I love the tension found in this text, especially given yesterday’s celebration of “thanksgiving.” John Calvin comments on this by writing,
“As many often pray to God amiss, full of complaints or of murmurings, as though they had just ground for accusing him, while others cannot brook delay, if he does not immediately gratify their desires, Paul on this account conjoins thanksgiving with prayers. It is as though he had said, that those things which are necessary for us ought to be desired by us from the Lord in such a way, that we, nevertheless, subject our affections to his good pleasure, and give thanks while presenting petitions. And, unquestionably, gratitude — “Gratitude for God’s benefits.” will have this effect upon us — that the will of God will be the grand sum of our desires.” (John Calvin, Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians)
On Fridays I’m going to start posting a variety of exegetical, hermeneutical, or logical fallacies. There are a lot of good ones out there and I’ve had a lot of readers contact me in the past couple of years asking about different resources that deal with these issues. Perhaps the two best resources related to the field of biblical/theological studies is D. A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies and Grant R. Osborne’s The Hermeneutical Spiral. I recommend these two books probably more than any other two books.
In The Hermeneutical Spiral, Grant Osborne writes of nine semantic fallacies. Semantics, determining specific word meanings, is a large part of Bible study and interpretation. For many people, this boils down to doing “word studies” throughout the Bible. We often hear of “word studies” that bring light upon passages of Scripture, and many bible students have provided the “background” information on a specific Hebrew or Greek word that is helpful in aiding a person’s understanding of the text. The problem, however, is that some of these methods are actually unhelpful because they risk destroying the author’s intended meaning of the text!
So doing good word studies needs to be our goal, because there are still many helpful ways to include word studies in our comprehension of a specific passage of the Bible. In Osborne’s classic treatment of biblical interpretation, he presents the following nine fallacies:
- The lexical fallacy
- The root fallacy
- Misuse of Etymology
- Misuse of subsequent meaning
- The one-meaning fallacy
- Misuse of parallels
- The disjunctive fallacy
- The word fallacy
- Ignoring the context
On Fridays, beginning next week, I’m going to flesh out these fallacies one by one and provide some examples and explanations that will hopefully help you in your Bible study! After we go through Osborne’s list, we’ll consider others…
Have you ever done “word studies”? How did you learn to do them?
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