The Heart of Hermeneutics: Part 1
What did the text mean? To look at the text and learn what it means requires that we cross a big gap and go “back then” in our minds. But then we must also cross that divide to “today” and progress to Live! This is the application stage of seeing the life impact of the text. What difference does the text make to my life today?
Something is missing. Too much training in Bible handling is missing something critical. Either we get the technical interpretation elements well: such as recognizing the distance between the world of the text and the world of the contemporary reader, and seeing the gaps that need to be crossed (linguistic, cultural, geographical, religious, etc.). Or, we dump the technical process and lose both textual accuracy and authority as we treat the Bible like an ancient source of contemporary devotional material.
To put that another way, while some are stronger on the “back then” nature of the text, others are too quick to rush to a “for today” impact. Good Bible handling requires both a “back then” and a “for today” mindset.
We Must Cross the Divide
The traditional inductive approach to the biblical text requires that we cross the divide. We begin with Look! This is the observation stage of seeing what is actually in the text.
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5 Myths about Human Reasoning
Written by Vern S. Poythress |
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Human reasoning, intuition, emotions, and all the other aspects of who we are all contaminated by sin (Ephesians 4:17–19). No one of these areas of human life is absolutely trustworthy. Christ came to redeem us comprehensively. That includes not only giving us the forgiveness of our sins, but through the Holy Spirit progressively moving us out of our sinful desires and habits and into a life of joyful service to Christ and to the Father.Myth #1: Human reasoning operates in essential independence of God.
The Bible teaches that we are continuously dependent on God (Acts 17:28). This dependence includes not only dependence on him for food and physical sustenance (Matthew 6:25–33; Acts 14:17), but dependence on him mentally:
He who teaches man knowledge—the Lord—knows the thoughts of man,that they are but a breath.—Psalm 94:10–11
But it is the spirit in man,the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.It is not the old who are wise,nor the aged who understand what is right*.—Job 32:8–9
In any sound reasoning, we are imitating the original rationality that belongs to God. We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27). We are dependent on God and on his knowledge.
Myth # 2: The laws of logic are common to everyone, whatever his religion.
God, the one true God, is the God who rules over all. His own consistency and faithfulness of character are the basis for human logic. So the divine reference point of God’s rationality is the same for everyone. But sin corrupts us, including not only our desires but our minds:
They [the Gentiles who do not trust in God] are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.—Ephesians 4:18
This darkness of sin generates subtle differences between the way that a Christian and a non-Christian understands logic. As an example, take the law of noncontradiction. A Christian knows that the law has its foundation in God’s character and his consistency with himself. God does not contradict himself. By contrast, a non-Christian tends to treat himself as if he were the final standard for what is contradictory.
In addition, the laws of logic display in subtle ways the mystery of the Trinity–that God is three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How is the Trinity displayed?
All laws about the universe are laws that issue from God. God said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). In a similar manner, the laws of logic can be considered as what God speaks. And what God speaks has a Trinitarian structure. At the foundation for any specific words of God there is the grand truth of John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word.” God the Father eternally speaks the Word (who is God the Son) in the context of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, according to Ezekiel 37:10, 14, functions like the breath of God. So the law of non-contradiction comes as Trinitarian speech.
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What Is Islam?
Though it professes to be the authoritative revelation of the one true God, the Qur’an includes a number of historically and theologically inaccurate accounts of biblical figures. For instance, the Qur’an teaches that Abraham offered up Ishmael rather than Isaac. The Qur’an also teaches that Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus, the son of Mary) was merely a miracle-working prophet of Allah. Additionally, the Qur’an denies the deity and atoning death of Jesus.
What is Islam?
Islam is the second-largest religion in the world. Today, an estimated 1.3 billion people profess to be Muslims—that is, followers of the religion of Islam. Of these, nearly 1 billion reside in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. Islam is a monotheistic religion, requiring submission to the one God, Allah, and to everything Allah revealed through the prophet Muhammad. The two major authoritative texts in Islam are the Qur’an and the hadith. The Qur’an is claimed to be the revelation of Allah to Muhammad. The hadith are the oral traditions of Muhammad’s teaching and practice as passed down in the Muslim community and set to writing a few centuries later. The Five Pillars of Islam structure the essence of Islamic belief and practice. There are two major branches of Islam: the Sunnis and the Shiites, and there is also a large mystical tradition, the Sufis. The Nation of Islam, an African American political and religious movement, has brought an awareness of Islam to many Americans. However, this movement is a modern Western ethnocentric religion that is not recognized by orthodox Muslims as an authentic Islamic tradition.
When did it begin?
Muhammad is the founder of Islam. He was born in AD 570 in Mecca (a city in the western Arabian Peninsula).1 His father died before his birth. His mother died when he was six. Muhammad went to live with his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib. When he was eight, Muhammad’s grandfather died. Muhammad then went to live with his uncle Abu Talib, a caravan tradesman. Abu Talib took Muhammad on many of his travels.
At age twenty-five, Muhammad married Khadija, a wealthy traveling merchant. Khadija had been raised by Ebionite Christians. The Ebionites were a mystical Jewish sect of Christianity that denied the deity of Christ. Scholars believe that Muhammad learned his inaccurate versions of biblical accounts on his travels with Abu Talib and Khadija.
Muhammad said the angel Gabriel visited him in Mecca in 610, which began a twenty-three-year period during which Muhammad claimed to receive the revelation of the Qur’an. Traditionally, eighty-six suras (chapters) of the Qur’an are said to have been revealed while Muhammad lived in Mecca, while the remaining twenty-eight were revealed in the city of Medina.
The first two people to accept Muhammad’s message were his wife, Khadija, and his cousin, Ali ibn Abi Talib. The first convert outside of Muhammad’s family was Abu Bakr, a traveling merchant. During his stay in Mecca, Muhammad began calling the polytheistic citizens to repent and submit to Allah, the one true God. After years of rejection, persecution, and warfare, Muhammad journeyed to Medina (then known as Yathrib) in 622. This event, called the Hijrah, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The message of Islam found greater acceptance in Medina; the Muslim community there grew, and Muhammad became the leader of the city. Eventually, Muhammad was able to amass an army large enough to capture Mecca, which he purged of polytheism. Mecca is today one of the holiest cities in Islam. Upon Muhammad’s death in 632, Abu Bakr became the first caliph (the religious and political leader of the Islamic state), although many Muslims believed the caliph should have been a relative of Muhammad, specifically his cousin Ali. Abu Bakr carried on the Islamic religion until his death. Caliphs Umar Ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan, and Muhammad’s cousin Ali succeeded Abu Bakr, in that order. After Ali’s death, disagreements within the Muslim community over who could be caliph continued to grow, with the Shiites eventually breaking with the majority of Muslims—the Sunnis—over the Shiite belief that the caliph had to be from Muhammad’s family.
Who are the key figures?
Over its long history, Islam has produced a multitude of influential rulers, scholars, philosophers, authors, athletes, businessmen, scientists, and teachers. Muslim mathematicians and philosophers have played important roles in the development of disciplines such as algebra and in the recovery of Aristotle’s thought in the West during the late medieval period. Islamic empires conquered much of the Christian East.
Today, the most well-known Islamic political figures are King Abdullah of Jordan; King Salman of Saudi Arabia; Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran; and Mohammed VI, king of Morocco.
Before becoming a Sunni Muslim, Malcom X helped raise awareness of the Nation of Islam in American culture. Louis Farrakhan is currently the leader of the Nation of Islam, a ethnocentric sect viewed as heretical by orthodox Muslims.
Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are among the famous Muslim athletes of recent decades.
What are the main beliefs?Revelation and interpretation. Although all Muslims profess belief in the Qur’an, considerable diversity of belief and practice exists among the various branches of Islam. Sunni Muslims, who make up the vast majority of the worldwide Muslim community, rely heavily on legal scholars to settle disputes over the teaching of the Qur’an. These lawyers, in the development of Islamic law or sharia, seek to reconcile the differences between the teaching of the Qur’an and the hadith by means of consensus and analogy. Shiite Muslims, who make up the second-largest group of Muslims worldwide, believe that the true successor to Muhammad as leader of all Muslims comes from the family of Ali. (Sunnis believe that Muhammad’s successor can come from the broader Islamic community.) The Shiites also have their own collections of hadith, consisting only of traditions that they trace back to Ali. Disputes within Shiite Islam are settled by appointed imams whose decisions are considered binding. The Sufis believe in a spiritual, nonliteral interpretation of the Qur’an and engage in mystical practices.
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Irresistible Grace
Written by Joel E. Smit |
Friday, December 22, 2023
Irresistible grace happens in us, as the eternal salvation of God enters our personal existence through the supernatural work of conversion. This first taste of saving grace, which is experienced more and more each and every day through Christ, is what the true Christian savors both now and forever: the riches of His grace that sovereignly saved and drew all His elect into personal relationship with Himself.A professional athlete was asked, “At what moment did you realize that you had made it into the highest league of your sport?” The reality did not hit him, the athlete responded, until the first paycheck was deposited into his bank account, and he understood that he was now getting paid for the game he loved to play. This earthly example portrays in part the experience that a Christian might have when he comes to understand the doctrine of irresistible grace. When the true believer comes to the realization that all the benefits of Christ are personally applied to him and he is now in Christ, he is like the athlete who has come to a fuller realization of who he really is and all that truly belongs to him. He now understands that he is a Christian through the sovereign eternal election and redemption of Christ effectually applied to him by the Spirit.
Irresistible grace is perhaps better described theologically as efficacious grace or effectual calling. This doctrine is spelled out clearly in the Westminster Confession of Faith (ch. 10), and it is summarized in the Westminster Shorter Catechism in this manner:
Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered in the Gospel. (Q&A 31)
The whole of salvation, including the work of conversion, is a work of God because the whole (or totality) of man is affected by the fall of Adam. Spiritually dead men and women can neither do nor will themselves into a better relationship with God unless God does a work in them. George Whitefield said that man can more easily “climb to the moon on a rope of sand” than do any good works that place him in right relationship with God. What man is incapable of doing, God does powerfully and efficaciously by His grace through His Word and Spirit.This inward call of the Holy Spirit typically takes place in conjunction with the external call of the gospel that goes out to the world through the read and preached Word of God. What is externally read and heard finds a heart, mind, and will that have been spiritually renewed and regenerated by the Spirit.
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