Lectio Continua
Written by J. V. Fesko |
Friday, September 22, 2023
When pastors do topical series, I suspect they will not choose passages that they find theologically difficult or problematic. For example, how many pastors ignore passages that deal with the doctrine of election? If we preach lectio continua, we must deal with whatever doctrines the text presents. We don’t have time for hobbyhorses, unless of course we’re ignoring the text. By preaching the text, it keeps us balanced. Sure, who wouldn’t want to hear about the love of God, but sometimes the text speaks about God’s wrath and justice and we need to hear about it.
During the sixteenth-century Reformation one of the standard practices for pastors was to preach lectio continua, chapter-by-chapter, verse-by-verse, through books of the Bible. At Geneva, for example, John Calvin preached from the New Testament in the morning and the Old Testament in the evening. Despite its common use during the Reformation there are many Reformed ministers who don’t preach lectio continua—they preach small topical series on this or that, or perhaps sections of books, such as sermons on the life of David or Abraham.
On the one hand, it’s definitely good and important that ministers preach the word of God. As simple as it may seem, there are too many ministers who ascend the pulpit each Sunday morning and do not preach the word—a sad but true fact. On the other hand, I think that some pastors are afraid to preach lectio continua for various reasons. But over the years I found a number of benefits to this method of preaching that, I believe, commend its use over other practices.
First, by preaching through books of the Bible you teach yourself and your congregation about whole portions of Scripture. Far too many people in the church, pastors included, do not know their Bibles. They have favorite verses or chapters, perhaps, but seldom are they familiar with entire books. What better way can there be to learn about Scripture than to preach through Romans, verse-by-verse? A side benefit of this is that the more you preach through books of the Bible, the better you will know it. Like compounding interest, your familiarity with the Bible will accrue. You will be better equipped for ministry, counseling, teaching, and preaching.
Related Posts:
You Might also like
-
The Hidden War
In speaking out against abortion, therefore, we must not forget that few other sins cause more heartache or anguish of soul. Very few women today are offered viable alternatives, and almost none of them are pointed to God, who alone can answer their need. A woman who has had an abortion suffers great torment of conscience, and her isolation and endless pain can be healed only at the cross – only by finding Christ. Christians need to feel the immeasurable pain that so many women bear in their hearts for their lost children. Who of us can cast the first stone? (John 8:7) Woe to us if we ever become cold toward a woman who has had an abortion!
Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Psalm 22:9–11
Almost a century ago, in response to the idea of “modern” family planning, Eberhard Arnold wrote, “In our families we hope for as many children as God gives. We praise God’s creative power and welcome large families as one of his great gifts.”1
What would he say now, in an era where contraception is standard practice and millions of unborn children are legally murdered every year? Where is our joy in children, and in family life? Our thankfulness for God’s gifts? Where is our reverence for life and our compassion for those who are least able to defend themselves? Jesus is very clear that no one can enter the kingdom unless he or she becomes like a child.
Sex without regard for the gift of life is wrong.
The spirit of our age is diametrically opposed not only to the childlike spirit but even to children themselves.2 It is a spirit of death, and it can be seen everywhere in modern society: in the rise of murder and suicide rates, in widespread domestic violence, in abortion, the death penalty, and euthanasia. Our culture seems bent on going the way of death, of taking into its own hands what is God’s domain. And it is not only the State that is at fault.
How many churches sanction the murder of unborn children under the guise of supporting women’s rights? The sexual “liberation” of our society has sowed tremendous destruction. It is a false liberation built on the selfish pursuit of satisfaction and pleasure. It ignores discipline, responsibility, and the real freedom that these can bring. In the words of Stanley Hauerwas, it mirrors “a profound lack of confidence that we have anything worthy to pass on to a new generation…We are willing our deaths.”3
The majority of people today have no qualms of conscience when the life of a tiny being is prevented or destroyed. Once considered the greatest blessing God can give, children are now considered in terms of their cost: they are a “burden” and a “threat” to the freedom and happiness of the individual.
In a true marriage, there is a close connection between married love and new life (Mal. 2:15). When husband and wife become one flesh, it should always be with the reverent recognition that through it new life may be formed. In this way their sexual union becomes an expression of creative love, a covenant that serves life. But how many couples view sex in this way? For most, the pill has made intercourse a casual act, divorced from responsibility and supposedly free of consequence.
As Christians, we must be willing to speak out against the contraceptive mentality that has infected our society. Too many couples have bought into the popular mindset of sexual indulgence and family planning on demand, throwing to the wind the virtues of self-control and trust. Sex for its own sake, even in marriage, not only cheapens sexual intercourse but erodes the foundation of self-giving love necessary for raising children. To engage in sexual pleasure as an end in itself, without regard for the gift of life, is wrong. It means closing the door to children, and thus despising both the gift and the Giver (Job 1:21). As Mother Teresa once said:
In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self, and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other, as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception.4
Routine contraception undermines the fulfillment and fruition of two who are one flesh, and because of this we should feel revulsion toward the attitude that consistently seeks to avoid the responsibility of bearing children.
None of this is to suggest that we are to bring children into the world irresponsibly or at the risk of the mother’s health and well-being. The size of one’s family and the spacing of children is a matter of tremendous responsibility. It is something for each couple to consider before God, with prayer and reverence. Having children too closely together can place an especially difficult burden on the mother. This is an area where a husband has to show loving respect and understanding for his wife. Again, it is vital that a couple turn together to God and place their uncertainties and fears before him in faith (Matt. 7:7–8). If we are open to God’s leading, I am confident that he will show us the way.
To abort any child is to mock God.
The contraceptive mentality is but one of the manifestations of the spirit of death that makes new life so unwelcome in so many homes. Everywhere in society today there is a hidden war going on, a war against life. So many little souls are desecrated. And of those who are not prevented by contraception from entering the world, how many are callously destroyed by abortion!
The prevalence of abortion in our society is so great that it makes Herod’s slaughter of the Innocents tame in comparison. Abortion is murder – there are no exceptions. If there were, the message of the gospels would be inconsistent and meaningless. Even the Old Testament makes it clear that God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Prov. 6:16–17). Abortion destroys life and mocks God, in whose image every unborn baby is created.
In the Old Testament there are numerous passages that speak of God’s active presence in every human life, even while it is still being formed in the womb. In Genesis 4:1 after Eve conceives and gives birth to Cain, she says, “With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man.” She does not say, “With the help of Adam,” but “with the Lord.”
Read More
Related Posts: -
A Church without God Is Dead on Arrival
A church without God, prayer, or the Bible; a church for fellowship not faith, service not sacraments: that’s supposedly what lonely Americans need. Yet can such a civically focused ecclesial institution, or set of institutions, replace our increasingly empty (or repurposed) churches? In fact, they already exist, and have proved just as incapable of replacing the role vacated by that “old time religion.”
We need a church for the nones, or Americans who say they don’t belong to a particular religion. That’s what The Washington Post’s Perry Bacon calls for in a much-ballyhooed column last month. “Start the service with songs with positive messages. … Reserve time when church members can tell the congregation about their highs and lows from the previous week. Listen as the pastor gives a sermon on tolerance or some other universal value, while briefly touching on whatever issues are in the news,” Bacon suggests. Sunday services would be supplemented by volunteer, community-service activities, he adds.
Bacon, who grew up evangelical, communicates a yearning felt by many Americans in this atomized age. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, in a recent advisory titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” asserted: “Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors.” Church, even our post-Christian culture can admit, is healthy for us. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., argued much the same in a June speech, citing the values of churches to address our “epidemic of loneliness” by giving us “connection” and “meaning.”
A church without God, prayer, or the Bible; a church for fellowship not faith, service not sacraments: that’s supposedly what lonely Americans need. Yet can such a civically focused ecclesial institution, or set of institutions, replace our increasingly empty (or repurposed) churches? In fact, they already exist, and have proved just as incapable of replacing the role vacated by that “old time religion.”
Mainline Protestantism Has Already Failed at Church Without God
Some have recommended Unitarian Universalism, which welcomes a wide diversity of religious (or areligious) beliefs as long as their adherents accept various mantras associated with the political left (e.g. “justice, equity and compassion in human relations”). Yet Bacon doesn’t like the fact that the Unitarian Universalist church remains predominantly white and elderly, and lacks activities for children. He also cites a 10-year-old organization called Sunday Assembly that has attempted to establish “nonreligious congregations” around the world, though the group, which promotes “wonder and good” and “celebrat[ing] life,” is attracting few followers.
But let’s be frank. We don’t need to look to secular simulacrums of Christianity to identify craven appeasements to the gods of progressivism. Liberal Protestants long ago capitulated to the gods of the left and are little more than mouthpieces for the Democrat Party.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Global and Local Floods: Two Sides of the Same Coin
For Calvin, then, the Flood was not simply an influx of water. It was a disordering of creation that interrupted the normal working of nature. The world was undone on a much deeper level than is recognized by either of the two predominant views, and the result is a miracle as different from a naturalistic flood as a cardiac resuscitation is from a resurrection.
The geographic extent of the Genesis flood recently became a flashpoint on Christian social media. Given the rancor over the topic, one might expect to find critical distinctions between those who argue for a flood that extended over a local area and those who believe it covered the entire globe. And certainly, the two groups each feel the other damages the concept of biblical inerrancy in some way. Yet the reality is the camps are far more similar than different. Both operate from nearly identical presuppositions, and both allow those presuppositions to drive them to adopt minority interpretations of biblical texts. My goal here is to highlight the commonalities and suggest consideration of a third way.
Side 1: A Global Flood
Advocacy for the global flood position is supported by several parachurch organizations that are, if not solely interested in the issue, highly focused upon it. This is unusual, as most apologetic concerns do not draw such dedicated attention. The organizations engage with the development of different flood models, but nearly all of them are propelled by the key assumption that the flood operated in a naturalistic fashion. To be sure, miracles are accepted at various times during the event, but the overriding belief is that the principles of geology observed today can and should be applied to the flood of yesteryear. All the models therefore assume a type of flood geology, in which the surface of the planet was completely reshaped by predictable forces.
Flood geologists often maintain that they hold to the traditional majority interpretations of Scripture. While this is true in many instances, there is at least one section of text they understand in a completely novel way. Gen 2:10-14 reads:
“A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where this is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”
Here Genesis seems to indicate at least some of the Edenic rivers are still flowing, and that the surrounding lands are still in existence. Yet this is clearly incompatible with the notion that the Earth’s surface has been catastrophically changed by the flood. Flood geologists address this challenge by positing that the portions of Genesis describing the antediluvian world were themselves written prior to the flood. After the flood, the names of rivers and lands were reused for the new surface. The pre-flood writings were then translated into Hebrew and integrated into Genesis without revision or editorial comment.
While there is nothing logically impossible about this scenario, it does seem to me to be unnecessarily convoluted. What’s more, it represents a notable deviation in the hermeneutical principles generally employed by flood geologists. Creation science organizations routinely advocate for the interpretation of Scripture to be guided by a plain reading of the text. There is, however, nothing in the plain reading that suggests the Tigris and Euphrates are anything other than the rivers known to Moses’ original audience. Certain scientific pre-commitments cause the text to be read in a way which breaks from both the normal interpretive methodology and the historic understanding. As one article published by Creation Ministries International states:
“The first option is that the Havilah, Cush, Assyria, Tigris, and Euphrates in Genesis 2 are the same as their post-Flood designations. As we noted, this option fails to appreciate the devastation the Flood would have had on the continents, literally reshaping the surface of the planet as miles of sediment were eroded and laid down. Furthermore, as we have shown, it is impossible to match the Bible’s geographical description with the names in Genesis 2. So while biblical creationists such as Luther, Calvin, and many others held this view historically, it is no longer a viable biblical creationist option in light of current geological knowledge.”
Side 2: Local Flood
Advocacy for the local flood position also receives some parachurch support, but it is far less than what is given to the opposing viewpoint. This relative lack of organizational structure may contribute to the greater level of diversity in the details of the local flood models. Considering location alone, one can find suggestions that include the Black Sea, the area around the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean during the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Like their global counterparts, the local models all take for granted that the Genesis flood functioned according to known geological principles. Reasons to Believe demonstrates this when answering the question “Could the Genesis Flood Happen the Way it was Written?”:
“From a geoscience perspective this short list of the conditions required to produce Noah’s flood seems reasonable. There was clearly enough water which, when coupled with rapid land level change and suitable topography, could conceivably cause a flood of “biblical proportions.” While these mechanisms may not have been responsible for Noah’s flood, they at least demonstrate that the occurrence of this catastrophic localized flood does not require breaking the laws of science that God himself set in place (Jer. 33:25).”
Holding to a naturalistic view of the flood once again affects the reading of the biblical text. While the continued existence of Edenic lands and rivers pose no issue for the local models, the universal sounding descriptions of the flood require an explanation. These passages are subsequently held to be hyperbolic and limited by the context of the discussion. For example, Gen 7:19 (“And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered”) is explained by an appeal to Deut. 2:25 (“This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you”). Just as Deuteronomy does not intend to describe all the peoples of the globe, so the argument goes, neither does Genesis intend to describe all the mountains on earth. This represents a rejection of the majority reading found throughout history, much like the exegetical choices of the flood geologists.
Cashing Out
To be clear, I don’t believe minority reports should be rejected solely because they are minority reports. Yet I can’t say I’m convinced that either of our friends’ suggestions take a full accounting of the biblical data. There is a verse that nags at me, and it is one that is almost universally ignored in these conversations. The Lord, speaking in Gen. 8:22 after the Flood, states, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” It is a surprising promise. Did the cycle of day and night cease during the flood? Calvin thought so. In his commentary he explains:
“By these words the world is again completely restored. For so great was the confusion and disorder which had overspread the earth, that there was a necessity for some renovation. On which account, Peter speaks of the old world as having perished in the deluge. Moreover, the deluge had been an interruption of the order of nature. For the revolutions of the sun and moon had ceased: there was not distinction of winter and summer.”
For Calvin, then, the Flood was not simply an influx of water. It was a disordering of creation that interrupted the normal working of nature. The world was undone on a much deeper level than is recognized by either of the two predominant views, and the result is a miracle as different from a naturalistic flood as a cardiac resuscitation is from a resurrection. One is reminded of what Vern Poythress wrote in Redeeming Science when discussing the possibly miraculous nature of the flood:
“If the mechanics of the flood are completely unfathomable, no scientific theory can hope to capture them. The flood remains permanently beyond the reach of science. What, then, would scientists find when they examine rocks left behind by the flood? They might find pure chaos, such that no one could make sense of it. But both flood geologists and mainstream geologists think that they find order, and that a great deal can be explained. Evidently, God did not choose to act in a way that just left behind a complete chaos.
Second, one might find that the flood left behind a mature creation, after the manner of the mature creation at the end of the six days of creation. This alternative is less far-fetched than one might think, because the Bible gives clear hints that the flood of Noah represents a pattern of destruction and re-creation. In a manner of speaking, the flood returns the world to the watery, empty situation of Genesis 1:2. The Lord then proceeds to “re-create” an ordered world.”
To adopt a position like this forces us to re-examine our fundamental assumptions of the world. It reminds us that the God of order is Himself not bound by His own creation. The routine operations of the Lord’s governance do not govern Him.
There is a scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when the boy Eustace is speaking to a retired Narnian star in the form of a man. Eustace explains that, “In our world, a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” The star replies, “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.” Perhaps all sides of the flood debate might take the sentiment to heart. Perhaps in our world, water is not what the flood was but only what it was made of.
Sean McGinty is a member of Providence Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Scottsdale AZ.
Related Posts: