Spiritual Life – Page 24

Dr. D.A. Carson on 12 Principles of Biblical Interpretation

MUST I LEARN HOW TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE?

by D. A. Carson

Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation; biblical hermeneutics is the art and science of interpreting the Bible. At the time of the Reformation, debates over interpretation played an enormously important role. These were debates over ―interpretation, not just over ―interpretations. In other words, the Reformers disagreed with their opponents not only over what this or that passage meant, but over the nature of interpretation, the locus of authority in interpretation, the role of the church and of the Spirit in interpretation, and much more.

During the last half century, so many developments have taken place in the realm of hermeneutics that it would take a very long article even to sketch them in lightly. Sad to say, nowadays many scholars are more interested in the challenges of the discipline of hermeneutics than in the interpretation of the Bible—the very Bible that hermeneutics should help us handle more responsibly. On the other hand, rather ironically there are still some people who think that there is something slightly sleazy about interpretation. Without being crass enough to say so, they secretly harbor the opinion that what others offer are interpretations, but what they themselves offer is just what the Bible says.

Carl F. H. Henry is fond of saying that there are two kinds of presuppositionalists: those who admit it and those who don‘t. We might adapt his analysis to our topic: There are two kinds of practitioners of hermeneutics: those who admit it and those who don‘t. For the fact of the matter is that every time we find something in the Bible (whether it is there or not!), we have interpreted the Bible. There are good interpretations and there are bad interpretations; there are faithful interpretations and there are unfaithful interpretations. But there is no escape from interpretation.

This is not the place to lay out foundational principles, or to wrestle with the ―new hermeneutic (now becoming long in the tooth) and with ―radical hermeneutics and ―postmodern hermeneutics. [For more information and bibliography on these topics, and especially their relation to postmodernism and how to respond to it, see my book The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism, esp. chaps. 2 and 3 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996 – in this article will be referred to as GOG).] I shall focus instead on one ―simple problem, one with which every serious Bible reader is occasionally confronted. The issue is this: What parts of the Bible are binding mandates for us, and what parts are not?

Consider some examples. “Greet one another with a holy kiss”: the French do it, Arab believers do it, but by and large we do not. Are we therefore unbiblical? Jesus tells his disciples that they should wash one another‘s feet (John 13:14), yet most of us have never done so. Why do we “disobey” that plain injunction, yet obey his injunction regarding the Lord‘s Table (“This do, in remembrance of me”)? If we find reasons to be flexible about the “holy kiss” (GOG, 19), how flexible may we be in other domains? May we replace the bread and wine at the Lord‘s Supper with yams and goat‘s milk if we are in a village church in Papua New Guinea? If not, why not? And what about the broader questions circulating among theonomists regarding the continuing legal force of law set down under the Mosaic covenant? Should we as a nation, on the assumption that God graciously grants widespread revival and reformation, pass laws to execute adulterers by stoning? If not, why not? Is the injunction for women to keep silent in the church absolute (1 Cor. 14:33–36)? If not, why not? Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again if he is to enter the kingdom; he tells the rich young man that he is to sell all that he has and give it to the poor. Why do we make the former demand absolute for all persons, and apparently fudge a little on the second?

Obviously I have raised enough questions for a dissertation or two. What follows in this article is not a comprehensive key to answering all difficult interpretive questions, but some preliminary guidelines to sorting such matters out. The apostolic number of points that follow are not put into any order of importance.

(1) As conscientiously as possible, seek the balance of Scripture, and avoid succumbing to historical and theological disjunctions.

Liberals have often provided us with nasty disjunctions: Jesus or Paul, the charismatic community or the ―early catholic‖ church, and so forth. Protestants sometimes drop a wedge between Paul‘s faith apart from works (Rom. 3:28) and James‘s faith and works (Jas. 2:4); others absolutize Gal. 3:28 as if it were the controlling passage on all matters to do with women, and spend countless hours explaining away 1 Tim. 2:12 (or the reverse!).

Historically, many Reformed Baptists in England between the middle of the eighteenth century and the middle of the twentieth so emphasized God‘s sovereign grace in election that they became uncomfortable with general declarations of the gospel. Unbelievers should not be told to repent and believe the gospel: how could that be, since they are dead in trespasses and sin, and may not in any case belong to the elect? They should rather be encouraged to examine themselves to see if they have within themselves any of the first signs of the Spirit‘s work, any conviction of sin, any stirrings of shame. On the face of it, this is a long way from the Bible, but a large number of churches thought it was the hallmark of faithfulness. What has gone wrong, of course, is that the balance of Scripture has been lost. One element of biblical truth has been elevated to a position where it is allowed to destroy or domesticate some other element of biblical truth.

In fact, the “balance of Scripture” is not an easy thing to maintain, in part because there are different kinds of balance in Scripture. For example, there is the balance of diverse responsibilities laid on us (e.g. praying, being reliable at work, being a biblically faithful spouse and parent, evangelizing a neighbor, taking an orphan or widow under our wing, and so forth): these amount to balancing priorities within the limits of time and energy. There is the balance of Scripture‘s emphases as established by observing their relation to the Bible‘s central plot-line (more on this in the 12th point); there is also the balance of truths which we cannot at this point ultimately reconcile, but which we can easily distort if do not listen carefully to the text (e.g. Jesus is both God and man; God is both the transcendent sovereign and yet personal; the elect alone are saved, and yet in some sense God loves horrible rebels so much that Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and God cries, “Turn, turn, why will you die? For the Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked”). In each case, a slightly different kind of biblical balance comes into play, but there is no escaping the fact that biblical balance is what we need.

(2) Recognize that the antithetical nature of certain parts of the Bible, not least some of Jesus’ preaching, is a rhetorical device, not an absolute. The context must decide where this is the case.

Of course, there are absolute antitheses in Scripture that must not be watered down in any way. For example, the disjunctions between the curses and the blessings in Deut. 27–28 are not mutually delimiting: the conduct that calls down the curses of God and the conduct that wins his approval stand in opposite camps, and must not be intermingled or diluted. But on the other hand, when eight centuries before Christ, God says, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6), the sacrifical system of the Mosaic covenant is not thereby being destroyed. Rather, the Hebrew antithesis is a pointed way of saying, “If push comes to shove, mercy is more important than sacrifice. Whatever you do, you must not rank the marks of formal religion—in this case, burnt offerings and other mandated ritual sacrifices—with fundamental acknowledgment of God, or confuse the extent to which God cherishes compassion and mercy with the firmness with which he demands the observance of the formalities of the sacrificial system” (GOG, 20).

Similarly, when Jesus insists that if anyone is to become his disciple, he must hate his parents (Lk. 14:26), we must not think Jesus is sanctioning raw hatred of family members. What is at issue is that the claims of Jesus are more urgent and binding than even the most precious and prized human relationships (as the parallel in Mt. 10:37 makes clear).

Sometimes the apparent antithesis is formed by comparing utterances from two distant passages. On the one hand, Jesus insists that the praying of his followers should not be like the babbling of the pagans who think they are heard because of their many words (Mt. 6:7). On the other hand, Jesus can elsewhere tell a parable with the pointed lesson that his disciples should pray perseveringly and not give up (Lk. 18:1–8). Yet if we imagine that the formal clash between these two injunctions is more than superficial, we betray not only our ignorance of Jesus‘ preaching style, but also our insensitivity to pastoral demands. The first injunction is vital against those who think they can wheedle things out of God by their interminable prayers; the second is vital against those whose spiritual commitments are so shallow that their mumbled one-liners constitute the whole of their prayer life.

(3) Be cautious about absolutizing what is said or commanded only once.

The reason is not that God must say things more than once for them to be true or binding. The reason, rather, is that if something is said only once it is easily misunderstood or misapplied. When something is repeated on several occasions and in slightly different contexts, readers will enjoy a better grasp of what is meant and what is at stake.

That is why the famous “baptism for the dead” passage (1 Cor.15:29) is not unpacked at length and made a major plank in, say, the Heidelberg Catechism or the Westminster Confession. Over forty interpretations of that passage have been offered in the history of the church. Mormons are quite sure what it means, of course, but the reason why they are sure is because they are reading it in the context of other books that they claim are inspired and authoritative.

This principle also underlies one of the reasons why most Christians do not view Christ‘s command to wash one another‘s feet as a third sacrament or ordinance. Baptism and the Lord‘s Supper are certainly treated more than once, and there is ample evidence that the early church observed both, but neither can be said about footwashing. But there is more to be said.

(4) Carefully examine the biblical rationale for any saying or command.

The purpose of this counsel is not to suggest that if you cannot discern the rationale you should flout the command. It is to insist that God is neither arbitrary nor whimsical, and by and large he provides reasons and structures of thought behind the truths he discloses and the demands he makes. Trying to uncover this rationale can be a help in understanding what is of the essence of what God is saying, and what is the peculiar cultural expression of it.

Before I give a couple of examples, it is important to recognize that all of Scripture is culturally bound. For a start, it is given in human languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek), and languages are a cultural phenomenon. Nor are the words God speaks to be thought of as, say, generic Greek. Rather, they belong to the Greek of the Hellenistic period (it isn‘t Homeric Greek or Attic Greek or modern Greek). Indeed, this Greek changes somewhat from writer to writer (Paul does not always use words the same way that Matthew does) and from genre to genre (apocalyptic does not sound exactly like an epistle). None of this should frighten us. It is part of the glory of our great God that he has accommodated himself to human speech, which is necessarily time-bound and therefore changing. Despite some postmodern philosophers, this does not jeopardize God‘s capacity for speaking truth. It does mean that we finite human beings shall never know truth exhaustively (that would require omniscience), but there is no reason why we cannot know some truth truly. Nevertheless, all such truth as God discloses to us in words comes dressed in cultural forms. Careful and godly interpretation does not mean stripping away such forms to find absolute truth beneath, for that is not possible: we can never escape our finiteness. It does mean understanding those cultural forms, and by God‘s grace discovering the truth that God has disclosed through them.

So when God commands people to rend their clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, are these precise actions so much of the essence of repentance (GOG, 21) that there is no true repentance without them? When Paul tells us to greet one another with a holy kiss, does he mean that there is no true Christian greeting without such a kiss?

When we examine the rationale for these actions, and ask whether or not ashes and kissing are integratively related to God‘s revelation, we see the way forward. There is no theology of kissing; there is a theology of mutual love and committed fellowship among the members of the church. There is no theology of sackcloth and ashes; there is a theology of repentance that demands both radical sorrow and profound change.

If this reasoning is right, it has a bearing on both footwashing and on head-coverings. Apart from the fact that footwashing appears only once in the New Testament as something commanded by the Lord, the act itself is theologically tied, in John 13, to the urgent need for humility among God‘s people, and to the cross. Similarly, there is no theology of head- coverings, but there is a profound and recurrent theology of that of which the head-coverings were a first-century Corinthian expression: the proper relationships between men and women, between husbands and wives.

(5) Carefully observe that the formal universality of proverbs and of proverbial sayings is only rarely an absolute universality. If proverbs are treated as statutes or case law, major interpretive—and pastoral!—errors will inevitably ensue.

Compare these two sayings of Jesus: (a) “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Mt.12:30). (b) “. . . for whoever is not against us is for us”(Mk. 9:40; cf. Lk. 9:50). As has often been noted, the sayings are not contradictory if the first is uttered to indifferent people against themselves, and the second to the disciples about others whose zeal outstrips their knowledge. But the two statements are certainly difficult to reconcile if each is taken absolutely, without thinking through such matters.

Or consider two adjacent proverbs in Prov. 26. (a) “Do not answer a fool according to his folly . . .”(26:4). (b) “Answer a fool according to his folly . . .” (26:5). If these are statutes or examples of case law, there is unavoidable contradiction. On the other hand, the second line of each proverb provides enough of a rationale that we glimpse what we should have seen anyway: proverbs are not statutes. They are distilled wisdom, frequently put into pungent, aphoristic forms that demand reflection, or that describe effects in society at large (but not necessarily in every individual), or that demand consideration of just how and when they apply.

Let us spell out these two proverbs again, this time with the second line included in each case: (a) “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.” (b) “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” Side by side as they are, these two proverbs demand reflection on when it is the part of prudence to refrain from answering fools, lest we be dragged down to their level, and when it is the part of wisdom to offer a sharp, “foolish” rejoinder that has the effect of pricking the pretensions of the fool. The text does not spell this out explicitly, but if the rationales of the two cases are kept in mind, we will have a solid principle of discrimination.

So when a well-known para-church organization keeps quoting “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” as if it were case law, what are we to think? This proverbial utterance must not be stripped of its force: it is a powerful incentive to responsible, God-fearing, child-rearing. Nevertheless, it is a proverb; it is not a covenantal promise. Nor does it specify at what point the children will be brought into line. Of course, many children from Christian homes go astray because the parents really have been very foolish or unbiblical or downright sinful; but many of us have witnessed the burdens of unnecessary guilt and shame borne by really godly parents when their grown (GOG, 22) children are, say, 40 years of age and demonstrably unconverted. To apply the proverb in such a way as to engender or reinforce such guilt is not only pastorally incompetent, it is hermeneutically incompetent: it is making the Scriptures say something a little different from what can safely be inferred. Aphorisms and proverbs give insight as to how culture under God works, how relationships work, what are priorities should be; they do not put in all the footnotes as to whether there are any individual exceptions, and under what circumstances, and so forth.

(6) The application of some themes and subjects must be handled with special care, not only because of their intrinsic complexity, but also because of essential shifts in social structures between biblical times and our own day.

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves” (Rom.13:1–2). Some Christians have reasoned from this passage that we must always submit to the governing authorities, except in matters of conscience before God (Acts 4:19). Even then, we “submit”to the authorities by patiently bearing the sanctions they impose on us in this fallen world. Other Christians have reasoned from this passage that since Paul goes on to say that the purpose of rulers is to uphold justice (Rom.13:3–4), then if rulers are no longer upholding justice the time may come when righteous people should oppose them, and even, if necessary, overthrow them. The issues are exceedingly complex, and were thought through in some detail by the Reformers.

But there is of course a new wrinkle added to the fabric of debate when one moves from a totalitarian régime, or from an oligarchy, or from a view of government bound up with an inherited monarchy, to some form of democracy. This is not to elevate democracy to heights it must not occupy. It is to say, rather, that in theory at least a democracy allows you to “overthrow” a government without violence or bloodshed. And if the causes of justice cannot do so, it is because the country as a whole has slid into a miasma that lacks the will, courage, and vision to do what it has the power to do, but chooses not to do (for whatever reason). What, precisely, are the Christian‘s responsibilities in that case (whatever your view of the meaning of Rom.13 in its own context)?

In other words, new social structures beyond anything Paul could have imagined, though they cannot overturn what he said, may force us to see that valid, thoughtful, application demands that we bring into the discussion some considerations he could not have foreseen. It is a great comfort, and epistemologically important, to remember that God did foresee them—but that does not itself reduce the hermeneutical responsibilities we have.

(7) Determine not only how symbols, customs, metaphors, and models function in Scripture, but also to what else they are tied.

We may agree with conclusions already drawn about sackcloth and ashes, and about holy kissing. But is it then acceptable to lead a group of young people in a California church in a celebration of the Lord‘s Table using coke and chips? And how about yams and goat‘s milk in Papua New Guinea? If in the latter case we use bread and wine, are we not subtly insisting that only the food of white foreigners is acceptable to God?

The problem is one not only of churchmanship, but of linguistic theory: Bible translators face it continuously. How should we translate “bread” and “wine” in the words of institution? Or consider a text such as Isa.1:18: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”Suppose the target group for which you are translating the Bible lives in equatorial rain forests and has never seen snow: would it be better to change the simile? Suppose that the only “wool” they have seen is the dirty dun-colored stuff from village goats: could not “faithful’ translation be misleading, while culturally sensitive translation that is nevertheless more distant from the original succeed in communicating the point that God speaking through Isaiah was getting across?

A lot can be said in favor of this sort of flexibility. Certainly in the case of “snow,” not a lot seems to be at stake. You might want to check out the other seven biblical occurrences of “white as snow” to make sure you are not unwittingly running into some awkward clash or other. But in the case of bread and wine at the Lord‘s Supper, the situation is more complicated. This is because the elements are tied in with other strands of the Bible, and it is almost impossible to disentangle them. Having changed “bread” to, say, “yams” in order to avoid any cultural imperialism, what shall we do with the connections between the Lord‘s Supper and the Passover, where only “unleavened bread” was to be eaten: can we speak of “unleavened yams”?! How about the connection between bread and manna, and then the further connection drawn between bread/manna and Jesus (John.6)? Is Jesus (I say this reverently) now to become the yam of God? And I have not yet begun to exhaust the complications connected with this one.

So what begins as a charitable effort in cross-cultural communication is leading toward major interpretive problems a little farther down the road. Moreover, Bible translations have a much longer shelf-life than the original translators usually think. Fifty years later, once the tribe has become a little more familiar with cultures beyond their own forests, and it seems best in a revision to return to a greater degree of literalism, try and change “yams” to “bread” and see what kind of ecclesiastical squabbles will break out. The “KJV” of the rain forests has “yams”. . . .

All of these sorts of problems are bound up with the fact that God has not given us a culturally neutral revelation. What he has revealed in words is necessarily tied to specific places and cultures. Every other culture is going to have to do some work to understand what God meant when he said certain things in a particular language at a specific time and place and in a shifting idiom. In the case of some expressions, an analogous idiom may be the best way to render something; in other expressions, especially those that are deeply tied to other elements in the Bible‘s story-line, it is best to render things more literally, and then perhaps include an explanatory note. In this case, for example, it might be wise to say that “bread” was a staple food of the people at the time, as yams are to us. A slightly different note would have to be included when leaven or yeast is introduced.

There is almost nothing to be said in favor of California young people using chips and coke as the elements. (I‘m afraid this is not a fictitious example.) Unlike the people of the rain forests, they do not even have in their favor that they have never heard of bread. Nor can it be said that chips and coke are their staples (though doubtless some of them move in that direction). What this represents is the whimsy of what is novel, the love of the iconoclastic, the spirituality of the cutesy—with no connections with either the Lord‘s words or with two thousand years of church history.

(8) Thoughtfully limit comparisons and analogies by observing near and far contexts.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb.13:8). Since he never finally refused to heal anyone who approached him during the days of his flesh, and since he is the same yesterday and today and forever, therefore he will heal all who approach him for healing today. I have had that argument put to me more than once. By the same token, of course, Heb.13:8 could be used to prove that since he was mortal before the cross, he must still be mortal today; or since he was crucified by the Romans, and he is the same yesterday and today and forever, he must still be being crucified by the Romans today.

The fact of the matter is that comparisons and analogies are always self-limiting in some respect or other. Otherwise, you would not be dealing with comparisons and analogies, but with two or more things that are identical. What makes a comparison or an analogy possible is that two different things are similar in certain respects. It is always crucial to discover the planes on which the parallels operate—something that is usually made clear by the context—and to refuse further generalization.

A disciple is to be like his master; we are to imitate Paul, as Paul imitates Christ. In what respects? Should we walk on water? Should we clean the local temple with a whip? Should we infallibly heal those who are ill and who petition us for help? Should we miraculously provide food for thousands out of some little boy‘s lunch? Should we be crucified? Such questions cannot all be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” It is worth observing that most of the injunctions in the Gospels to follow Jesus or to do what he does are bound up with his self- abnegation: e.g. as he is hated, so we must expect to be hated (Jn.15:18); as he takes the place of a servant and washes his disciples‘ feet, so we are to wash one another‘s feet (Jn.13); as he goes to the cross, so we are to take our cross and follow him (Mt.10:38; 16:24; Lk.14:27). Thus the answer to the question, “Should we be crucified?”, is surely ‘yes” and “no”: no, not literally, most of us will have to say, and yet that does not warrant complete escape from the demand to take up our cross and follow him. So in this case the answer is “yes,” but not literally.

(9) Many mandates are pastorally limited by the occasion or people being addressed.

For example, Jesus unambiguously insists, “Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God‘s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. . . . Simply let your ‘Yes‘ be ‘Yes,‘ and your ‘No,‘ ‘No‘; anything beyond this comes from the evil one”(Mt. 6:34–36). Yet we find Paul going well beyond a simple “Yes” or “No” (e.g. Rom. 9:1; 2 Cor. 11:10; Gal. 1:20). In fact, God puts himself under an oath (Heb. 6:17–18). Won‘t pedants have a wonderful time with this?

Yet the particular language of Jesus‘ prohibition, not to mention the expanded parallel in Mt. 23:16–22, shows that what Jesus was going after was the sophisticated use of oaths that became an occasion for evasive lying—a bit like the schoolboy who tells whoppers with his fingers crossed behind his back, as if this device exonerated him from the obligation to tell the truth. At some point, it is best to get to the heart of the issue: simply tell the truth, and let your “Yes” be “Yes” and your “No” be “No.” In other words, the pastoral context is vital. By contrast, the context of Heb. 6–7 shows that when God puts himself under an oath, it is not because otherwise he might lie, but for two reasons: first, to maintain the typological pattern of a priesthood established by oath, and second, to offer special reassurance to the weak faith of human beings who otherwise might be too little inclined to take God‘s wonderful promises seriously.

There are many examples in Scripture of the importance of pastoral context. Paul can say it is good for a man not to touch a woman (1 Cor. 7:1—NIV‘s “not to marry” is an unwarranted softening of the Greek). But (he goes on to say) there are also good reasons to marry, and finally concludes that both celibacy and marriage are gifts from God, charismata (1 Cor. 7:7—which I suppose makes us all charismatics). It does not take much reading between the lines to perceive that the church in Corinth included some who were given to asceticism, and others in danger of promiscuity (cf. 1 Cor. 6:12–20). There is a pastoral sensitivity to Paul‘s “Yes, but” argument, one that he deploys more than once in this letter (e.g. 1 Cor. 14:18–19). In other words, there are pastoral limitations to the course advocated, limitations made clear by the context.

In the same way, what Paul says to encourage Christian assurance to the Romans at the end of chap. 8 is not what he says to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 13:5. Which particular elements of a full-blooded, nuanced, and even complex doctrine need to be stressed at any particular time will be determined, in part, by a pastoral diagnosis of the predominant current ailments.

(10) Always be careful how you apply narratives.

Nowadays most of us are familiar with “postmodern” voices that advocate open-ended meaning—meaning, finally, that you or your interpretive community “finds,” not meaning that is necessarily in the text, and only accidentally what the author intended. Not surprisingly, when these postmodern voices turn to the Bible, they are often attracted to narrative portions, since narratives are generically more open to diverse interpretation than discourse. Admittedly, these narrative portions are usually pulled out of their contexts in the books in which they are embedded, and made to stand on their own. Without the contextual constraints, the interpretive possibilities seem to multiply—which is, of course, what the postmodernists want. Narratives have other virtues, of course: they are evocative, affective, image-enhancing, memorable. But unless care is taken, they are more easily misinterpreted than discourse.

In fact, little narratives should not only be interpreted within the framework of the book in which they are embedded, but within the corpus, and ultimately within the canon. Take, for instance, Gen. 39, the account of Joseph‘s early years in Egypt. One can read that narrative and draw from it excellent lessons on how to resist temptation (e.g. Joseph refers to sexual sin to which he is enticed by Potiphar‘s wife as “sin against God,” not some mere weakness or foible; he avoids the woman‘s company, at the crunch, because his purity is more important to him than his prospects). But a careful reading of the opening and closing verses of the chapter also shows that one of the important points of the narrative is that God is with Joseph and blesses him even in the midst of the most appalling circumstances: neither the presence of God nor the blessing of God are restricted to happy lifestyles. Then read the chapter in the context of the preceding narrative: now Judah becomes a foil for Joseph. The one is tempted in circumstances of comfort and plenty, and succumbs to incest; the other is tempted in circumstances of slavery and injustice, and retains his integrity. Now read the same chapter in the context of the book of Genesis. Joseph‘s integrity is bound up with the way God providentially provides famine relief not only for countless thousands, but for the covenant people of God in particular. Now read it within the context of the Pentateuch. The narrative is part of the explanation for how the people of God find themselves in Egypt, which leads to the Exodus. Joseph‘s bones are brought out when the people leave. Enlarge the horizon now to embrace the whole canon: suddenly Joseph‘s fidelity in small matters is part of the providential wisdom that preserves the people of God, leads to the exodus that serves as a type of a still greater release, and ultimately leads to Judah‘s (!) distant son David, and his still more distant son, Jesus.

So if you are applying Gen. 39, although it may be appropriate to apply it simply as a moralizing account that tells us how to deal with temptation, the perspective gained by admitting the widening contexts discloses scores of further connections and significances that thoughtful readers (and preachers) should not ignore.

(11) Remember that you, too, are culturally and theologically located.

In other words, it is not simply a case of each part of the Bible being culturally located, while you and I are neutral and dispassionate observers. Rather, thoughtful readers will acknowledge that they, too, are located in specific culture—they are awash in specific language, unacknowledged assumptions, perspectives on time and race and education and humor, notions of truth and honor and wealth. In postmodern hands, of course, these realities become part of the reason for arguing that all interpretations are relative. I have argued elsewhere that although no finite and sinful human being can ever know exhaustive truth about anything (that would require omniscience), they can know some truth truly. But often this requires some self-distancing of ourselves from inherited assumptions and perspectives.

Sometimes this is achieved unknowingly. The person who has read her Bible right through once or twice a year, loves it dearly, and now in her eightieth year reads it no less, may never have self-consciously engaged in some process of self-distancing from cultural prejudice. But she may now be so steeped in biblical outlooks and perspectives that she lives in a different “world” from her pagan neighbors, and perhaps even from many of her more shallow and less well-informed Christian neighbors. But the process can be accelerated by reading meditatively, self-critically, humbly, honestly, thereby discovering where the Word challenges the outlooks and values of our time and place. It is accelerated by the right kinds of small-group Bible studies (e.g. those that include devout Christians from other cultures), and from the best of sermons.

Does our Western culture place so much stress on individualism that we find it hard to perceive, not only the biblical emphasis on the family and on the body of the church, but also the ways in which God judges entire cultures and nations for the accumulating corruptions of her people? Are the biblical interpretations advanced by ―evangelical feminists‖ compromised by their indebtedness to the current focus on women‘s liberation, or are the interpretations of more traditional exegetes compromised by unwitting enslavement to patriarchal assumptions? Do we overlook some of the ―hard‖ sayings about poverty simply because most of us live in relative wealth?

The examples are legion. But the place to begin is by acknowledging that no interpreter, including you and me, approaches the text tabula rasa, like a razed slate just waiting to have the truth inscribed on them. There is always a need for honest recognition of our biases and assumptions, and progressive willingness to reform them and challenge them as we perceive that the Word of God takes us in quite a different direction. As our culture becomes progressively more secular, the need for this sort of reading is becoming more urgent. How it is done—both theoretically and practically—cannot be elucidated here. But that it must be done if we are not to domesticate Scripture to our own worlds cannot be doubted.

(12) Frankly admit that many interpretive decisions are nestled within a large theological system, which in principle we must be willing to modify if the Bible is to have the final word.

This is, of course, a subset of the preceding point, yet it deserves separate treatment.

Some Christians give the impression that if you learn Greek and Hebrew and get your basic hermeneutics sorted out, then you can forget about historical theology and systematic theology: simply do your exegesis and you will come out with the truth straight from the Word of God. But of course, it is not quite that simple. Inevitably, you are doing your exegesis as an Arminian, or as a Reformed Presbyterian, or as a dispensationalist, or as a theonomist, or as a Lutheran—and these are only some of the predominant systems among believers. Even if you are so ignorant of any one tradition that you are a bit of an eclectic, that simply means your exegesis is likely to be a little more inconsistent than that of others.

Systems are not inherently evil things. They function to make interpretation a little easier and a little more realistic: they mean that you do not have to go back to basics at each point (i.e. inevitably you assume a whole lot of other exegesis at any particular instance of exegesis). If the tradition is broadly orthodox, then the system helps to direct you away from interpretations that are heterodox. But a system can be so tightly controlling that it does not allow itself to be corrected by Scripture, modified by Scripture, or even overturned by Scripture. Moreover, not a few interpretative points of dispute are tied to such massive interlocking structures that to change one‘s mind about the detail would require a change of mind on massive structures, and that is inevitably far more challenging a prospect. This is also why a devout Reformed Presbyterian and a devout Reformed Baptist are not going to sort out what Scripture says about, say, baptism or church government, simply by taking out a couple of lexica and working over a few texts together during free moments some Friday afternoon. What is at stake, for both of them, is how these matters are nestled into a large number of other points, which are themselves related to an entire structure of theology.

And yet, and yet. . . . If this is all that could be said, then the postmodernists would be right: the interpretive community determines everything. But if believers are in principle willing to change their minds (i.e. their systems!), and are humbly willing to bring everything, including their systems, to the test of Scripture, and are willing to enter courteous discussion and debate with brothers and sisters who are similarly unthreatened and are similarly eager to let Scripture have final authority, then systems can be modified, abandoned, reformed.

The number of topics affected by such considerations is very large—not only the old chestnuts (e.g. baptism, the significance of Holy Communion, the understanding of covenant, Sabbath/Sunday issues) but more recent questions as well (e.g. theonomy, the place of “charismatic” gifts). For our purposes, we note that some of these manifold topics have to do with what is mandated of believers today.

Let us take a simple example. In recent years, a number of Christians have appealed to Acts 15:28 (“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us . . .”) to serve as a model for how the church comes to difficult decisions involving change in disputed areas—in the case of Acts, circumcision and its significance, and in the modern case, the ordination of women. Is this a fair usage of Acts 15:28? Does it provide a definitive model for how to change things formerly accepted in the church?

But believers with any firm views on the exclusive authority of the canon, or with any sophisticated views on how the new covenant believers were led in the progress of redemption history to re-think the place of circumcision in the light of the cross and resurrection, will not be easily persuaded by this logic. Has every change introduced by various churches across the centuries been justified, simply because it was blessed with the words “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”? Does the church now have the right to change things established in and by the canon in the way that the early church changed things established in and by the Old Testament canon, as if we were similarly located at a strategic turning point in redemptive history? The mind boggles at the suggestions. But what is clear in any case is that such issues cannot properly be resolved without thinking through, in considerable detail, how the parameters of the interpretive decisions are tied to much more substantial theological matters.

One final word: By advancing these dozen points, am I in danger of elevating certain hermeneutical controls above Scripture, controls which themselves serve to domesticate Scripture? Had I time and space, I think I could demonstrate that each of these twelve points is itself mandated by Scripture, whether explicitly or as a function of what Scripture is. It might be a useful exercise to work through the twelve points and think through why this is so. But that would be another essay.

About the Author: Dr. D. A. Carson teaches New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and has more than twenty books to his credit. Among them are Showing the Spirit, Exegetical Fallacies, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, How Long O Lord: Reflections on Suffering and Evil, and Matthew in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Article above adapted from: “Must I Learn How to Interpret the Bible?” Modern Reformation 5:3 (May/June 1996): 18–22. Updated 2003.

Notes

1. Allan Bloom, The Closing of The American Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1987), p. 56–57

2. J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (Banner of Truth, 1925), p. 21.

R.C. Sproul on How The Scriptures Use The Phrase “Will of God”

“Discerning God’s Will” by R.C. Sproul

“It is the will of God.”

How easily these words fall from the lips or flow from the pen. How difficult it is to penetrate exactly what they mean. Few concepts in theology generate more confusion than the will of God.

One problem we face is rooted in the multifaceted way in which the term “will” functions in biblical expressions. The Bible uses the expression “will of God” in various ways. We encounter two different Greek words in the New Testament (boulē and thēlema), both of which are capable of several nuances. They encompass such ideas as the counsel of God, the plan of God, the decrees of God, the disposition or attitude of God, as well as other nuances. Further distinctions in historical theology add to the labyrinth of meanings attached to the simple formula “the will of God.”

Augustine once remarked, “In some sense, God wills everything that happens.” The immediate question raised by this comment is, In what sense? How does God “will” the presence of evil and suffering? Is He the immediate cause of evil? Does He do evil? God forbid. Yet evil is a part of His creation. If He is sovereign over the whole of His creation, we must face the conundrum, How is evil related to the divine will?

Questions like this one make distinctions necessary—sometimes fine distinctions, even technical distinctions—with respect to will of God. Some of those distinctions made by theologians include the following:

(1) The Decretive Will of God

This is sometimes described as the sovereign efficacious will, by which God brings to pass whatever He pleases by His divine decree. An example of this may be seen in God’s work of creation. When God said, “Let there be light,” He issued a divine imperative. He exercised His sovereign efficacious will. It was impossible for the light not to appear. It appeared by the sheer necessity of consequence. That is, the decretive will can have no other effect, no other consequence than what God sovereignly commands. He did not request the light to shine. Nor did He coax, cajole, or woo it into existence. It was a matter of the authority and power vainly sought by the king of Siam when he said to Anna (to no avail), “So let it be said; so let it be done.” No creature enjoys this power of will. No man’s will is that efficacious. Men issue decrees and then hope they will bring about their desired effects. God alone can decree with the necessity of consequence.

(2) The Preceptive Will of God

The preceptive will of God relates to the revealed commandments of God’s published law. When God commands us not to steal, this “decree” does not carry with it the immediate necessity of consequence. Where it was not possible for the light to refuse to shine in creation, it is possible for us to refuse to obey this command. In a word, we steal.

We must be careful not to make too much of this distinction. We must not be lulled into thinking that the preceptive will of God is divorced from His decretive will. It is not as though the preceptive will has no effect or no necessity of consequence. We may have the power to disobey the precept. We do not have the power to disobey it with impunity. Nor can we annul it by our disregard. His law remains intact whether we obey it or disobey it. Even this law cannot ultimately be frustrated. There will come a time when no one will steal. The sinner in hell will be forcibly restrained from stealing. The saint in heaven, in the glorified state of perfected sanctification, will be totally disinclined to theft.

In one sense the preceptive will is part of the decretive will. God sovereignly and efficaciously decrees that His law be established. It is established and nothing can disestablish it. His law exists as surely as the light by which we read it.

Yet we still observe the acute difference between the light’s obedience to God’s creative decree and our disobedience to God’s moral, preceptive decree. How do we account for this?

A common way to resolve this conundrum is by appeal to a distinction between the sovereign will of God and His permissive will.

(3) The Permissive Will of God

The distinction between the sovereign will of God and the permissive will of God is fraught with peril, and it tends to generate untold confusion.

In ordinary language the term permission suggests some sort of positive sanction. To say that God “allows” or “permits” evil does not mean that He sanctions it in the sense that He grants approval to it. It is easy to discern that God never permits sin in the sense that He sanctions it in His creatures.

What is usually meant by divine permission is that God simply lets it happen. That is, He does not directly intervene to prevent its happening. Here is where grave danger lurks. Some theologies view this drama as if God were impotent to do anything about human sin. This view makes man sovereign, not God. God is reduced to the roll of spectator or cheerleader, by which God’s exercise in providence is that of a helpless Father who having done all He can do, must now sit back and simply hope for the best. He permits what He cannot help but permit because He has no sovereign power over it. This ghastly view is not merely a defective view of theism; it is unvarnished atheism.

Obviously the motive behind this specious theology is virtuous. It is fueled by a desire to exonerate God from any culpability for the presence of evil in the world. I am sure God is pleased by the sentiment but repulsed by a theory that would strip Him of His very deity. Calvin said of this:

“Hence the distinction was devised between doing and permitting because to many this difficulty seemed inexplicable, that Satan and all the impious are so under God’s hand and power that He directs their malice to whatever end seems good to Him, and uses their wicked deeds to carry out His judgments. And perhaps the moderation of those whom the appearance of absurdity alarms would be excusable, except that they wrongly try to clear God’s justice of every sinister mark by upholding a falsehood” (Institutes I.xviii.1).

Calvin locates the scurrilous untruth in the faulty distinction between willing and permitting:

“It seems absurd to them for man, who will soon be punished for his blindness, to be blinded by God’s will and command. Therefore they escape by the shift that this is done only with God’s permission, not also by His will; but He, openly declaring that He is the doer, repudiates that evasion. However, that men can accomplish nothing … except what He has already decreed with Himself and determines by His secret direction, is proved by innumerable and clear testimonies” (Ibid.).

Calvin goes on to enumerate several passages that support his thesis, looking to Job, Satan and the Sabeans, the role of Pilate and Judas in the execution of Christ, the role of Absalom in Jewish history, etc.

The key phrase is this: “Therefore they escape by the shift that this is done only with God’s permission, not also by His will.”

Here the operative word is only. If we are in any just way to speak of God’s permissive will, we must be careful to notice not only the word permissive but also the word will. Whatever God “permits” He sovereignly and efficaciously wills to permit. If I have a choice to sin or not sin, God also has a choice in the matter. He always has the ability and the authority to stop me from exercising my will. He has absolute power to restrain me. He can vaporize me instantly if it is His pleasure. Or He can keep me on a long leash and let me do my worst. He will only permit me to do my worst if my worst coincides with His perfect providential plan.

In the treachery perpetrated by Joseph’s brothers, it was said, “You meant it for evil; God meant it for good.” God’s good will was served through the bad will of Joseph’s brothers. This does not mean that since they were only doing the will of God the acts of the brothers were virtues in disguise. Their acts are judged together with their intentions, and they were rightly judged by God to be evil. That God brings good out of evil only underscores the power and the excellence of His sovereign decretive will.

We sometimes get at this same problem by distinguishing between God’s active will and His passive will. Again we face difficulties. When God is “passive,” He is, in a sense, actively passive. I do not mean to speak nonsense but merely to show that God is never totally passive. When He seems to be passive, He is actively choosing not to intercede directly.

Augustine addressed the problem this way: “Man sometimes with a good will wishes something which God does not will, as when a good son wishes his father to live, while God wishes him to die. Again it may happen that man with a bad will wishes what God wills righteously, as when a bad son wishes his father to die, and God also wills it.… For the things which God rightly wills, He accomplishes by the evil wills of bad men.”

About the Author: Dr. R.C. Sproul is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education ministry located near Orlando, Florida. His teaching can be heard on the program Renewing Your Mind, which is broadcast on hundreds of radio outlets in the United States and in 40 countries worldwide. He is the executive editor of Tabletalk magazine and general editor of The Reformation Study Bible, and the author of more than seventy books (including some of my all time favorites: The Work of Christ; The Holiness of God; Chosen By God; Reason to Believe; Knowing Scripture; Willing to Believe; The Intimate Marriage; Pleasing God; If There’s A God, Why Are There Atheists?, and Defending The Faith) and scores of articles for national evangelical publications. Dr. Sproul also serves as president of Ligonier Academy of Biblical and Theological Studies and Reformation Bible College. He currently serves as Senior Minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s in Sanford, FL. The article above was adapted from Ligonier Ministries Tabletalk magazine – August, 1993.

Dr. Paul David Tripp on “Why Does God Ask Us To Wait?”

Spiritual Muscle Development by Paul David Tripp

So, what happens inside of you when you are asked to wait? Is waiting, for you, a time of strengthening or weakening? Have you ever stopped to consider why God asks you to wait? Let me point you to one of his purposes.

Waiting Is Giving You Time

When God asks you to wait, what happens to your spiritual muscles? While you wait, do your spiritual muscles grow bigger and stronger or do they grow flaccid and atrophied? Waiting for the Lord isn’t about God forgetting you, forsaking you, or being unfaithful to his promises. It’s actually God giving you time to consider his glory and to grow stronger in faith. Remember, waiting isn’t just about what you are hoping for at the end of the wait, but also about what you will become as you wait.

Waiting always presents me with a spiritual choice-point. Will I allow myself to question God’s goodness and progressively grow weaker in faith, or will I embrace the opportunity of faith that God is giving me and build my spiritual muscles? (see Psalm 27:4)

It’s so easy to question your belief system when you are not sure what God is doing. It’s so easy to give way to doubt when you are being called to wait. It’s so easy to forsake good habits and to take up habits of unfaith that weaken the muscles of the heart. Let me suggest some habits of unfaith that cause waiting to be a time of increasing weakness rather than of building strength. These are bad habits that all of us are tempted to give way to.

Habits of Unfaith

Giving way to doubt. There’s a fine line between the struggle to wait and giving way to doubt. When you are called to wait, you are being called to do something that wasn’t part of your plan and is therefore something that you struggle to see as good. Because you are naturally convinced that what you want is right and good, it doesn’t seem loving that you are being asked to wait. You can see how tempting it is then to begin to consider questions of God’s wisdom, goodness, and love. It is tempting, in the frustration of waiting, to actually begin to believe that you are smarter than God.

Giving way to anger. It’s very easy to look around and begin to think that the bad guys are being blessed and the good guys are getting hammered (see Psalm 73). There will be times when it simply doesn’t seem right that you have to wait for something that seems so obviously good to you. It will feel that you are being wronged, and when it does, it seems right to be angry. Because of this, it’s important to understand that the anger you feel in these moments is more than anger with the people or circumstances that are the visible cause for your waiting. No, your anger is actually anger with the One who is in control of those people and those circumstances. You are actually giving way to thinking that you have been wronged by God.

Giving way to discouragement. This is where I begin to let my heart run away with the “If only_____,” the “What if_____,” and the “What will happen if_____.” I begin to give my mind to thinking about what will happen if my request isn’t answered soon, or what in the world will happen if it’s not answered at all. This kind of meditation makes me feel that my life is out of control. And I am able to think my life is out of control because I have forgotten God’s wise and gracious contol over very part of my existence. Rather than my heart being filled with joy, my heart gets flooded with worry and dread. Free mental time is spent considering my dark future, with all the resulting discouragement that will always follow.

Giving way to envy. When I am waiting, it’s very tempting to look over the fence and wish for the life of someone who doesn’t appear to have been called to wait. It’s very easy to take on an “I wish I were that guy” way of living. You can’t give way to envy without questioning God’s wisdom and his love. Here is the logic: if God really loves you as much as he loves that other guy, you would have what the other guy has. Envy is about feeling forgotten and forsaken, coupled with a craving to have what your neighbor enjoys.

Giving way to inactivity. The result of giving way to all of these things is inactivity. If God isn’t as good and wise as I once thought he was, if he withholds good things from his children, and if he plays favorites, then why would I continue to pursue him? Maybe all those habits of faith aren’t helping me after all; maybe I’ve been kidding myself.

Sadly, this is the course that many people take as they wait. Rather than growing in faith, their motivation for spiritual exercise is destroyed by doubt, anger, discouragement, and envy, and the muscles of faith that were once robust and strong are now atrophied and weak.

One of His Primary Shaping Tools

The reality of waiting is that it’s an expression of God’s goodness not empirical evidence against it. He is wise and loving. His timing is always right, and his focus isn’t so much on what you will experience and enjoy, but on what you will become. He is committed to using every tool at his disposal to rescue you from yourself and to shape you into the likeness of his Son. The fact is that waiting is one of his primary shaping tools.

So, how do you build your spiritual muscles during the wait? Well, you must commit yourself to resisting those habits of unfaith and with discipline pursue a rigorous routine of spiritual exercise.

What is the equipment in God’s gym of faith? Here are the things that he has designed for you to build the muscles of your heart and strengthen your resolve: the regular study of his Word; consistent godly fellowship; looking for God’s glory in creation every day; putting yourself under excellent preaching and teaching of Scripture; investing your quiet mental time in meditating on the goodness of God (e.g., as you are going off to sleep); reading excellent Christian books; and spending ample time in prayer. All of these things will result in spiritual strength and vitality.

Is God asking you to wait? So, what is happening to your muscles?

About the Author: Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization whose mission statement is “Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” Tripp is also professor of pastoral life and care at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, Texas, and executive director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care in Fort Worth, Texas. Tripp has written many books on Christian living that are read and distributed internationally. He has been married for many years to Luella, and they have four grown children. There are very few people today who can apply the gospel to every aspect of life as practically as Dr. Tripp. The article above is adapted from: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/spiritual-muscle-development, January 26, 2011.

Dr. R.C. Sproul Answers The Question: “Why Don’t We Know God?”

WHY WE DO NOT KNOW GOD

In order to speak to the question, “Why don’t we know God?” we must first grant that we do, in a sense, know God. So we can hardly speak to the question, “Why don’t we?” without making the kind of distinction that Dr. Packer makes. Dr. Packer distinguishes between the different ways in which we may know God. He speaks of the distinction between notitia and cognitio, that is, the difference between an intellectual awareness or mental apprehension of something and a more profound or deep relational knowledge of someone or something.

Obviously, the Bible uses the verb “to know” in at least these two ways and perhaps even more widely. There are different levels, degrees, or ways in which we can know things and persons. That is why the Scriptures say on some occasions that men do not know God, that men are in darkness concerning God, yet on other occasions that men do know God. Unless the Bible is speaking with a forked tongue, or unless we violate radically the Reformed principle of the coherency of Scripture, we have to conclude that the Bible is speaking from different perspectives about different kinds of knowledge. Perhaps we can circumvent the dilemma by making these distinctions. But one thing is certain: no one knows God at the depth to which it is possible to know God. And that is the question with which we must wrestle: Why do we not know God as intimately, deeply, personally and comprehensively as it is possible for us to know him?

Willful Ignorance

The answer to that question does not require an extended dissertation. The reason that we do not know God as intimately, deeply, personally, and comprehensively as we possibly could is because we do not want to know God intimately, deeply and comprehensively. Moreover, even though we may be redeemed, even though we may be “the elite of the elect,” there still remains within us the residual elements of our fallenness. Our natures have been regenerated, but the sin that dwells within us has not been eradicated and will not be, this side of glory. So as long as there remains any disposition within us to sin there is a propensity toward ignorance of the things of God. I would like to focus our attention on a detailed analysis of why men do not know God to the degree that it is possible to know him. The basis for this analysis is the first chapter of Romans, beginning at verse 18.

In the part of the prologue that is found in verses 16, 17 and 18, Paul maintains that he is not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith. Then we find the thematic statement of the Epistle: “For therein [that is, ‘in the gospel’] is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” This is the topic sentence for the whole Epistle: the righteousness of God is revealed through faith. So, in a word, Paul is concerned with revelation. But notice, he begins in verse 18, not with the revelation of God’s mercy, grace, or justification, but with the revelation of God’s wrath: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”

What we find here, as always in Scripture, is that God’s wrath is never arbitrary, capricious, irrational or demonic, but that it is always a response to something evil. God’s wrath is revealed against unrighteousness and ungodliness. It is not a wrath revealed against righteousness, godliness or piety, but against unrighteousness and ungodliness. Unrighteousness and ungodliness are general terms—wide-sweeping, wide-encompassing descriptive terms. But we must not stop here, for Paul moves from the general to the particular. He does not leave us to wonder about what particular form of unrighteousness, what specific kind of ungodliness is provoking the wrath of God. Rather, Paul names the child. He mentions it in the second clause of the sentence: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold [that is, ‘suppress’] the truth in unrighteousness.” The specific provocation of God’s wrath is human suppression of truth.

If you go to different translations of the Bible, you will find a wide variety of English phrases used to translate the last part of verse 18. The old King James Version says, “who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Some translations say, “hindering the truth.” One translator has preferred to say “repress the truth.”

Let us go back to the old King James Version: “holding the truth in unrighteousness.” That whole phrase seems a bit archaic, does it not? How does one hold truth? Truth is an abstract thing; truth is not quantitative. How can we use tactile, empirical terms to describe truth? We do not hold truth; we hold a wristwatch, or we hold onto something. But there are different ways to hold things. If I hold a wristwatch, that is one kind of holding. If I hold onto a lectern, that is another kind of holding. If I hold my wife, hopefully that is an altogether different kind of holding. What kind of holding does the apostle have in mind here? Well, notice that we can hold something up, or we can hold something down. The verb used here literally means “to hold down, to incarcerate, to hold back,” and it suggests the notion that one must use force to repress a counterforce. The way I like to think of “holding down” is of a giant spring compressed to its point of highest tension. In order to hold that spring in place, one must exert all kinds of counterpressure to keep it compressed; otherwise it will spring up by its own tension and perhaps even injure the one who is seeking to hold it back.

So why is Paul using this verb with respect to truth? He is talking about the human effort that brings the wrath of God upon man. It is man’s active, positive resistance to God’s truth.

Sufficient Revelation

The reason that God is angry is further elucidated in verse 19, where Paul says, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has shown it unto them.” If Paul had merely said, “What could have been known about God was available to man,” that would have been reason enough for God to reveal his wrath against those who did not avail themselves of a divinely given opportunity to know him. That in itself would have been a serious sin against our Creator. But Paul is not simply saying: God has made knowledge of himself available to men and men have never made use of this opportunity. No, he is saying that the knowledge of God which he has revealed to all men has been made plain, not obscure, and that mankind has rejected it.

Let me comment on that with an illustration from the academic world. There are different ways in which you can bring students to a state of knowledge. You can say to them, “Look, we have a course in the Doctrine of God. I am the professor in this course, but I am not going to teach you anything; I am simply going to moderate the course. Each student is responsible to lecture. If you want to know about the Doctrine of God, just go to the library and find those books that have something to say about the Doctrine of God and then come in and give your paper.” That is one way I could do it. Or I could say, “Look, I want you to do heavy research about the Doctrine of God. So I am going to take all the books in the library that deal with the Doctrine of God and put them together in one place on the reserve shelf. I am going to make it easy for you to discover this information.” In other words, I would be facilitating the student’s efforts to learn something about the Doctrine of God. Or, finally, I could go even further. I could put those books on the reserve shelf, and then I could take the student by the hand, march him over to the library, show him where the reserve shelf is, take each book off the shelf, open it up to the first page, and say to him, “Listen to this,” and start to read it.

I think that Paul is getting at something like this last illustration. God does not just make the knowledge available. He shows himself to us, as the apostle says. How thoroughly that knowledge has been received remains a question. But one thing is certain: God has revealed himself to all men with sufficient clarity and with sufficient content as to render men inexcusable. He has presented himself with enough clarity, with enough revelation, to remove the cry of ignorance as a justifying reason for a person’s rejection of him.

Assured Results

Paul goes onto say that when men refuse to honor God and refuse to acknowledge him even though they know he is there, their thinking becomes “foolish” and their minds “darkened.” Have you ever read the works of David Hume? Have you ever read the works of Jean-Paul Sartre? These men are great thinkers. David Hume, I think, is one of the most formidable opponents that the Christian faith has ever had to wrestle with. How can men who have clearly and blatantly denied the existence of God be so scholarly, so knowledgeable, and manifest such high gifts of intelligence? The answer is in this text. Once a man refuses to acknowledge what he knows to be true he can go on to construct magnificent systems of philosophy. He can manifest gifts of intellectual acumen and brilliance. But if he is consistent, if his starting point in the procedure involves an obstinate rejection of what he knows to be true, his system can end only in futility. Imagine the scientist who starts his scientific endeavor by denying what he knows to be the basic facts. The only way such a scientist can arrive at any kind of truth is by a happy inconsistency, by compounding his errors to such a degree that possibly he will be fortunate enough to stumble onto some truth.

The pagan adds insult to injury, Paul continues, for not only does he begin his systematic approach by refusing to acknowledge what he knows to be true and thereby working continuously with a darkened mind but, having done this, he tells the world that he is wise. Paul says, “ … professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Sinful man, after he repudiates what he knows to be true, then has the audacity to say to God and to the world, “I am a wise man.” But God says that the wisdom of sinful man is foolishness!

In the Scriptures the designation “fool” is not primarily an intellectual evaluation. When God says that a man is a fool, he is not saying that he is dull-witted. He is not saying that he has a low I.Q. or that he is a poor student. The term “fool” is a judgment of man’s character. It is more of a moral evaluation than an intellectual one. It is the fool who says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Foolishness is in many of the catalogues of serious sins in the New Testament, along with adultery and murder and things like that. Foolishness is a moral refusal to deal honestly with truth.

Undefined Anxiety

We notice next that men’s foolishness of compounded. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged “the glory of the incorruptible God” for images resembling mortal man, birds, animals or reptiles. Therefore, “God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”

What happens after the truth is held down, after the truth is repressed? Is there a vacuum? No! Immediately an exchange takes place. Substitution occurs.

It is valuable to talk about this in contemporary psychological terms. Johannes Spavink, the Dutch scholar, finds in this text a statement about man’s psychological prejudice. Spavink asks: Why do men repress or suppress things? He says that knowledge which is most likely to be suppressed is knowledge which comes to us in the framework of the traumatic. We try to push down knowledge that frightens us or is unpleasant. We have a kind of psychocybernetic system with which we screen from our conscious mind those things which are unpleasant. But the question I ask you in modern psychological terms is this: Is the memory of a threatening or traumatic experience destroyed by our repression? I do not know of any psychologist or biochemist who would say that those memory notions or images are destroyed. Rather, we bury them or push them down.

So, our present state of consciousness is dark, but the knowledge has not been destroyed. For example, let us say that I have repressed negative feelings about my mother. I am not even conscious of these feelings. But I begin to have undefined anxiety. I begin to worry, and I do not know why I am worried. When I begin to experience restlessness I go to a psychologist to help me work through my anxiety state.

The doctor says, “What’s the matter?”

I say, “I have anxiety.”

“Why do you have anxiety?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I came to see you. I’m worried, and I don’t know why I’m worried. Help me to find out.”

The doctor begins to probe my inner man to see where the injury is and how I can be brought again to health and wholeness. As he goes through my medical history he does not pay attention simply to the words I say. He is also carefully observant of my mannerisms, my gestures, and every kind of symbolic activity with which I am communicating my deepest feelings. Eventually in our discussions he notices that every time he asks me about my mother, or every time I say something about my mother, I twitch my shoulder. So he thinks, “Every time Sproul says something about his mother he has this awful twitch.” He asks, “Do you have any kind of bad feelings about your mother?”

“My mother?” (Twitch) I ask in astonishment. “I don’t feel anything bad about my mother!” (Twitch)

But he knows that somewhere in the past I have had a bad experience with my mother, and he knows that this knowledge has not been destroyed but that it is only exchanged for the gesture. In this way it is (perhaps) still a problem but not quite as threatening as the original experience. In the same way, most people do not say simply, “There is no God”; rather they create a new God, one who is less threatening, less terrifying, less of a problem.

Let me illustrate this. A few years ago I was watching the David Frost show, and he was interviewing Madalyn Murray O’Hair. They began discussing whether or not there is a God, and David Frost suddenly became a great champion of the Christian faith, defending it against O’Hair. The discussion got so out of hand that Frost became angry and decided to determine the controversy by a show of hands. He turned to the studio audience and asked, “How many of you believe in some kind of supreme being, some kind of higher power, something greater than yourselves?” Almost everybody in the audience raised his hand.

I waited breathlessly to see what Madalyn Murray O’Hair would say to that kind of response. She said, “Well, what do you expect from the masses who come to this studio? What do they know? Give them time to catch up with modern knowledge, and this myth will disappear.” That is the tack she took. I thought that if she had been clever she would have said, “Just a minute, Mr. Frost. Let me pose the question.” Then, turning to the audience, she would say something like this. “I know that some of you believe in something higher than yourself, some higher power, some faceless, nameless, contextless, unknown god who makes no claims on your existence, who never stands in judgment over your morality, who does not demand the sacrifice of your life. Anybody can believe in that kind of god. But do you believe in Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel, who thunders from Sinai, ‘You will have no other gods before me’? Do you believe in a god who demands obedience to his perfect law and who calls men to repentance? How many of you believe in a god who makes absolute demands upon your life?” What do you suppose the vote would have been like?

The “Supreme Being,” the “Ground of Being,” “Ultimate Concern”—all these titles are nonthreatening. They have no substance. They represent our most sophisticated efforts at idolatry, in which we exchange the truth of God for a lie, a nonthreatening lie. They speak of a God who never judges us, who never calls us to repentance, a cosmic grandfather who says, “Boys will be boys.” That is the kind of God we have, not only in the secular world but in our churches.

The Immutable God

When I was writing the book Psychology of Atheism, I worked through three great attributes of God: holiness, sovereignty, and omniscience. But then I remembered a sermon I had read years before by Jonathan Edwards entitled, “Man Naturally God’s Enemy.” I wondered what Edwards had to say about why men hate God. So I went back to read that sermon. At the beginning Edwards said, “There are four things about God that make men hate him.” I thought, “Four things? What did I miss?” And I wondered if Edwards had found the same things I had found.

He said, “The first thing that terrifies man is God’s holiness.”

I said, “Aha! I got one right!”

Then he said, “The second thing man hates about God is his omniscience.” By this time my opinion of Edwards as a scholar was rising.

He went on, “The third thing that men hate about God is his sovereignty.” I could hardly believe that I had put my finger on the same things. But what was the fourth one? What had I missed?

I turned the page and read, “Perhaps you are wondering what the fourth one is?” Edwards had stolen the words right out of my mouth. Then I read: “The fourth thing about God that men hate is his immutability.” Immutability? Why would that be so threatening? Why should that bother us? Edwards explained. “Man faces this dilemma: Not only does he know and know clearly that God is holy and omniscient and sovereign, but he knows that God will always be holy, he will always be omniscient, he will always be sovereign. And there is nothing we can possibly do to make him less holy, less omniscient, or less sovereign. These attributes are not open to negotiation. We cannot find God involved in a process of change whereby he can enter into certain mutations to compromise with us.”

From age to age, the hound of heaven brings his light into a world of darkness; but men love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil.

About the Author: Dr. R.C. Sproul is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education ministry located near Orlando, Florida. His teaching can be heard on the program Renewing Your Mind, which is broadcast on hundreds of radio outlets in the United States and in 40 countries worldwide. He is the executive editor of Tabletalk magazine and general editor of The Reformation Study Bible, and the author of more than seventy books (including some of my all time favorites: The Holiness of God; Chosen By God; Reason to Believe; Essential Truths Of The Christian Faith; Knowing Scripture; Willing to Believe; Intimate Marriage; Pleasing God; If There’s A God, Why Are There Atheists?, and Defending The Faith) and scores of articles for national evangelical publications. Dr. Sproul also serves as president of Ligonier Academy of Biblical and Theological Studies and Reformation Bible College. He currently serves as Senior Minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s in Sanford, FL. The article above was adapted from the chapter entitled “Why We Do Not Know God” from the book: Our Sovereign God: Addresses Presented to the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, 1974-1976. James M. Boice, ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977.

Have You Developed an Intentional Life Plan?

[The very helpful resource below is similar to the Vertical Life Plan that I have developed to help people live more intentionally with Christ at the center of all of life for the ultimate glory of God. I highly recommend that you get a Bible, a journal, and slip away to a quiet place to work through this Life Plan. Ideally, if you can get away for a day or two in a quiet place where you will have minimal disturbances or distractions you will find that God can really meet you in a powerful way and release you on a rejuvenating and reinvigorating journey with Him and for Him. I would also highly recommend that you go through this inventory with a trusted friend, pastor, life-coach, or mentor for some honest accountability and encouragement to give your life focus, direction, and faithfulness to God’s calling on your life – DPC]

“LIFE PLAN” by Dr. Martin Sanders

It’s been called “MIDLIFE crisis,” “midlife reevaluation,” “midcourse adjustment,” “crunch-time” and many other things. When you reach a place in your life where it becomes clear either to you or to the people around you that it’s time for you to do an assessment, where do you start?

This tool is designed for self-evaluation and reflection. You may want to have others [like a professional life coach, pastor, or trusted friend] assist you in the process. Realize that not every section will be the most pertinent for you, but seek to go through each of them in a thoughtful and reflecting manner. This process may take you a few hours or, for some, a few days. It may cause you to reflect, find hope or maybe even shed some tears. It is designed to assist you in more effectively evaluating the best of who you are and how to reach your life dream in life.

Whether it’s time for a change in lifestyle or career or simply a time for you to reevaluate how to do what you do more effectively and more efficiently, this life plan is designed to help you move from your original dream through the developmental stages of assessment to finally arrive as a future dream.

Original Dream

Describing your original dream takes you to a place of ultimate impact and fulfillment. It’s a place where your life has maximum meaning. Almost everyone has a dream, but the fear of failure and concern about finances are often limitations. The purpose of this exercise is to help you figure our what it is that really captures your imagination, how you can be used the most and then how you can take steps to fulfill that original dream.

(1) God back to a time in your life—high school, college or some other time—when you were dreaming your original dream. Begin to define or describe that dream.

(2) What really excites you about your dream?

(3) Do you possess the necessary resources—education, experience, discipline, courage, confidence, finances, etc., –to fulfill your dream? If not, can you secure them?

(4) Do you think in terms of success n life or personal significance and influence? Do you think in terms of financial success or personal or spiritual impact?

(5) How clear is your sense of dream? Is it very undefined? Is there a general sense to it? Are there general steps for it to be accomplished?

(6) What are two or three steps you could take to get you started on defining, discovering and fulfilling your original dream?

Your Gifts And Calling

Gifts/Passions. When you assess your areas of gifting, it’s not just about reflecting on what you’ve done. It’s also important to look at areas that you’ve not yet developed. Look past successes and failures. Look at issues of confidence, or lack thereof, to see if they are holding you back. Also, look not only at your experiences, but also at your passion and your dreams. Then look at issues of your temperament, the time availability you have and your personal and spiritual maturity. This will help you figure out what your gifting and passion are and how you can best invest your life.

(1) What do you like to do?

(2) What have you been successful at?

(3) What is the primary passion of your life? What do you dream about when you give yourself time and permission to dream?

(4) Of the experiences you have had in the last five years, which ones have captured your imagination most?

(5) If you were guaranteed that success and money were not an issue, what would you do with your life?

(6) Do you feel trapped, or is there fulfillment in what you do? Can you see yourself there for the long-term or even the rest of your life?

(7) When you look at how you are investing or have invested your time, energy and gifting, is this the best use of who you are? Is this as good as it gets for you?

Kingdom Investment of Your Life

It is important that, once you have discovered the particular gifts and abilities that God has given you, you examine whether you only use them to enjoy them or if you use them in ways that bring glory to Him.

(1) Have you figured out how to take the best of who you are and invest it in God’s kingdom in such a way that it reproduces dividends that last for eternity?

(2) Do you intentionally look for ways to take those gifts and abilities and use them in a way that other people can benefit from them?

(3) Are you confident in taking the best of what God has given you and using it as widely as possible, or do you simply use it in formats that are comfortable for you?

(4) Do you see ways that God would like to use you that you don’t feel confident doing now?

(5) Are there times when you know that you’re supposed to do something but don’t have the courage or want to take the time to do it?

(6) If you could be given one or two things that would help you take the best of who you are and invest it more completely, what would it be? Do you need courage, confidence, education, financial resources, empowerment, or someone to walk you through the process? Do you need a mentor, friend, spiritual director, or life coach? Do you need someone to pray with you and listen to you?

(7) Think through any limitations that hold you back from investing the best of who you are. Begin to address those.

(8) Interview several other people. Ask them ways they have seen God use you. Why did he use you in this way? Did it happen just once, or is there a pattern? Don’t overlook old friends, members of churches you have been a part of, family members and ministers you have known. They can help you with this.

Calling, Clarification, Leading, Direction

There are three different types of calling:

The first type is the general calling to be holy as God is holy and to love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It’s a general sense of leaving what you have to follow Christ completely.

The second kind of call comes to specific people, such as the disciples of Jesus, who were called to leave their locations and their livelihoods to follow Him completely with their time and receive financial support for their sustenance.

The third kind of call is a very specific one of which there are plenty of examples in the Bible: See the stories of Moses, Samson, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus and Saul of Tarsus. These individuals were singled out. They were often told that they had a purpose from before their birth. Their whole lives’ purpose was to fulfill a particular destiny or calling that God had for them. Be careful about assuming that this third type of call is normative. It does still happen today, but if we only have a dozen or so examples recorded in the Bible, then we know that their occurrence is somewhat limited.

The key aspect of calling is clarification. Am I being called by God to follow Him with the totality of my life? Or is it also with the totality of my time, whereby I leave my current vocation and take on a ministerial vocation where I am paid by kingdom finances and resources?

A second aspect of calling is leading. One can have multiple leadings over his or her lifetime, all of which will fit under some kind of vocational ministry. For example, I know a man who has been a pastor, a missionary a supervisor of a thousand missionaries, a denominational executive, a college professor, dean and president and ultimately, president of a denomination.

A final aspect is direction. Direction is, “Where do I live this out? What are some concrete ways to live out my sense of calling and leading? For example, if I am called to follow God completely and I am led to be a teacher, is God going to lead me in the direction of working with children, youth or adults? Is my work going to be spiritual development or also educational and academic development? Is it going to be at a college level or a graduate level? Is it going to be here in the United States or is it going to be overseas? Is it going to be in the urban core or is it going to be in suburbia or someplace in the heartland? As you look at your life, it is significant to clarify issues of calling, leading and direction.

(1) Do you have a clear sense that God is leading you to resign from your career in order to use the full extent of your time and energies in serving Him?

(2) If everyone is called to follow God completely, do you have a sense that He is asking you to follow Him with the totality of your life? Are you convinced that you would do that best by giving Him the totality of your time as well?

(3) Do you have a sense that God wants you to stay in your career or location to serve Him? Or are you to leave behind that career or location and receive financial support from kingdom monies in order to follow Him completely with your time as well as your life?

Your Career

There are a number of assessments that are helpful in determining a job or career. A popular book written to help in this area is What Color Is Your Parachute? By Nelson Bolles. A detailed career assessment tool called IDAK is also extremely useful in helping you discover for what career or job you are most suited. (An IDAK assessment will take you approximately eight to ten hours.) Ask yourself the following questions:

(1) What do I fantasize about?

(2) What is my dream job?

(3) What will bring me the most fulfillment?

(4) How do I invest my life in a way that counts the most?

(5) What are the outcomes of my life that I want to celebrate?

(6) When I’m old and sitting on a porch in a rocking chair, looking back over my life, what do I want to have the greatest memories about?

(7) When I near the end of my life, what will I wish I would have explored and gone for that I hesitated about and didn’t pursue?

(8) What can I do in life that brings me the greatest sense of accomplishment, fulfillment, satisfaction and peace that also makes a difference in the kingdom?

Getting There

Intentionality. Looking at your life purpose and intentionality with which you approach your life will really be the key to the fulfillment of your life plan. Begin to think in terms of how intentional and purposeful you are with your life, your giftedness and how you invest the best of yourself, your time and your resources each day. Look at your current situation and do some honest evaluation of where you are currently and how you arrived there.

(1) How much of your life currently is a response to an intentional design or pattern of decision-making?

(2) Do you feel particularly directed by God to this situation?

(3) Have you been systematically discipled?

(4) Has your spiritual development been, or is it now, an intentional direction?

(5) How intentional have you been with spending time with God? With key friends in your life? With developing relationships with family?

(6) In your spiritual life, have you sought to replicate your giftedness, reproducing it in other people so they can benefit from it?

(7) Is your current life purpose and vocation something that has grown out of thoughtfulness and intentional development, or have you just happened to stumble into what you’re currently doing?

(8) Do you thoughtfully dream and think about what your life is and could become or do you simply do what is required of you each day to get through it?

Other Key Questions to ask:

(1) Have you participated in the intentional development of other people in your life?

(2) Why did they choose you?

(3) What did they see in you that they saw as either necessary or useful?

(4) How did they impact you?

(5) What’s been their ongoing influence in your life?

(6) How has the influence changed your life?

(7) How have you or can you pass that on to other people?

Proper Motives. Some people do the right things for the wrong reasons. To discover why you do what you do, it is important to regularly check your motives. The following are some key questions to as. Often nothing will show up. It is essential, however, that you do not try to answer these solely in your own mind, but that you have someone probe a bit into other aspects of why you do what you do. This should preferably be done with a mentor or an older, trusted friend with some wisdom who will ask you questions to clarify your purposes. A therapist’s help may even be beneficial. It’s important to note your idiosyncrasies here [a pastor or life coach can also be extremely helpful here].

(1) Why are you the way you are? What are the life experiences and decisions that have formed you as the person you are becoming?

(2) Why do you do what you do? Why is it important to you? What are the key motivational factors for you?

(3) What criteria have you used to make decisions?

(4) Do you do what you do for the right reasons?

(5) Who benefits the most from what you do?

(6) Are there any improper motives that need to be checked?

(7) Is there any way that you are trying to fulfill your life plan in such a way that it will ultimately hurt, harm, limit or even destroy you or someone else?

(8) What are your temptations to do things that will make you look better in the public eye? Do you take too much responsibility for how well you did? Do you give credit where credit is due?

(9) Do you have any ‘dark-side’ temptations? Sexuality, addiction or addictive traits? (Again, to have a mentor, an older, wise friend or even a therapist [pastor or life coach] help you with these regularly is helpful).

(10) Who asks you tough questions about your motives? Who speaks truth to you? Who is someone in your life who can tell you that you have made a wrong decision and to whom you will listen?

(11) Do you have any patterns or tendencies to discredit people who do not agree with you? Do you discredit them or your opponents or do you take their advice and attempt to understand its implications for you?

Assessments help you create a personal profile of why you are the way you are and why you do the things you do. They will help you understand and see more objectively your preferences, the kind of person you are and God’s work in your life and help you figure out how to develop from there. In choosing assessments, it is crucial to look at personality, temperament, preference, vocational contexts and leadership management styles. Here is a short list of recommended assessments and the areas they assessment:

16PF: Personality Profile
Uniquely You: DISC profile, temperament analysis, spiritual gift assessment and summary profile
IDAK: career assessment
LEAD: leadership style
Management Style Diagnostic Inventory: managerial style
Networking: complete spiritual gift analysis and spiritual gift profile

Focus. There is an old adage: “Very few people in life plan to fail; they just fail to plan.” This is a time to take a good look at your life and figure out what is holding you back and keeping you from fulfilling your life purpose. Ask yourself the following questions. You may also find it useful to pursue people in your life who will answer these questions for you.

(1) How do you get a focus to your life?

(2) What distractions in your life need to be addressed?

(3) Are you a dabbler? Do you enjoy many things without focusing on one?

(4) Do you have tendencies to over commit and do more things than you can do well?

(5) Are you aware of the things you do best? Are you confident in them? Do they bring you a sense of satisfaction?

(6) What are clutter issues in your life? Timing? Relationships? Emotional or spiritual deprivation needs?

(7) If you were to ask the person closest to you, “What is the thing that keeps me from being successful or impacting others?” what would he or she highlight as the clutter that keeps you from experiencing success in your life?

(8) What would that same person say was “good” in your life but was keeping you from doing your best?

(9) How would the person who works closest with you but dislikes you answer the previous questions?

(10) If you take stock in your life today, assuming that the current pattern will continue for the rest of your life, will you be happy with the outcome?

(11) Is this the time for you to get a clearer focus and rid your life of some “stuff”?

Areas to Develop. Don’t forget that sometimes your greatest successes can become limitations. Sometimes you celebrate them too much and forget to keep a clear focus on priorities. Consider the three to five things in your life that you want to do most successfully and the values that drive you. Focus for a moment on any potential or perceived limitations to achieving your goal.

(1) Do you take stock of your life in your emerging life plan?

(2) What are the areas of your life that still need to be developed in order for you to fulfill this life dream, calling and life mission?

(3) What areas need to be addressed with clear intentionality?

(4) What areas of depth of wisdom, insight, relationship, spiritual understanding and understanding motivations that need to be developed?

(5) Is there anything holding you back?

(6) Have you let a minor setback keep you from experimenting or trying something else?

(7) Have you focused too much on one strength without pursuing additional strengths to accompany it?

(8) Have you simply become accustomed to what you do? Although you are comfortable in your current situation, is it possible that it’s not the best use of the totality of your strengths?

(9) How do you maintain your passion?

(10) How do you stay on the right road? How do you keep a clear focus and ensure that this isn’t another tangent or another “to do” in your life, but really the purpose, direction and focus of your life?

After you have done this assessment for yourself, find some other people to help you. Utilize friends, family members, counselors, pastors, life coaches, mentors and spiritual directors to ask questions like:

(1) What are some areas in my life that are yet to be developed?

(2) What are the developmental steps needed for me to develop them?

(3) How do I move from where I am to actually fulfilling my life plan?

Future Dreams

As you look at future dreams, ask yourself the following questions. All of these come together to create a life plan for you. The goal is to invest the life you have been given in such a way that it creates the greatest impact on the kingdom of God and in eternity.

(1) What else it there for me?

(2) Is there one more big challenge? I there a mission or task that I need to undertake that I have nor yet done?

(3) Is there something that no one else is doing that I can do?

(4) What maturity and development do I need in order to be able to do it?

(5) Do I have a unique perspective, calling or purpose in life that could be used in ways I have not thought of? In ways that perhaps others have not thought of, either?

(6) What will be the lasting impact of my life? How can I begin to plan for it now?

(7) What resources do I need in order to fulfill my missions(s)? People resources? Financial resources? Experiential resources?

A lot has gone into making you the person you are now. Some things you have just assumed, a few you have regretted. But they have all gone into making you the person you are today. Attempt to see your life with the greatest outcomes in view, and attempt to see your life from God’s perspective. He does have a dream for your life. He is on your side. He is working with you to accomplish it. May your life fulfill both your dream and His for you.

About the Author: Dr. Martin Sanders is a professor at Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, New York. He also serves as president of Global Leadership, Inc. through which he develops leaders, national pastors and missionaries in over 30 countries. Dr. Sanders is married and has four adult children. He is the author of the highly recommended book The Power of Mentoring: Shaping People Who Will Shape the World. Christian Publications, Inc., Camp Hill, PA, 2004 from which the article above is adapted – Appendix 1 (pp. 173-187). He is has also written a very good book on the family entitled: How to Get the Family You’ve Always Wanted.

Chart on Being a Disciple and Making Disciples of Jesus

“Come follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Mat 4:19)

Being a Disciple: A Profile Making Disciples: A Process

Loving God

(Matt 22:37-38)

Obedience to His Word (1 John 2:3-11, John 8:31-32)

Devotion to Christ above all (Matt 10:37-39, Luke 14: 26-35)

Bond-servant to Jesus (Col 1:7, Jas 1:1, 2 Pet 1:1, Jud 1)

Passionate worship of God (John 4:23-24)

Prayer as a lifestyle (Eph 6:18-19, 1 Thess. 5:16-18)

Abiding in Christ (John 15)

Loving Others

(Matt 22:39-40,Col 3:12-17, John 13:34-35)

Devotion to the fellowship/ Unity (Eph 4)

Self-denial (2 Cor 5:15, Matthew 16:24-26)

Exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:4-31)

Service-orientation (Matt 20:25-28)

Helping those in need (Acts 20:35)

Praying for others (James 5:16, Phil 1:3-4)

Being Transformed

(2 Cor 5:17, Rom 12:2)

Baptized (Rom 6:3-5, Acts 2:37-39)

Expressing humility (Prov 15:33, Phil 2:3-10)

Producing Fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5)

Led by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:6-16)

Growing toward maturity (Luke 8:14-15)

Christ-likeness (1 John 2:6, Luke 6:40)

Renewing of the mind (Rom 12:2)

Discerning good from evil (Hebrews 5:12-14)

Perseverance (Phil 3:12-21)

Being a disciple involves knowing and loving God, loving others especially others in the family of God, studying and following God’s word, showing a transformed life by bearing fruit of the Spirit, becoming more like our Lord Jesus Christ.

Reaching the Lost

Being a light to the world (Mat 5:14-16)

As Ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor 5:20)

Going to the lost (Mat 28:18-20, Acts 1:8)

Bringing others to Christ (Matt 4:19)

Baptizing (Matt 28:19, Acts 8:35-38)

Building up Believers

Serving as examples for others (1 Cor 11:1)

Teaching the Word of God (Col 1:28-29)

Multiplying teachers (2 Tim 2:1-2)

Encouraging the believers (Hebrews 3:12-14)

Developing others for ministry (Eph 4:11-16)

Sending Disciple-Makers

Going forth and sending others (Luke 10:1-3)

________________________________________

Making disciples is a process that involves a Christ-directed sharing of our lives in fellowship and mutual encouragement, sharing the gospel, baptizing new disciples, teaching, modeling, leading, equipping and sending others to reproduce disciples among our neighbors and the nations.

What Does “God Gave Them Over” Mean? A Study in Divine Retribution by Dr. S. Lewis Johnson

An Exegetical Study of Romans 1:18-32

Preaching to his Sunday congregation in Bern, Switzerland, at the Münster on Romans 1:18–32, Walter Lüthi said, “In the words that we have just read we are told the whole truth about our condition. There may well be people among us who cannot bear to hear the truth, and would like to creep quietly away out of this church. Let them do so if they wish” (Walter Lüthi, The Letter to the Romans: An Exposition, trans. by Kurt Schoenenberger. Richmond, Va, 1961, p. 19). There is much justification for Lüthi’s words, for Paul’s canvas upon which he has painted his picture—dark, foreboding, threatening, flashing with lightning and crashing with thunder—is crammed with forms and figures, fights and shadows, of sin, wrath, and judgment. And the revelation of wrath is total and complete, encompassing all and rendering all without excuse and under condemnation, both individually and collectively.

Isaiah has spoken of judgment as God’s “strange work” and His “strange act” (cf. Isa 28:21 – There is nothing unusual about the Hebrew adjectives, translated “strange” in the AV, except perhaps their emphatic position. That is their meaning. The NASB has “unusual” and “extraordinary.”), and the idea that it is strange because contrary to His goodness and grace, while a popular contemporary misunderstanding of his words, is not only out of harmony with the context of Isaiah 28:21, but it also does not agree with the total picture of the being and attributes of God in Scripture. His retributive justice is one of His essential properties, and in this passage in Romans it comes to the center of the stage. In the threefold paredōken (AV, “gave up”; vv. 24, 26, 28) the problem is plainly before the reader. It is the purpose of this article to analyze and, if possible, clarify the meaning of the term, setting it within the context of the theology of the being and attributes of God. But, first, a word regarding the flow of the Pauline thought in this section of the letter.

After having introduced this message to the Romans (cf. 1:1–7) and stated his theme, the gospel (1:16–17), the apostle skillfully and in detail develops the case-history of human sin and condemnation (1:18–3:20). The section moves from the declaration of Gentile sin (1:18–32 – Martin prefers to define the subjects as “the Greek religious type, man without special revelation,” but the sense is the same. Cf. James P. Martin, “The Kerygma of Romans,” Interpretation, XXV, July, 1971, 311) through Jewish sin (2:1—3:8) to the climax of the apostolic diagnosis that “all the world” is guilty, with every mouth stopped, speechless in the terror of condemnation before a holy and righteous God (3:9–20).

In the immediate context Paul, in his endeavor to prove that the only righteousness available to man is that obtained by faith, declared that God’s displeasure toward sin has been revealed from heaven (1:18). It follows, of course, that all who are charged with ungodliness or unrighteousness stand under His wrath and cannot obtain acceptance before God by their character or conduct. That the Gentiles are guilty and, therefore, inexcusable is evident, because they have enjoyed a revelation of God’s eternal power and deity and yet have rejected it (1:19–20 – Notitia and assensus, two of the basic elements of faith, may be present as a result of God’s revelation of Himself in nature, but the vital element of faith, fiducia, is never given through natural revelation. In its place is the rebellion of suppression. Cf. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. by John T. McNeill and trans. by Ford Lewis Battles, in The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XX, 2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1960; T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Grand Rapids, 1959; Edward A. Dowey, Jr., The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology. New York and London, 1965. A recent article of some worth by Gerald J. Postema is “Calvin’s Alleged Rejection of Natural Revelation,” Scottish Journal of Theology, XXIV, November, 1971, 423–34.). And not only have they rejected the light of this truth, they have given themselves up to idolatry (1:21–23). The Pauline picture of the religious history of mankind is one of retrogression, not progression, of devolution, not evolution, downward, not upward. In unbelief man has passed from light to futility to folly. Thus, the divine wrath has found its justification in human rejection of “the truth of God” (1:18, 25).

There remains, therefore, only one alternative for God and man, divine retribution, and it is this that the apostle so solemnly, and yet vigorously (Godet thinks there is more than vigor here; there is a feeling of indignation. He writes, “The verses have something of that παροξυσμός, that exasperation of heart, of which the author of the Acts speaks xvii.16 when describing Paul’s impressions during his stay at Athens” F. Godet, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, trans. by A. Cusin [2 vols.; Edinburgh, 1881], I, 177), proclaims in the final section of chapter one (1:24–32). The dio (AV, “wherefore”) makes the connection. In the light of the rebellion just described the inference of vindicatory justice is drawn. Sin justly brings judgment (The Byzantine text and some of the leading representatives of the Western text have a καί, AV, “also” following διό. If this were genuine, it would suggest the harmony of the nature of the punishment and the offence. Godet has put it well, “They sinned, wherefore God punished them; they sinned by degrading God, wherefore also God degraded them,” I, 177. Zahn appears to incline towards its genuineness, too. Cf. Theodor Zahn, Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer. Leipzig, 1910, p. 96.), a judgment expressed most clearly in the following three verses of this final section of chapter one.

The Biblical Revelation

Verse 24 – Wherefore God gave them over (Gr., paredōken) in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.

Verse 26 – For this reason God gave them over (Gr., paredōken) to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for the unnatural.

Verse 28 And just as they did not see fit to retain the full knowledge of God, God gave them over (Gr., paredōken) to a depraved mind, to do the things which are not proper (Rom 1:24, 26, 28).

The Interpretation of the Revelation

The essence, the heart, the Leit Motif of the passage and the divine judgment is expressed in the threefold paredōken (AV, “gave up,” vv. 24, 26; “gave over,” v. 28), repeated as a terrifying refrain (Cf. M.J. Lagrange, Saint Paul Épître aux Romains (4th ed.; Paris, 1930, p. 28. He remarks that the term’s threefold occurrence is not climactic, but is a kind of refrain.). It is a term over which there has raged considerable debate, and it is to the elucidation of it that this article is addressed. Generally speaking, there are three contending viewpoints.

First, perhaps the favorite interpretation of the term is that has prevailed since the time of Origen and Chrysostom, in which the paredōken is taken in the permissive sense. According to this view God passively permitted men to fall into the retributive consequences of their infidelity and apostasy. The active force of paredōken is surely contrary to this view. It is not that God permitted rebellious men to fall into uncleanness and bodily dishonor; He actively, although justly in view of their sin, consigned them to the consequences of their acts. It is His divine arrangement that men by their apostasy should fall into moral impurity, sin being punished by further sin, and He himself maintains the moral connection between apostasy and impurity by carrying out the judgment Himself (Cf. Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Romans, trans. by John C. Moore from 5th German ed. 2 vols.; Edinburgh, 1881, I, 86).

Second, another popular view, which became current after the time of Augustine, takes the paredōken in the privative sense. According to this interpretation God deprived man of an aspect of His work of common grace. He withdrew His hand that had restrained men from evil. Godet has expressed and illustrated this interpretation about as well as it can be set forth. “Wherein did His action consist?” he asks. And the answer follows, “He positively withdrew His hand; He ceased to hold the boat as it was dragged by the current of the river. This is the meaning of the term used by the apostle, Acts xiv.16 : ‘He suffered the Gentiles to walk in their own ways,’ by not doing for them what He never ceased to do for His own people. It is not a case of simple abstention, it is the positive withdrawal of a force” (Godet, I).

At bottom this view is the practical equivalent of the permissive view. This is evident from the fact that Godet uses Acts 14:16 as illustrative of the sense. However, in that passage the verb used is eiasen (AV, “suffered”), which normally means simply to permit. As Meyer pointed out a long time ago, “Therefore Chrysostom not only explains it by εἴασεν, but illustrates the matter by the instance of a general who leaves his soldiers in the battle, and thus deprives them of his aid, and abandons them to the enemy. Theodoret explains it: τῆς οἰκείας προμηδείαςἐγύμνωσε (The clause may be translated, he stripped [them] of his own), and employs the comparison of an abandoned vessel. Theophylact illustrates the παρέδωκεν by the example of a physician who gives up a refractory patient (παραδίδωσιν αὐτὸν τῷ ἐπὶ πλέον νοσεῖν – The words may be rendered, he delivers him over for further suffering” – Meyer, I). These illustrations express quite well the privative view, but the Pauline language is stronger than this. The expression, “God gave them up to uncleanness,” describes a judicial act, (John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans 2 vols.; Grand Rapids, 1959), a “judicial abandonment” (Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Philadelphia, 1886, p. 40). The active force of paredōken must not be glossed over (Cf. Otto Michel, Der Brief an die Römer. 11th ed.; Göttingen 1957, p. 58; Zahn, pp. 96-97. Both point out that Paul’s expression must not be weakened, but neither develops the question theologically).

Therefore, finally, it becomes clear that the term must be given a judicial sense (Schlatter points out that παρέδωκεν is the usual word for the sentence of a judge. Cf. A. Schlatter, Gottes Gerechtigkeit. Stuttgart, 1959, p. 66). The meaning is not simply that God withdrew from the wicked the restraining force of His providence and common grace, although that privative sense is included in the judicial sense, but that He positively gave men over to the judgment of “more intensified and aggravated cultivation of the lusts of their own hearts with the result that they reap for themselves a correspondingly greater toll of retributive vengeance” (Murray). The usage of the word in both this epistle (4:25; 6:17; 8:32) and in the other Pauline Epistles (cf. 1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20) supports this force (See Friedrich Büchsel, “δίδωμι et al.,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Kittel, trans. and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, II Grand Rapids, 1964, 170. The positive force is present in each occurrence). The interpretation is also in harmony with the occurrence of the precisely identical form in Acts 7:42, where, in speaking of Israel’s apostasy in the days of Moses, Stephen says, “Then God turned, and gave them up (Gr., paredōken) to worship the host of heaven.” Both the Romans and the Acts passages describe the act of God as a penal infliction of retribution, the expression of an essential attribute of God’s nature and being, and it is thoroughly consistent with His holiness.

There is another striking occurrence of the identical form of the verb in Ephesians 4:19, and that passage serves to remind the interpreter that the infliction of punitive justice does not compromise the free agency and responsibility of man. In that passage Paul, speaking of the sin of the Gentiles, writes, “Who being past feeling have given themselves over (Gr., paredōken) unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” In the midst of the retributive action of God there is no coercion of man. God does not entice or compel to evil. Man remains responsible and can even be said to be giving himself over to uncleanness while God gives him up to the judgment of his sin.

Concluding Questions

There is hardly any passage in the Bible that says plainer than this one that moral depravity is the result of the judgment of God. And this raises an interesting question that concerns the present moral condition of the nations of the world, and particularly of the United States of America. The question is this: What is the real significance of the spread of immorality, crime, and violence in western civilization? To compound the problem, the newspapers are filled with stories of clergymen encouraging sexual license. Many Christian ministers, contrary to the Apostle Paul’s teaching, no longer regard homosexuality and other sexual aberrations as a sin. It is rather a sickness, or a weakness. In an article in one of the national news magazines a few years ago homosexuality was referred to by the author as “an undesirable handicap” (“Homosexuality,” Time, October 24, 1969, p. 82). To many today it is nothing more than a deviation from the customary sexual patterns, a third sex. Occasionally, in what must seem to the Christian the ultimate evil, homosexuality is traced to God Himself, for, it is said, He made men and women what they are (Of course, the truth of the matter is that homosexuality is a perversion of the created order. Cf. C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. New York, 1957, p. 39).

Some thirty years ago the famous Harvard sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, in his book The Crisis of Our Age, warned that increases in crime, suicides, mental breakdowns, revolutions, and war have been symptoms of civilizations in the midst of death pangs. In another article on homosexuals in Time magazine the author wrote, “At their fullest flowering, the Persian, Greek, Roman and Moslem civilizations permitted a measure of homosexuality; as they decayed, it became more prevalent” (“The Homosexual: Newly Visible, Newly Understood,” Time, October 31, 1969, p. 65). Later Sorokin in his The American Sex Revolution pointed out that sex anarchy leads to mental breakdowns, rather than the other way around, as the Freudian psychologists have taught (Cf. I. E. Howard, “The Fever Chart of a Sick Society,” Christian Economics, April 6, 1965, p. 4. Howard’s brief article is very suggestive, and the writer is deeply indebted to it). Further, he pointed out that increasing sexual license leads to decreasing creativity and productivity in the intellectual, artistic, and economic spheres of life. What, then, are the sources of the problems of the present age? As Howard indicates, “Spengler had a biological answer: civilizations grow old and die like any other living thing. Toynbee has a religious answer: civilizations fail to respond to the higher challenges of the Spirit and therefore fossilize. In his Civilization and Ethics, Albert Schweitzer tried to find an ethical answer. St. Paul had still a different answer” (ibid).

The Pauline answer is plain, and Romans 1:24 expresses it most impressively and succinctly. When man rebelled and sinned, God “gave them up” to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts that by their own activities their bodies might be dishonored. In other words, sexual rebellion, license, and anarchy is the retributive judgment of God. The civilization of the western world, including the particular civilization of the United States of America, is not a civilization in danger of contracting a fatal disease. That civilization has already contracted a malignant and fatal cancer through its unbelief of the message of God in Christ. It is now hurrying on with increasing speed to final climactic destruction. Civilizations do not die because of violence, crime, immorality, and anarchy. These things are the evidences that death already is at work, a death brought on by disobedience to the revelation of God. Charles Hodge was referring to these principles when he said, almost one hundred years ago in reference to the Christian body of truth, “Religion is the only true foundation, and the only effectual safeguard for morality. Those who abandon God, He abandons. Irreligion and immorality. therefore, have ever been found inseparably connected” (Hodge).

It should be carefully noted that the apostle is not speaking of eternal punishment in these three verses. What he has specifically in mind is a judgment that pertains to this life, not to the life to come. But, on the other hand, it is also plain that Paul’s words lead on to the doctrine of everlasting torment (cf. v. 32 – Cf. Barrett, p. 38. He writes, “God’s judgment has already broken forth; only he has consigned sinners not to hell but to sin—if indeed these be alternatives.”). The vindicatory judgment inflicted by God is continued in the life to come in a more terrible and permanent form if the escape through the gospel of the cross is neglected. The doctrine of eternal punishment has never been popular, and it is less so now. Even evangelical seminaries seem embarrassed by it.²⁷ There is an old story about Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson that contains solemn truth. When the latter once appeared over fearful as to his future, Boswell said, “Think of the mercy of your Savior.” “Sir,” replied Johnson. “my Savior has said that He will place some on his right hand, and some on his left.”

It is doubtful that there is a doctrine in the Bible easier to prove than that of eternal punishment (cf. Matt 25:46 – The twofold use of the adjective aiōnion AV, “everlasting” and “eternal” with kolasin, AV, “punishment” and zōēn, AV, “life” indicates that the punishment for sin is just as long as the life that God gives the faithful. Both are eternal. Many other passages express the same truth), a fact that reminds one of an incident involving Henry Ward Beecher and William G. T. Shedd, both eminent leaders of their day. The North American Review engaged the two men for articles on the subject of eternal punishment, knowing the views of the two men. Beecher had once commented, “I believe that punishment exists, both here and hereafter; but it will not continue after it ceases to do good. With a God who could give pain for pain’s sake, this world would go out like a candle.” Shedd was asked to write an article supporting the doctrine, and Beecher was asked to answer it. When the proof sheets of Shedd’s article were sent to Beecher he telegraphed from Denver to the magazine’s editors, “Cancel engagement. Shedd is too much for me. I half believe in eternal punishment now myself. Get somebody else.” The reply was never written by anyone. Shedd remained unanswered (Cf. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology. rev. ed.; 3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1907, III, 1052–53). There is no answer, biblically, logically, or philosophically to the doctrine of eternal punishment.

There is a final question that one might ask regarding Romans 1:24 and its declaration of divine retribution. When did the retribution occur? When did God “give up” the nations? Is the apostle referring to a specific event or time in the past, or is he simply interpreting broadly man’s history? In the collective sense the rebellion of men against God had its inception at Babylon, and it has been surmised that Paul may have had in mind the construction of the tower of Babylon and its destruction, with man’s scattering, by God (cf. Gen 11:1–9). It is doubtful that Paul had this in mind. On the other hand, there are two things that point to the fall of man in the Garden of Eden as the event the apostle was thinking about. In the first place, the fact that Paul traces the entrance of sin into the human race specifically to Eden in Romans 5:12 suggests that 1:24 is to be understood in the light of that important event. It was there that man rebelled against light, the light of both natural and special revelation, and turned to darkness. And it was there that judgment was inflicted on account of his sin, a judgment that consisted of wrath and death, accompanied by consequent immorality and wickedness, as history indicates.

In the second place, the terminology of verse 22–23 points fairly clearly to the Genesis account. For example, the phrases “to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (v. 23) is surely reminiscent of “the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Gen 1:26; cf. vv. 20–25). And, further, the phrases “the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image (lit., the likeness of an image) made like to corruptible man” appear to come from the Genesis account’s “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (1:26). It thus seems that Paul was thinking of the Genesis record in the Romans passage, and this would support the view that he regarded God’s giving up of man to uncleanness as occurring at the time of the fall, recorded in the early part of that same Genesis record. There, then, man fell into sin, judgment, and condemnation, with their inevitable companion, the retributive justice of immorality, crime, and all manner of evil.

In conclusion, one must conclude from Romans 1:24, 26 and 28 that retributive justice is an attribute of the living God and a necessary feature of His actions toward unbelieving man. To the question, “Can God really give man up to judgment?,” this passage provides a resounding “yes” answer. But, in fact, it is not the final and convincing answer to the question. That comes from the cross of Jesus Christ, which in the cry it elicits from our Lord, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” unmistakably affirms the fact that God can give man up to judgment. It was there that the sinless Man bore the judgment of God upon sin, and it forever proclaims the true nature of sin—it is worthy of the penalty of spiritual and physical death—and God’s hatred of it with His necessary condemnation of it.

One might say, “Does God, then, really care?” The answer to this question also is obvious, and it, too, comes from the cross. It was God who gave the Son as the vicarious sacrifice; it was He who initiated the work that produced the remedy for sin and condemnation. And it was the Son who voluntarily bore in agony the depths of the vindicatory judgment for sinners. And if that is not sufficient evidence of God’s love and concern, reflect further upon the fact that it is also He who has revealed to men their lost condition and the significance of the atoning death, inscribed its interpretation in the written Word of God and preserved that Word for countless millions to read and ponder. Isaiah was right. Although righteous and necessary, judgment is His “strange work” and His “strange act.”

Article above by Dr. S. Lewis Johnson adapted from Vol. 129: Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 129. 1972 (514) (123). Dallas, TX: Dallas Theological Seminary.

More About Dr. S. Lewis Johnson – A Tribute to Dr. S. Lewis Johnson  by Fred G. Zaspel  – January 30, 2004:

On January 28, 2004, Dr. S. Lewis Johnson passed away at age eighty-eight. He was a Biblical scholar and theologian of rare abilities and of international renown, and he was a beloved friend. His influence on my own ministry would be difficult to measure. The hundreds of tapes of his preaching and teaching have gone free of charge to thousands of people all over the world, and it was by means of these tapes that I first became acquainted with him. When he first came to preach for me I asked the congregation if any had previously heard him. No one had, but I was quick to assure them all that they had indeed heard him often! Over the years he came to speak at our church and at our pastors’ conference many times, and even in his latest years it was challenging and blessed to hear him expound the Word of God with such precision and clarity.

Dr. Johnson was born in Birmingham, AL and grew up in Charleston, SC. He was always quick to assure everyone that his smooth, dignified, and pleasant southern accent was actually “English in its pure form.” He graduated from the College of Charleston with an B.A. degree in 1937 and was converted through the teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse while in the insurance business in Birmingham. He left the insurance business in 1943 to enter Dallas Theological Seminary, from which he received the Th.M (1946) and Th.D. (1949) degrees. He completed further graduate work at the University of Edinburgh, Southern Methodist University, and in the University of Basel. Remaining at Dallas Seminary Dr. Johnson was Professor of New Testament from 1950 to 1972 and Professor of Systematic Theology from 1972 to 1977. He later served as Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL, and as Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at Tyndale Theological Seminary, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Dr. Johnson preached and lectured in many places, large and small, taught countless home Bible studies, and was involved in starting several churches. In 1963 he and others planted Believers’ Chapel in Dallas, and it is from the Chapel that so many thousands of his tapes have gone to the benefit of countless people.

He was in so many ways a man to emulate. He was a true gentleman. He was always personable and a great delight in conversation. His humor was always good, and his wit was always quick. He was a careful student of the Scriptures with unusually superior abilities as an exegete and theologian. His abilities with the original languages were clearly superior, and when discussion began he would always lead from his Greek and Hebrew text. He was a man of conviction, willing to step down from a noted career rather than surrender his beliefs. He was passionate for the gospel, and his heart was always hot for Christ. He was a humble and godly man. I have said many times that if God would allow me to grow old as gracefully and as saintly as Dr. Johnson I would become proud and ruin it. He was a model scholar, a model teacher, a model preacher, a model friend, and a model Christian. He was that rare combination of so many abilities and virtues. I thank God for him and feel much the poorer without him.

Among his greatest passions was the faithful expounding of the nature of Christ’s atoning work. He clearly cherished any and every opportunity to demonstrate from the Scriptures the success and effectiveness of Christ’s death as a substitute for His people. And when it was his turn to listen, elderly though he was, he would sit right up front with his Greek and Hebrew Bible in hand. And though virtually every speaker he would hear would necessarily be a man of comparatively inferior abilities, he seemed always just to delight in hearing the Word of God preached. And afterwards he was always eager to fellowship with younger preachers and laymen alike and discuss the things of Christ and examine the Word of God together.

The last time I spoke with Dr. Johnson, about a month or so ago, it was evident that he was growing tired and frail. He fell ill earlier this month, but his illness was brief before the Lord took him home to glory. He leaves behind him his wonderful wife Martha whom we love dearly also, and our prayers are now for her. By his tape ministry I came to love Dr. S. Lewis Johnson before I ever knew him, and I count it a great blessing to have known him. Probably no one outside my own father has taught me more, and few could ever be more beloved. I praise the Lord for him.

10 Things That REALLY MATTER From A College President

10 Things That Really Matter by Dr. Joe Aldrich

(1) Always tell the truth.

(2) Be sure you have all the facts before making a decision.

(3) Keep open and friendly relations with God, family, and neighbors.

(4) Devote time to helping others.

(5) Review and adjust personal priorities on a regular basis.

(6) Be financially responsible.

(7) Discover “blind spots” by seeking advice from others.

(8) Make personal hygiene and physical health a priority.

(9) Become interdependent—we really do need each other.

(10) Recognize God in daily life and explore the power of prayer.

About the author: Joe Aldrich is most well know for being the Multnomah Bible College (Now Multnomah University) President 1978-1997 [DPC- I was a student at MSB from 1985-88 during his presidency]. Dr. Aldrich, was one of Willard Aldrich’s (former MSB President) nine children, was born in Portland and grew up in Vancouver, WA. In 1962, he married Ruthe Miles and they had two children: Kristen and Stephen. He was appointed Multnomah’s president in 1978 on Willard Aldrich’s retirement. Up until that time had been pastoring Mariner’s Church in Newport Beach, CA at the time. He retired from the presidency in 1997 due to Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Aldrich died February 12, 2009 at the age of 68 after a 15-year battle with Parkinson’s. One of his favorite quotes was this, “God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.” Some of his accomplishments while at Multnomah were the following:

Construction of the John and Mary Mitchell Library (1980)
Founding of Multnomah Graduate School of Ministry (1987) and renamed it Multnomah Biblical Seminary (1993).
Charter membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). (1988)
Chairman for the Pacific Northwest Billy Graham Crusade. (1992)
Renaming Multnomah School of the Bible to Multnomah Bible College and Seminary. (1993)
Second majors introduced. (1994)
Construction of the Scruggs Married Student Apartments. (1995)
Accreditation of Multnomah Biblical Seminary through the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). (1996)
Wrote more than a dozen books, including “Lifestyle Evangelism: Learning to Open Your Life to Those Around You.”
Spearheaded the prayer summit movement called Northwest Renewal Ministries, now independent and renamed International Renewal Ministries. (1994)

Complaining: Don’t Blame God for Your Problems by Ray Pritchard

“A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.” – Proverbs 19:3

Here is a common problem. When things go bad for us, we start to blame God as if He were the source of all our problems. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, we say, “It was the woman you gave me,” forgetting all along that no one made us eat the fruit.

Complaining is counterproductive in many ways.

First, it may turn us against God and block the flow of His blessing into our lives.

Second, it may cause us to blame others instead of looking within the source of our problems.

Third, it may cause us to miss the lessons God is trying to teach us through the difficulties we encounter.

Hard times provide some of the most important lessons of spiritual growth.

Several years ago a friend shared a statement that revolutionized my thinking in this area. It is deceptively simple: “When hard times come, be a student, not a victim.” The more I ponder those words, the more profound they seem. Many people go through life as professional victims always talking about how unfair life is.

[The chart below will help you identify whether you see yourself as a victim or a student of your circumstances]:

A VICTIM (IMMATURE) PERSON: A STUDENT (MATURE) PERSON:

Asks, “Why did this happen to me?”	Asks, “What can I learn from this?”
Blames others for his problems	Asks, “How much of this did I bring on myself?”
Believes hard times have come because God is trying to punish him	Understands that God allows hard times in order to help him grow
Looks at everyone else and cries out, “Life isn’t fair.”	Looks at life and says, “What’s happened to me could have happened to anybody.”
Would rather complain than find a solution.	Has no time to complain because he is making the best of his situation.
Believes the deck of life is forever stacked against him.	Believes that God is able to reshuffle the deck anytime He wants to.
Feels so sorry for himself that he has not time for others.	Focuses on helping others so that he has no time to feel sorry for himself.
Begs God to remove all the problems of life so that he might be happy.	Has learned through the problems of life that God alone is the source of all true happiness.
Worry about what other people think of them.	Know that the only thing that matters is what God thinks of them.
Limp through life, complaining about their heavy burdens.	Race toward the finish line, looking to their reward.

Many things happen to us beyond our control. In that sense, we are all victims of unexpected circumstances. Unfortunately, some people never rise above the victim mode. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We have the opportunity to choose the way we respond to the things that happen to us. By the grace of God, we can decide to become students, not victims, as we face the trials of life.

Prayer: O Lord, help me to be a student and nor a victim today. Amen.

Evaluation:

Are you a complainer?

What would your friends and family say?

In what areas of life are you most tempted to be a victim?

What can you do to become a student instead?

About the Author: Ray Pritchard (Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary; D.Min., Talbot School of Theology) is the founder and President of Keep Believing Ministries (http://www.keepbelieving.com/blog/). He was for many years the Senior Pastor of Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, Illinois. He has been a professor and guest lecturer at many schools and is a frequent guest on nationally broadcast radio programs. He has ministered extensively overseas, preaching in India, Nepal, Paraguay, Colombia, Haiti, Nigeria, Switzerland, Russia, and Belize. He has written more than twenty books. He has written close to 30 books on the Christian Life. The article above was excerpted and adapted in chart form – from his excellent devotional on the book of Proverbs entitled The ABC’S of Wisdom. Chicago, Moody Press, 1997, 50-52.

Spurgeon’s Channel of Encouragement by Chuck Swindoll

Blessed Are The Persecuted! (Sometimes we feel like human lightning rods as displayed below!)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon remains one of the most colorful and gifted preachers in the history of the church. Any man who loves to preach and desires to cultivate the art and skill of communication must study Spurgeon. Before the man was 30 years old, he was the most popular preacher in England. The new Metropolitan Tabernacle was filled to overflowing every Lord’s Day as people came miles by horse and buggy to hear the gifted man handle the Word of God. They were challenged, encouraged, exhorted, fed, and built up in the Christian faith. He was truly a phenomenon.

As a result, he also became the object of great criticism by the press, by other pastors, by influential people in London, and by petty parishioners. The man, not always a model of quiet piety (to say the least), had numerous enemies. Normally, he handled the criticism fairly well . . . but finally, it began to get to him. He began to slump beneath the attacks. The persecution started to take a severe toll on his otherwise resilient spirit.

I am told that his wife, seeing the results of those verbal blows on her husband, decided to assist him in getting back on his feet and regaining his powerful stature in the pulpit.

She found in her Bible Matthew 5:10-12 and she printed the words of this passage on a large sheet of paper. Then she tacked that sheet to the ceiling of their bedroom, directly above Charles’s side of the bed! Every morning, every evening, when he would rest his enormous frame in his bed, the words were there to meet and to encourage him.

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

The large sheet of paper remained fixed to the ceiling for an extended period of time until it had done the job. May Mrs. Spurgeon’s tribe increase! It is refreshing to think how a marriage partner can be such a vital channel of encouragement.

And it is also encouraging to see that we have no corner on the problem of persecution. Did you observe what Christ said? “In the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Servants, that statement will help us call a halt to the next pity-party we are tempted to throw for ourselves. We are not alone. Persecution has been going on for centuries.

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll. Improving Your Serve: The Art of Unselfish Living. Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 1981, 117-18.

About the Author: In the summer of 1977, the sermons that Chuck Swindoll preached at the First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, California, were broadcast on twenty-seven stations in the United States. Listeners responded immediately to the lively message of this down-to-earth pastor who could communicate God’s truth in terms they could understand and apply to their lives. In 1979, the radio ministry of Insight for Living was officially born, beginning on just a handful of stations. Today, more than two thousand stations carry the program around the world in seven different languages.

Two passions have directed the life and ministry of Chuck Swindoll: an unwavering commitment to the practical communication and application of God’s Word and an untiring devotion to seeing lives transformed by God’s grace. Chuck has devoted more than four decades to these goals, and he models the contagious joy that springs from enthusiastically following Jesus Christ

While on the island of Okinawa during his tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps, Chuck recognized that the Lord was calling him to devote his life to the gospel ministry. With Cynthia, his partner in life for more than fifty-one years, Chuck has devoted himself to the challenge of communicating practical, biblical truth and its application in the context of God’s grace.

After being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, Chuck enrolled in Dallas Theological Seminary [DTS]. Chuck’s course of study at DTS and the lifelong mentors he met there have permanently marked his life and the course of his ministry.

Chuck graduated magna cum laude from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1963 with three major honors:

Harry A. Ironside Award for Expository Preaching
Christian Education Award for the greatest achievement in the field of his academic major
Faculty Award for the most outstanding graduate in the opinion of the faculty

Chuck has also received four honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of his outstanding contributions to ministry:

Doctor of Divinity, Talbot Theological Seminary, 1977
Doctor of Humane Letters, Taylor University, 1986
Doctor of Laws, Pepperdine University, 1990
Doctor of Literature, Dallas Baptist University, 1997

For more than forty years, Chuck’s pulpit ministry has emphasized the grace of God alongside an uncompromising commitment to practical, biblical truth and its application. He has served the following congregations in his pastoral ministry:

Grace Bible Church, Dallas, Texas, Assistant Pastor, 1963–1965
Waltham Evangelical Free Church, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1965–1967
Irving Bible Church, Irving, Texas, 1967–1971
First Evangelical Free Church, Fullerton, California, 1971–1994
Stonebriar Community Church, Frisco, Texas. In October of 1998, Chuck founded Stonebriar Community Church, where he continues to serve as senior pastor.

As a pastor, Chuck has received the following awards:

Clergyman of the Year, Religious Heritage of America, 1988
Named one of the top twelve preachers in the nation by the Effective Preachers Program of Baylor University and George W. Truett Theological Seminary, 1997

Ranked second to Rev. Billy Graham in a 2009 survey which asked 800 Protestant pastors to name the living Christian preachers who most influenced them (survey conducted by LifeWay Research).

Chuck’s congregation extends far beyond the local church body. Through the Insight for Living broadcast, Chuck’s teaching is on the air in every major Christian radio market in all fifty states and through more than 2,100 outlets worldwide in numerous foreign languages, and it is also available to an exploding Webcast and podcast audience. While Chuck serves as chairman of the board, his wife, Cynthia, serves as president and chief executive officer of Insight for Living. They have directed its expansion to become one of the leading radio programs in Christian broadcasting. Their leadership has made Chuck’s messages accessible to 100 percent of the world’s population. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Insight for Living now has a staff of over 125 employees. We also maintain offices in Melbourne for our Australian listeners, in Brasilia for our Brazilian listeners, in Vancouver for our Canadian listeners, and in London for our listeners in the United Kingdom.

As teacher on Insight for Living, Chuck has received the following awards:

Program of the Year, National Religious Broadcasters, 1994
Religious Broadcaster of the Year, National Religious Broadcasters, 1999
Hall of Fame Award, National Religious Broadcasters, 2000

Chuck’s prolific writing ministry has blessed the body of Christ for over thirty years. Beginning with You and Your Child in 1977, Chuck has contributed more than seventy titles to a worldwide reading audience. His most popular books in the Christian Bookseller’s Association include: Strengthening Your Grip, Improving Your Serve, Dropping Your Guard, Living on the Ragged Edge, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, The Grace Awakening, Simple Faith, Laugh Again, The Finishing Touch, Intimacy with the Almighty, Suddenly One Morning, The Mystery of God’s Will, Wisdom for the Way, The Darkness and the Dawn, A Life Well Lived, and the Great Lives from God’s Word series, which includes Joseph, David, Esther, Moses, Elijah, Paul, Job, Jesus: The Greatest Life of All, and his most recent addition, The Church Awakening: An Urgent Call for Renewal.

As a writer, Chuck has received the following awards:

Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement Award, Evangelical Press Association, 1997

Twelve Gold Medallion Awards, more than any other Christian author to date

After serving as Dallas Theological Seminary’s fourth president for seven years (1994–2001), Chuck became the seminary’s chancellor in 2001. As the sixth-largest seminary in the world, DTS’s primary goal is to equip godly servant-leaders for the proclamation of God’s Word and the building up of the body of Christ worldwide, a mission Chuck wholeheartedly supports in his life and teaching. He continues to uphold the school’s motto, “Preach the Word,” as he serves in leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary, at Insight for Living, and at Stonebriar Community Church.

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