Providence and Preservation
God has preserved his written word by his singular care and providence, with great accuracy and in great purity. Despite its complexities, preservation by ordinary providence in both special and general modes (though we cannot always discern the difference between these two) seems to be the best theological account of providential preservation based on the biblical data.
Christians believe that all Scripture is inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16). But what has God done to preserve his written word? In particular, what is the relationship between God’s work of preservation and the work of sometimes sleepy scribes, whose pens might slip, and whose parchments might disintegrate? The concept of “providence” can help us here. What does it mean to say that God has preserved the text of Scripture “providentially”? And what degree of textual preservation does a biblical assessment of the work of providence give us reason to expect?
What is Providence and How Does it Work?
“Providence” is not itself a word found in the Bible. But it is a theological term that sums up Scripture’s teaching about one particular work of God. This work includes the biblical concepts of God’s purpose (prothesis, πρόθεσις), foreknowledge (prognōsis, πρόγνωσις), and predestination (proorismos, προορισμός). The word “providence” itself (which has the etymology of pre-seeing) is sometimes linked to the introduction of God as “Jehovah Jireh” or “the Lord who sees/provides” in Genesis 22:14.
The thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas defined providence as God’s ordering of all things towards their end. He further distinguished two parts to this “ordering”: (1) God’s eternal arrangement of all things, and (2) his temporal execution of that order by means of his government of the universe (Summa Theologica, I.22.1). After the Reformation, many Protestant theologians basically accepted Aquinas’s definition, commonly discerning three elements of God’s work of providence in the world: preservation, concurrence (i.e., co-operation with secondary causes), and government. It’s important to notice that providence encompasses all things: in the most basic sense, if something is (or happens), it is (or happens) providentially.
Two Methods of Providence
Can we be any more specific? Here we may introduce two useful distinctions, which are frequently misunderstood or confused. Theologians distinguish first between “ordinary” and “extraordinary” providence. This distinction is about the method of providence. “Ordinary” providence perhaps sounds boring, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate something humdrum: the term comes from the Latin ordinarius, which means “according to rule.” In this case the “rule” is God’s own, which we find established in the divinely given laws of nature. In his ordinary providence God works through and according to creaturely means. For example, your birth was hardly a boring or everyday event, but it was very much part of ordinary providence.
Extraordinary providence, on the other hand, is outside, above, or against regular, creaturely means. We see this in the biblical miracles. When Jesus walks on water, that is outside or beyond God’s normal way of ruling over the physics of water. The really key thing to remember is that, whether God’s providence is ordinary or extraordinary, it does not change the fact that God is always working, and his work is always praiseworthy. All God’s works praise him, and should lead us to bless his name (Ps. 145:10).
Two Modes of Providence
A second distinction (found, for example, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, 5:7) is sometimes made between “general” and “special” providence.
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Forget the 99 Shades of Grey – We Need to Again Affirm Truth
In an age that denies truth and absolutes, Christians must resist the siren call to join with it in its deep-seated scepticism. There is real objective truth out there which is knowable. As Francis Schaeffer used to say, we may not have exhaustive truth, but we do have true truth. But more and more Christians today are caving in on this.
When a culture becomes convinced that there is no longer any such thing as black and white, but just ninety-nine shades of grey, then the ones still holding to absolutes are considered to be troublemakers and madmen. Such is the case today for those who still affirm biblical Christianity.
The culture around us is steeped in relativism, subjectivism, and an aversion to truth. But sadly much of the church is moving in this direction as well. Those who have been involved in teaching young people over the years certainly will have noticed this shift in thinking, with more and more Christians expressing doubts about absolute truth.
I increasingly hear from some young people that they think we can’t be so black and white in our beliefs, and that the Bible itself is not so black and white. I always cringe when I hear such talk. Of course, to be fair, it does depend on just what they are referring to exactly.
If they simply mean that some things can be hard to understand, or that Christians can disagree on various issues – especially secondary matters – then yes, I can see where they are coming from. But if they mean that core Christian truths such as the Deity of Christ and the reliability of Scripture are just too fuzzy and unclear, then I have some real problems with this.
And many of them seem to think that the Bible is actually all very grey when it comes to key moral issues as well, such as abortion or homosexuality. When believers try to tell us that the Bible is not black and white on such issues, then you know that the world has been heavily influencing them.
The bottom line is this: Scripture IS black and white. How can it be otherwise? It is the very word of God, and God cannot lie. He is a God of truth, so all his words are true. As Jesus put it in John 17;17, “Your word is truth.” Or as Paul put it in Romans 3:4 “Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true” (NLT).
Sure, we recognise that while the Bible is completely true and without error, we are not. We are fallen and finite, so we need care and diligence as we seek to rightly understand and apply God’s truth. But we are not left in endless doubt and scepticism. The Holy Spirit has been given to every believer to guide them in all truth (John 16:13).
We can have real certainty – at least about the basics. As 1 John 5:13 says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know…” Indeed, the idea of certainty in belief is found throughout Scripture. I like what John Stott has to say about this. As he puts it in the beginning of his classic book Christ the Controversialist:
The corridors of the New Testament reverberate with dogmatic affirmations beginning ‘We know’, ‘We are sure’, ‘We are confident’. If you question this, read the First Epistle of John in which verbs meaning ‘to know’ occur about forty times. They strike a note of joyful assurance which is sadly missing from many parts of the church today and which needs to be recaptured.
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By Faith We See In the Dark
According to Hebrews, it is by faith that we understand. And of course, if Christianity is actually true, that understanding requires knowledge of the invisible. By faith we know who God is, the truth that He created all things in the beginning and will judge all things in the future, and even present unseen realities like our union with Christ, our nature as Image of God, and the moral order. These invisible realities and their interconnections are at the heart of Christianity. Faith, therefore, is necessary for grasping the Christian vision of the world: it is by faith that we understand reality as it really is.
The things I love deeply are also the things that irk me most easily. And most profoundly. This makes sense: when we love, we care. (Likewise, indifference breeds apathy.) For nerds like me, this applies especially to books.
Let me first say that I love Luc Ferry’s little gem A Brief History of Thought. It’s a gem because it succinctly if simplistically traces through the whole history of the Western intellectual tradition by articulating four major epochs; and it does this by charting the ligaments between metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. So, so helpful.
But as this is the internet, we must race past vague, general praise toward concrete, specific, detailed, brash criticism.
Allow me, dear reader, to explain what irks me about Ferry’s book. Ferry thinks of philosophy as an attempt to construct a theory of salvation without recourse to divine revelation. In religious traditions, the divine brings salvation to humanity. In philosophical traditions, humanity seeks salvation on its own. In the introduction, Ferry puts it this way: “Unable to bring himself to believe in a God who offers salvation, the philosopher is above all one who believes that by understanding the world, by understanding ourselves and others as far as our intelligence permits, we shall succeed in overcoming fear, through clear-sightedness rather than blind faith.” (p. 6) I happen to think this is an unhelpful way to differentiate religion and philosophy, but what really irks me is that word ‘blind’…
Ferry is, of course, not alone in insinuating that religious faith is an agent of blindness, that to have faith is to shut oneself off from some aspect of reality, that faith requires persistent belief without evidence or even in the fact of evidence to the contrary. Both outside the church and, more troublingly, inside, Christians are often told that the claims they are meant to hold most dear, the claims they ought to order their lives around, are either irrational or, at best, a-rational. Anyway, the central, credal claims of Christians throughout history aren’t subject to the sort of careful, reasoned investigation that, in the physical universe known to humanity, only humans can undertake. We must simply believe.
1. Seeing the Invisible
The Scriptures paint a different picture of faith’s relationship to sight.
In the letter we know as 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul connects faith in God to Christians’ ability to suffer well. He writes:
For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. … Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believe, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. … So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. … So we are always of good courage. … [F]or we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 4:6-10, 13-14, 16-18; 5:6a, 7)
Notice that Paul runs headlong into a connection between faith and knowledge: we believe by faith, and so speak, because we know we will be raised. This connection between faith and knowing, which is not unique to Paul, eliminates the idea that faith is opposed to knowing, and therefore to reasonable belief. Notice that Paul includes the faith-sight contrast in this very context. In whatever sense faith is opposed to sight, faith simply is not opposed to knowledge.
We can go further.
The author of Hebrews toys with the idea of knowing by faith through seeing the unseen as well. Moses is said to have endured the wrath of Pharaoh “as seeing him [that is, God] who is invisible”. (11:23) Moses looked to his unseen future reward. (11:22)
Hebrews goes beyond Paul: “By faith we understand”, it says. (11:3) The things understood are themselves invisible: the creation of the world by the Word, the promises of God fulfilled, Jesus seated at the right hand of God. This goes further than mere knowledge because understanding requires knowledge but is more than knowledge. Understanding is knowledge organized and applied. To understand is to systematize what you know and be able to utilize that knowledge in the right circumstances.
2. Understanding by Faith
In the context of religion—or, more broadly, any perspective on the whole of reality—understanding involves not just knowledge of certain religious facts, but the systematization of those facts.
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Abuse, the OPC, and the Psychologizing of Sin
Here is the real problem that I believe underlies the failure of those frequently using the term abuse to provide a clear, biblical definition: the preference of the term abuse dislocated from sin, moves abuse out of the moral and spiritual realm and into the psychological. In other words, it tends to shift the serious matters at hand from that which is properly clerical and refers them to the clinical.
Last summer I wrote an article voicing my concerns about a motion brought to the 87th General Assembly (GA) of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). Now an overture related to abuse is on its way to the 88th GA this summer in Philadelphia (you can download a pdf version of the overture below). I will soon be interacting with the language of that overture in detail. Here I would like to explore the recent discussions about abuse and why we must not leave the term undefined, ill-defined, or without biblical qualification. I will also discuss one of the concerning trajectories for the church in its present approach to discussing abuse.
Importance of Definition
During the 87th GA last year, at least two commissioners asked some version of this vital question: “What is your definition of abuse?” No one provided a succinct, working definition. Why was this? Precise definition of terms is vital for a variety of reasons. When discussing important topics like this one, everyone needs to know precisely what is being talked about. In matters of righteousness and justice, there is no room for ambiguity. Clarity of definition is not terribly popular today, but this is nothing new. J. Gresham Machen wrote this in 1925, “Indeed nothing makes a man more unpopular in controversies of the present day than an insistence upon the definition of terms. Anything, it seems, may be forgiven more readily than that.”[1] How should we define abuse?
Should we use the UN’s definition? “Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person.” According to this statement, abuse can be “emotional…actions…that influence another person.” This is a terrible definition because it is dangerously broad. The organization G.R.A.C.E. seems to indicate that an assessment for abuse would be warranted “if your organization has been notified that women do not feel comfortable in the culture and environment of your organization.” Is discomfort proof of abuse? While it could be, this is dangerously subjective. Diane Langberg, while teaching at a presbytery conference in the OPC in 2021 said in the question-and-answer session that, “the basic meaning of abuse is to mistreat somebody.” Will the OPC do any better? The overture coming to the 88th GA from the Presbytery of Ohio defines abuse as “misuse of power of various kinds.” We must do better.
Reconsider the statements above. Some use recklessly broad terminology and some inexcusably vague. Webster’s 1828 dictionary lists the following for the noun form. Abuse:
“Ill use; improper treatment or employment; application to a wrong purpose; as an abuse of our natural powers; an abuse of civil rights, or of religious privileges; abuse of advantages, etc; A corrupt practice or custom; Rude speech; reproachful language addressed to a person; contumely; reviling words; Seduction; Perversion of meaning; improper use or application; as an abuse of words.”
Left unqualified, abuse can be an exceedingly broad term. Consider this: by the above definition, overeating, losing your temper, a mean tweet, lying, adultery, murder, binge-watching Netflix, corrupt worship, and keying someone’s car all fall into the category of abuse.
To put it most broadly, all abuse is sin, and quite frankly, all sin is abuse in some way or another. But every fair-minded person knows that there are different kinds and severities of abuse. As such, all sins of abuse occur along a spectrum. It can range from relatively trivial (a mean tweet) to outright evil (murder/adultery). Frequently inserted to this discussion are categories including but not limited to emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual (a topic for another day). In addition to different kinds, we can also identify different severity. For example, a spouse committing adultery is evil; a minister of the gospel committing adultery is far worse. For these reasons, not only does abuse need a clear definition, it ought not be a standalone term, especially in debates within the church. Instead, following the method of the Westminster Catechisms, abuse should be regarded as an aggravation of an underlying sin that renders it more heinous (WLC 151). [2]
With these matters of definition in mind, here is a most important question: by what standard can we determine the definition, kind, and severity of abuse? By what standard ought we to determine the correct response to various abuses? It must be the Word of God, for Scripture alone is the infallible standard for identifying, exposing, and dealing with sin. We must be biblical both in our definition and our method to account for the kind/severity spectrum of sins aggravated by abuse. Let us consider some passages of Scripture in search of a clearer understanding of the issue at hand.
Abuse in the Bible
Technically speaking Eve is the first culprit of abuse in Scripture when she misuses God’s Word in Genesis 3:2-3. Adam joins the ranks of abusers by way of neglect due to his silent abdication (Gen. 3:6). He then horribly mistreats his wife by offering her up to divine judgment in order to save his fig-leaf covered skin (Gen. 3:12). As covenant head, he was also responsible for plunging all humanity into an estate of sin and misery. As such, the sin of Adam became the source for all sin in human history, which makes it a kind that is extremely severe.
Judges 19:25 describes abuse of the most vicious kind and severity. This dark chapter describes unimaginable evil committed against a vulnerable woman. She was exposed to a perverse mob by a shameful, spineless man. Most English Bibles translate the original word aw-lal’ with abused, “And they knew her and abused her all night until morning; and when the day began to break, they let her go” (NKJV). I will return to this heinous event later. The other OT occurrences of this word with the closest usage are in 1 Samuel 31:4/1 Chron 10:4 (Saul not wanting to be abused by the Philistines), and Jeremiah 38:19 (Zedekiah wanting to avoid either mocking or mistreatment).
In these four texts, three of which use aw-lal’, the action under scrutiny is the misconduct by those in a position of influence with responsibility for their actions. While Eve was queen of creation, most importantly Adam was the head of natural humanity. The perverse mob in Judges was subject to the Law of God and had covenant responsibility to care for the stranger (Ex. 22:21, 23:9, see also Ezek. 16:49). Compounding the evil was the deplorable conduct of the Levite and the master of the house in Gibeah. For Saul and Zedekiah, they were both concerned about the serious maltreatment that would result from being handed over to reckless groups of sinners.
The New Testament twice uses the term katachraomai for abuse. In both occasions, the sense communicates the need to avoid the misuse of something given, whether material blessing in the world (1 Cor. 7:31) or apostolic authority/power (1 Cor. 9:18). The New Testament also describes the worst occasion of abuse that occurred in history, namely, the gross maltreatment and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. With respect to Him we find abuse reach its most egregious kind and severity: corrupt religious and civil authorities condemned the righteous Man; Jewish citizens mocked, spit upon, and beat Him (Luke 22:63-65); Roman soldiers scourged and crowned Him with thorns (John 19:1-2). To make it all worse, His disciples also forsook Him (Mark 14:50) and Peter denied Him (Luke 26:75).
How then should we define abuse? A friend of mine and fellow OPC minister offered this simple and helpful suggestion: the sin of abuse is “when someone intentionally uses his power to inflict serious harm upon another person.” This definition wisely includes the elements of purpose (intent), effect (serious harm), the victim (another person) and the aggravation of the breach/misuse of responsibility (power).
A Concerning Trajectory
In almost all the discussions about abuse that I have encountered, I have rarely heard mention of the Law of God. Here is an important question: under which commandment do sins of abuse rightly fall? Before reading further, I would like you to answer that in your mind. Most of the people to whom I have posed this question have referenced the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder.” It often tragically includes the seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” However, we must not overlook the relationship of this category of sin to the fifth commandment.
The fifth commandment establishes the framework in which all social ethics can and must occur. For life, purity, work/property, truth, and contentment to thrive, all must preserve the honor and perform the duty that belongs to everyone in their several places and relations, as superiors, inferiors, and equals (WSC 64). This is true for family, church, and society at large. Affirming that sins of abuse fall within the scope of things prohibited in the fifth commandment requires consideration of the categories of that commandment, namely, superiors, inferiors, and equals. This creates quite a dilemma for those seeking to deconstruct authority, especially within the family and church. Why? Because for the sin of abuse to be truly heinous—and it is—it requires a category of relational and positional inferiority/superiority (WLC 151). The trouble is that this is anathema in our egalitarian, feministic, and psychologized age.
There seems to be a movement in the church seeking to dislocate abuse from the category of sin. Why would anyone in the church want to do this? Perhaps it is because there is pressure, and there seems to be a lot of momentum, for the church to seek outside help related to sins of abuse. There are claims that the church does not know how to handle abuse (more on that in another article). Here is the real problem that I believe underlies the failure of those frequently using the term abuse to provide a clear, biblical definition: the preference of the term abuse dislocated from sin, moves abuse out of the moral and spiritual realm and into the psychological. In other words, it tends to shift the serious matters at hand from that which is properly clerical and refers them to the clinical. That is not to say that pastors and elders never need help. For example, when sins occur that are criminal (like sexual abuse of children), it is necessary to involve appropriate law enforcement. However, in matters that rightly fall under the spiritual realm and responsibility given to elders, Christ’s church needs to think more carefully before outsourcing to the local counseling clinic.
The church in this nation has sadly abdicated far too much in the last century. Education has been given over largely to the State. Care for the poor, widow, fatherless, and elderly has in large measure been usurped by the State. Will the church now hand over the care of the soul to “state licensed” psychologists and become subject to them? It will be a devastating and dangerous thing if the society of the redeemed makes itself subservient to an unaccountable panel of experts, especially if they are unbiblical.
In conclusion, let us revisit the egregious sin of abuse in Judges 19. What does God call it? In Hosea 9:7-9 He says, “The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come. Israel knows! The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity. The watchman of Ephraim is with my God; but the prophet is a fowler’s snare in all his ways—enmity in the house of his God. They are deeply corrupted, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins” (emphasis mine). God called that abuse iniquity and sin because it is wrong before Him. Sin cannot be dealt with apart from the cross of Jesus Christ, the preaching and ministering of which God has committed not to psychologists, but to His church.
The trend toward psychologizing sin is a troubling one, certainly so if this is true of the OPC. Will the overture coming before the 88th General Assembly be a helpful corrective? I will examine that question in my next article.
Proposed Overture to the 88th GA of the OPC.pdfDownload
Mike Myers is a Minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is Pastor of Heritage OPC in Royston, Ga. This article is used with permission.[1] J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? The Banner of Truth Trust, 13-14. This is very similar to a statement from J.C. Ryle in the opening sentence of Knots Untied, “It may be laid down as a rule, with tolerable confidence, that the absence of accurate definitions is the very life of religious controversy. If men would only define with precision the theological terms which they use, many disputes would die. Scores of excited disputants would discover that they do not really differ, and that their disputes have arisen from their own neglect of the great duty of explaining the meaning of words.”
[2] Q. 151. What are those aggravations that make some sins more heinous than others?Sins receive their aggravations,
From the persons offending; if they be of riper age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others.
From the parties offended: if immediately against God, his attributes, and worship; against Christ, and his grace; the Holy Spirit, his witness, and workings; against superiors, men of eminency, and such as we stand especially related and engaged unto; against any of the saints, particularly weak brethren, the souls of them, or any other, and the common good of all or many.
From the nature and quality of the offence: if it be against the express letter of the law, break many commandments, contain in it many sins: if not only conceived in the heart, but breaks forth in words and actions, scandalize others, and admit of no reparation: if against means, mercies, judgments, light of nature, conviction of conscience, public or private admonition, censures of the church, civil punishments; and our prayers, purposes, promises, vows, covenants, and engagements to God or men: if done deliberately, willfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastingly, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, continuance, or relapsing after repentance.
From circumstances of time, and place: if on the Lord’s day, or other times of divine worship; or immediately before or after these, or other helps to prevent or remedy such miscarriages: if in public, or in the presence of others, who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled.Related Posts: