NT Resources Blog

Kevin’s Bauder’s weekly newsletter, In the Nick of Time, begins a new series this week. As always, these are always worth reading. If you don’t subscribe, you ought to. Past issues are archived.

To understand this week’s essay (and the others which will follow it), remember that ἀπορέω means “to be at a loss, to be uncertain, be in doubt.”

I don’t usually post the entire text, but this week I will, if for no other reason than to entice you to subscribe (free) to Dr. Bauder’s newsletter (details at the first URL above).

Captain’s Log, Part One: Ship to Shore

Kevin T. Bauder

August 15, 2008

Once upon a time there was a young ship’s captain named Apores. He was new to his ship, having just completed Command School. He knew a good deal about detecting pirates and how to fire canons, but not much about navigation. In Command School he had been told that there were stars, and he knew that he ought to steer by them, but he had no real idea of how that was to be done. Mostly, the captains whom he knew steered in the wake of other captains, and they in the wake of yet others. He had heard about the Old Captains, and how they sought to navigate directly by the stars, but he had never learned the craft himself.

As a new captain, Apores supposed that he would imitate his fellow-captains. He would find a successful captain of a large vessel and would steer as that captain steered. Before he had properly embarked, however, he was confronted with a problem.

His ship was an older vessel, and all of the crew had been recruited under other captains. Those captains had all steered differently, for each of them followed some different successful captain. Each crewman wished the ship to be steered just as the captain who recruited him had done.

The senior officers had been recruited by Captain Pragmatus. They could remember days when the ship’s berths had been crowded. In those days, they had a great deal of fun attracting new passengers. Pragmatus had kept order aboard the ship by making sure that the crew stayed busy. The officers hoped that Apores would sail as Pragmatus had done.

Some of the crew had been enlisted by Captain Sympatus. A tender man, he could never bring himself to enforce order. He was always concerned for every crew member, however. If a sailor got a blister from hauling the ropes or a splinter from the yardarm, Sympatus was sure to take time to commiserate. Some of the crew hoped that Captain Apores would be like that, visiting their quarters every day and enquiring after their needs and wants.

The most recent members of the crew had been brought aboard by Captain Demagogus. While he made sure the crew got good rations, he had governed the ship with an iron hand. The crew had finally threatened mutiny, and Demagogus wisely abandoned ship. Nevertheless, he left behind him a few crew members who had a taste for good rations and a desire for an orderly vessel.

What Apores quickly learned was this: whatever direction he tried to take the ship, whatever rations he had prepared for the sailors, and however he set the sail and lashed the rigging, at least two thirds of the crew was bound to grumble. If he attempted to sail through waters into which none of the previous captains had ventured, the entire crew would come close to mutiny. He could make no move and chart no course without some sailor abandoning ship.

Apores decided that the solution lay in getting advanced training in navigation. He went to the most renowned captains of his day, men who commanded imposing warships in the Big Fleet. What he discovered was that those men also navigated by following other captains. The captains they followed, however, were not captains of the Fleet, but pirates. Without realizing it, they were sailing their ships directly into the buccaneers’ harbor, where they would be easy prey.

The situation was desperate. Then one night, when all seemed lost, Apores lifted up his eyes and saw the stars above him. In a moment his resolve hardened. He must learn to navigate for himself. He must learn to follow the stars, and not to follow captains who were following captains who were following captains. Most of all, he must learn where the Admiral of the Fleet wanted his ships to be sailed.

But the sky, though dazzling, was terribly bewildering. How could one make sense of it? By what star should he steer?

He found himself driven back into the Mariner’s Handbook, originally authored by the Admiral of the Fleet. There he found new answers—new to him, at least, because they answered questions he had never before thought to ask. He found a clear description of the Destination—so clear that his heart began to break with longing for it. He found words about the stars, and the Star. These were words that his peers had not heeded for generations, given as they were to following other captains.

He also opened the logs of the Old Captains. What he discovered there was breathtaking. These were captains indeed, ancient mariners who had set the prows of their vessels upon the Star and had sailed straight into uncharted waters. They had fought pirates and weathered storms. And they had reached the Destination.

Apores was filled with admiration for these Old Captains, because they loved the Star and the Destination and the Admiral of the Fleet. He longed to follow them, for to follow them was to follow the Star and to reach the Destination.

But then he would look upon his leaky ship with its ragtag crew. Could he ask them to sail with him into the high seas? Could he bring them under the dangers of rapacious pillagers and raging weather? And his heart would fail, for he knew of no other ships that sailed by the Star. How could he be right, when no others saw what he saw? How could he ask his crew to risk so much when he was still uncertain?

Some years had gone by, and the crew had now grown accustomed to Apores. Many young sailors had even enlisted under his watch. Apores had learned to love the leaky old vessel. He had talked to its crew about the Star and the Destination. A few seemed interested, but to most it seemed as if he spoke a foreign tongue. The ship was still drifting. If Apores set sail for the star, the crew might mutiny. The ship might be destroyed. He was himself uncertain of truths that he had but newly learned.

And so he became convinced that the ship would be better off with another captain, one who at least would sail the vessel no worse than it had been sailed before him. He spied an island, and thought that he might land there. He imagined that, untroubled with the burdens of leadership, he could gaze upon the stars, and especially the Star. He could ponder the words of the Admiral of the Fleet as they were written in the Mariner’s Handbook. He could read further from the logs of the Old Captains. And perhaps after a time he could find a coracle, and by himself begin to paddle toward the Destination.

Apores told the ship to put him ashore on the island. Their parting was tearful, more so for Apores even than for the ship’s crew. And there, surrounded by his books and charts, and under the starry night sky, he pondered the Destination and sought to discover how best one might follow the Star.

Still trying to figure out why polytonic Greek doesn’t display correctly.

αβγδεζηθικλ

or with diacritics:

ἀββά

or pasted in:

Mark 14:39 καὶ πάλιν ἀπελθὼν προσηύξατο τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον εἰπών.

The latest TyndaleText newsletter by David Instone-Brewer has just gone out. This one has some very useful information on how to search (mostly via the web) the texts and translations of ancient Greek authors. I’d include the info here, but you’re better off reading it on the original blog page since it gives screen shots and links.

This email newsletter is always informatiave, relevant, and helpful. If you work in NT, your ought to subscribe. There’s a form for that purpose at the bottom of the TyndaleTexh blog (linked above).

This new announcement may be of interest:

Ware-Grudem Vs. McCall-Yandell on the Trinity

The Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School is excited to announce that on October 9th, 2008 at 6:30pm, it will host a Trinity Debate at the TEDS Chapel featuring Drs. Bruce Ware (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) and Wayne Grudem (Phoenix Seminary) versus Drs. Tom McCall (TEDS) and Keith Yandell (University of Wisconsin-Madison) on the question:

“Do relations of authority and submission exist eternally among the Persons of the Godhead?”

This debate follows current argumentation in the academic sphere between the two sides. Though a theological exchange between expert scholars, this event will prove beneficial for Christians of all backgrounds. The doctrine of the Trinity is at the heart of the Christian faith and takes into account questions of scriptural interpretation, theological synthesis, and philosophical reasoning. Determining the identities and roles of the persons of the Godhead is thus of great importance not only to the academician, but to the pastor, the layperson, the student and all who would seek to probe and comprehend the beautiful complexity of orthodox Christianity.

The Center anticipates that the debate will be lively, informative, charitable, enjoyable, and, we trust, helpful to a wide variety of Christians and even non-Christians who wish to better understand one of the central realities of the faith. This event is not intended to be intramural, but rather to stimulate discussion that clarifies the Word of God in the life of Christ’s church. All should consider themselves invited and welcome to this free evening of debate and dialogue over theological issues that matter.

This was a hot topic at a conference I attended recently.

I just discovered that the recent upgrade of the WordPress blog software by my host/provider has resulted in all the Unicode polytonic Greek being rendered unreadable. It is either all question marks, or garbage characters. I’m trying to sort out what needs to be changed; I think it’s a setting of some sort that was introduced by my post’s upgrade process. I’ve been reading of similar problems on the forums, but I don’ have time to resolve it at the moment. I’ll try to get it fixed ASAP. Sorry for the mess in the meantime.

Here’s a note I just revised for the Mark Handbook. (It occurs at Mark 1:29.)

τὴν οἰκίαν. This is the first mention of a house in Capernaum, which was Jesus’ home base during his Galilean ministry; see 3:20; 7:17; 9:33. Presumably these are all references to Peter’s home, though that cannot be demonstrated in most cases. (There are references to several houses not in Capernaum: 9:28; 10:10; 14:3.) Both οἶκος and οἰκία are used in Mark; they are roughly synonymous. οἶκος (11 of 13 times used in the accusative singular with εἰς) may be translated “home” (2:1, 11; 5:19, 38; 7:30; 8:3, 26) or “house” (2:26; 3:20; 7:17; 9:28; 11:17 bis); the difference is one of English idiom. οἰκία (singular and plural, used in all cases, and usually [13 of 18 times] articular) is more commonly “house” (14 of 18 times) unless it is identified as someone’s residence, in which case the English idiom is “home” (1:29; 2:15; 6:4; 14:3). For more on the usage of οἶκος and οἰκία, see Kilpatrick, 169–70.

The reference to Kilpatrick is:

Kilpatrick, G. D. “Some Notes on Marcan Usage” [and several related studies]. In The Language and Style of the Gospel of Mark, ed. J. K. Elliott, 151–84. NovTSupp, 71. Leiden: Brill, 1993.

D.A. Carson Interview: �Is Our Gospel Too Big?� on Preaching Today, 3 parts, each brief, but a potent summary of some crucial issues in defining the gospel and preaching it. The first two parts are in print format and the third switches to audio (mp3).

part one, part two, part three

A sample:

It’s important that our hearers see that we preach the gospel from the Bible. An expository sermon demonstrably explains what the Bible says. Demonstrably—that’s the crucial word. So at the end of the day people say, In truth that is what the Bible says. If someone wants to disagree with what I’ve said, they have to disagree with my understanding of the Bible, which they have every right to challenge me on, but the authority finally is the Bible and not me.

And again,

In a biblically illiterate age, one of the things that must be done is to show that what is being said is demonstrably the Word of God.

And finally,

Undoubtedly if you’re next door to a major university that has a religion department undermining the Word of God, then something apologetic has to be done about the nature of Scripture. But I think of Spurgeon’s one-liner: “Defend the Bible? I would rather defend a lion.” That is not to say that there’s no place for a robust defense of the Bible in some contexts, but defending the Bible is not the first responsibility of the preacher; preaching it is.

(All three quotes are from part two.)

HT: Andy Naseli on Between Two Worlds

Andy Naselli has posted on Between Two Worlds two interesting interviews with well known evangelical NT scholars:

Tom Schriener on biblical theology,

and Andreas Kosternberger on 1 Tim 2:12.

Just finished a sermon that I will preach tomorrow morning at First Baptist in Lock haven, PA and thought that I’d share it here.

Who Killed Jesus?
Acts2:22–36

(This is actually a revision of a Good Friday sermon that I’ve preached before.)

Here’s some info posted on a site due to “go live” tomorrow (Jly 24, ‘08):

Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript - the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity - is of supreme importance for the history of the book.
The Codex Sinaiticus Project

The Codex Sinaiticus Project is an international collaboration to reunite the entire manuscript in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time. Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars, conservators and curators, the Project gives everyone the opportunity to connect directly with this famous manuscript.
The Codex Sinaiticus Website

The first release of the Codex Sinaiticus Project website will be launched on 24 July 2008 here. The website will be substantially updated in November 2008 and in July 2009, by when the website will have been fully developed.

At the bottom of the temporary page be sure to check the download links, including the screenshot of the web site to come.

As I worshipped with a group of God’s people this morning (not my usual church family since I’m away teaching this week) I thought again about the importance of preaching. Here are some comments I wrote some time ago about preaching. They are but a small part of a larger essay. I’ll append a few related thoughts below.

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In its biblical portrait, the central focus in pastoral ministry is the public proclamation of the Word of God. Preaching. There are certainly other aspects of pastoral ministry, both in the NT model and in the traditional (and faddish) models of ministry that have developed in the church. I don’t intend to imply that ministry is only about preaching. But it can be no less than preaching if it is to be a biblical pastoral ministry.

I have some serious concerns about the state of the pulpit these days. My concern could be stated fairly well in the words of 1 Sam 3:1. As the old King James says, “the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision”—which, as I’m sure you know, is better translated, “the word of the Lord was rare in those days, visions were infrequent” (NASB). I would adapt that wording and suggest that biblical preaching is rare in our day, a word from God is infrequently heard from our pulpits. That is not just my cantankerous opinion; some of today’s best known preachers echo the same sentiment. John Stott says that “true Christian preaching … is extremely rare in today’s Church” [1] and Kent Hughes bemoans the fact that “dis-exposition … is a serious problem that deserves careful thought. At least in my part of the world [says Hughes], these abuses increasingly dominate the pulpits” [2]

Pastors have the same charge as that with which Paul charged Timothy: “Preach the Word” (2 Tim 4:2). That is an awesome responsibility. The apostle Peter reminds us that “if anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God” (1 Pet 4:11). John Wycliffe, the “Morning Star of the Reformation,” described preaching as “the highest service that men may attain to on earth.” [3] The Word of God is a most precious treasure—equal to our very salvation in worth, for if we had no Bible we would know nothing of God’s Son, the forgiveness that his crosswork provided and the new covenant relationship which that work inaugurated.

As John Stott has said so well,

Preaching is indispensable to Christianity. Without preaching a necessary part of its authenticity has been lost. For Christianity is, in its very essence, a religion of the Word of God. No attempt to understand Christianity can succeed which overlooks or denies the truth that the living God has taken the initiative to reveal himself savingly to fallen humanity; or that his self-revelation has been given by the most straightforward means of communication known to us, namely by a word and words; or that he calls upon those who have heard his Word to speak it to others. [4]

Although the Word of God has been given for all, the pastor is entrusted with the Word of God in a special sense due to his primary responsibility of proclaiming that Word to a congregation. Handling the Word of God correctly is an enormous responsibility. As James exhorted his hearers, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (Jas 3:1). There ought to be a very real sense in which we recognize and acknowledge our inadequacy for such a great task. I sense little of that in many preachers. Some are quite confident—even proud—of their ability in the pulpit. Others treat it rather flippantly. Richard Baxter, the famous 17th century preacher, saw it quite differently. He said,

The public preaching of the word … requires greater skill, and especially greater life and zeal, than any of us bring to it. It is no small matter to stand up in the face of a congregation and deliver a message of salvation or condemnation, as from the living God, in the name of our Redeemer. [5]

Indeed, “the pulpit is a perilous place for any child of Adam to occupy”! [6] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London for many years, was of the opinion that

It seems to be the case that the greater the preacher the more hesitant he has generally been to preach…. A man who feels that he is competent, and that he can do this easily, and so rushes to preach without any sense of fear or trembling, or any hesitation whatsoever, is a man who is proclaiming that he has never been ‘called’ to be a preacher. The man who is called by God is a man who realises what he is called to do, and he so realises the awfulness of the task that he shrinks from it. [7]

One of the books that you need to read carefully and thoughtfully is D. A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies. Let me cite part of his introduction and adapt it to my homiletical concerns. The issues of the biblical languages, exegesis, homiletics, and church ministry, are closely related (though one might not suspect that from many sermons!). Addressing the focus of his title, Exegetical Fallacies, Carson acknowledges that,

To focus on fallacies, exegetical or otherwise, sounds a bit like focusing on sin: guilty parties may take grudging notice and briefly pause to examine their faults, but there is nothing intrinsically redemptive in the procedure. Nevertheless, when the sins are common and (what is more) frequently unrecognized by those who commit them, detailed description may have the salutary effect of not only encouraging thoughtful self-examination but also providing an incentive to follow a better way. I hope that by talking about what should be done in exegesis [and, I would add, homiletics], we may all desire more deeply to interpret [and “preach”] the Word of God aright….

… This study is important because exegetical fallacies [and, I would add, “homiletical fallacies”] are painfully frequent among us—among us whose God-given grace and responsibility is the faithful proclamation of the Word of God. Make a mistake in the interpretation of Shakespeare’s plays … and there is unlikely to be an entailment of eternal consequences; but we cannot lightly accept a similar laxity in the interpretation [and preaching] of Scripture. We are dealing with God’s thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly. It is all the more shocking, therefore, to find in the evangelical pulpit, where the Scriptures are officially revered, frequent and inexcusable sloppiness in handling them. [8]

Ministry in general and preaching in particular are directly influenced by our theology. If we really believe, not just as a matter of academic statement, but as genuine convictions that the Bible is God’s revealed truth, inspired and inerrant in the originals, then our preaching and teaching of that revelatory corpus must, of necessity, be based on our careful study of the text in the original languages. There is no other way to have the immediate confidence necessary to undergird our proclamation of “thus says the Lord” if we cannot read what he said how he said it. If you cannot read the OT in Hebrew and the NT in Greek you will always be at the mercy of those who claim to be able to do so.

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That’s what I wrote some time ago. In a similar vein, I would add these thoughts.

When you preach, focus attention on the text, not on what you say about the text. Always make sure that your audience knows when God is speaking and when you are speaking. Read Scripture in big chunks. Read it well. Emphasize that what you are reading is God’s Word and authoritative. I like the pattern of some preachers (I first heard it listening to D. A. Carson), who when they read the Scripture at or near the beginning of their message, say something to this effect: “This is what Scripture says: …” Then they read Scripture. (And some add at the end of the text, “This is the Word of the Lord.”) The exact phrasing isn’t important, but the emphasis is good.

I heard another preacher recently who intended to expound about a dozen verses, but he never read them all together. After a fairly long introduction, he read two verses so quickly that if someone yawned, they would have missed it altogether! He read some other scattered verses in the text during the sermon (and some other verses from elsewhere), but the net impact seemed, at least to me, to detract from the priority and authority of Scripture. And that despite the many good things that he said.

Fellow ministers: Preach the Word! And be sure your people hear it as God’s Word.

NOTES

[1] Between Two Worlds: The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 15.

[2] Kent Hughes, “The Anatomy of Exposition: Logos, Ethos, and Pathos,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 3 (1999): 45–46. “Dis-Exposition” is Hughes’ term: “Though the term is new, you have all experienced dis-exposition as a listener. You can easily recall a Sunday service in which the biblical text is announced and you settle back, Bible in hand for a good Sunday meal, only to find out that the text is departed from, never to return. Dis-exposition causes Sunday indigestion” (ibid., 44).

[3] Cited in Stott, Between Two Worlds, 22.

[4] Between Two Worlds, 15.

[5] The Reformed Pastor, abridged (Grand Rapids: Sovereign Grace, 1971), 17.

[6] Stott, Between Two Worlds, 320.

[7] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 107.

[8] Exegetical Fallacies, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 15–16.

[Edited to add the notes.]

Many of you are likely familiar with Themelios. It has recently transferred owners (or custodians?) and been relaunched as a free e-journal under the sponsorship of The Gospel Coalition, DA Carson ed. The first of the new series is now available. It’s well worth reading.

Now if they only had an RSS feed to announce new issues…

Themelios is an international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. It was formerly a print journal operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008.

Themelios - Volume 33, Issue 1 Volume 33, Issue 1 - May 2008

Preaching from Leviticus—in a church “plant”—on Sunday morning! Now just how “wrong” could that be from all the church growth and contemporary church planting advice?! And I mean expository preaching through the entire book over the course of several months. Sounds crazy to many people. But it’s being done, and God appears to be blessing it. Pastor james Schmidt of North Valley Baptist Church (Mayfield/Carbondale/Jermyn, PA) has been doing just that. This is the church plant with which I worked for about 5 years before moving too far away to be involved on a regular basis. James, who was one of my MDiv students, called to chat the other day and recounted his current preaching schedule. I asked him if he would write a brief summary that I could post here. In his own words…

In August of 1007, I made a preaching plan to cover the entire book of Leviticus in 12 weeks for the Sunday morning services. This decision was a difficult one as Leviticus is far from the norm of what people expect from the pulpit. I was convinced that God was serious about preaching the whole counsel of His Word. I was also convinced that my people needed to have a more firm understanding of how to live with a holy God. I had concluded that most people have a very poor understanding of what holiness really is. There are several songs often sung about holiness being longed for by a Christian, yet while the song may be fun to sing, I am not convinced that holiness is something the average person in the pew actually wants.

After firmly deciding to preach from Leviticus, I decided right away to bolster myself and my pulpit with congregational Scripture reading—in unison. I choose passages like Rom 15, Ps 19, Ps 1, 2 Tim 3, et al. all passages which talk about the values of Scripture, and the values of the OT. Each week we gave a very brief disclaimer before or after the reading explaining that ALL Scripture is valuable including difficult passages like Leviticus. The unison reading of Scripture lent itself well with the background of Moses going into the tent and the people standing waiting for the Word from the Lord.

As the weeks passed (actually the first week) people quickly recognized that Leviticus was not like the rest of Scripture. I spent some credibility points in chapters 11–15 (which I covered in one week—that was one of the hardest presentations for me) both because of the content of the Scripture and for my application. My application was somewhat ‘weak’—due primarily to the content and the time I had allotted myself. If I had it to do over, I would not change much. In our feel-good culture people did not generally walk out feeling better than when they came in. I really struggled that week with what I had just done to my people. Yet I was confident that God was honored.

The climax (I believe) of the book is chapter 16. I coved that the next week, alone by itself. I planned that all those months ago. I knew that covering so much the previous week would lay the ground work for the big day, the Day of Atonement which, compared to what we have previously coved, was easy to apply. There was a young lady [college age] there; it was her 3d time visiting us. She had been there the pervious 2 weeks. She said in her own words to me [after the 2d week], “So what you mean is, God is too good for us?” She meant holy; she understood that from the week before there was little hope found in the Law to save us, that people needed something more. The 3d week, she walked the aisle after the sermon. In 5 years it was only my third “altar call.” She got saved because she recognized the holiness of God and could compare herself to that. But it took several weeks of challenge for her pastor. I rejoice that God’s word is powerful and effective to accomplish his purposes. I am learning fast not to be ashamed of the Word of God—especially of the parts that used to embarrass me.

I have several people in the church who were really challenging my decision to preach from Leviticus. After that Sunday, watching that young lady get saved, I believe the debate is over. I prayed that God would save her, for many reasons, one of which was so that people would trust in God’s Word—all of it.

When he finishes Leviticus, James has made a wise choice—he’s going to follow Leviticus with Hebrews.

My only regret is that I’ve not been able to be part of the North Valley congregation each Sunday the past few months!

John Stackhouse just posted a very helpful discussion regarding PhD studies in general, why you might consider one, and how to go about applying. Most of this info is relevant to any variety of PhD programs in biblical studies.

HT: Justin Taylor, Between Two Worlds

I was going to title this, “trivia,” but it’s really not trivial. Nor is it very directly related to NT studies, but you’ve probably figured out if you read this blog (when I get time to post something! ) that it’s really broader than that anyway. This actually consists of just a few pieces from elsewhere that are worth reading.

First, an article on Christianity Today site by Troy Anderson: A New Day for Apologetics.

Second, some good advice on getting things done (without the guilt of the over-organized efficiency experts who “manage [life... and ministry] by objectives.” This piece by Doug Wilson is titled The Fruitfulness of Plodding. HT: Between Two Worlds