On the Church and Bible Translations

Mark Ward recently published a significant book on the KJV: Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. He draws attention to the problems created by the changes in the English language over the past four centuries, as those problems easily lead to misunderstandings of what the KJV is saying. This is often the case even for highly educated people who think they are invulnerable to such misapprehensions.

For about three and a half centuries, the KJV was the Bible for English readers. It was the pew Bible for churches that had pew Bibles. The phraseology of the KJV was often familiar even to those who had not read the Bible much. It was the Bible not only of English-speaking Christians but the Bible of the English-speaking church. The English Revised Version (1885) and the American Standard Version (1901) were intended as updates and replacements of the KJV, but neither made any significant headway either among individual readers or in churches.

Modern English versions began to appear in the early part of the twentieth century. James Moffatt produced a translation that achieved some popularity among Bible aficionados (C. S. Lewis recommended the New Testament of it somewhere, and it remains in print), but it was never intended to be used as a church Bible. Faculty at the Universities of Chicago and Toronto produced a modern English version about the same time as Moffatt, titled The Complete Bible: An American Translation, but it never received any wide use. To my knowledge, it has not been reprinted since the 1940s. It might have worked well as a church Bible, but never was used as such.

The big change began with the publication of the Revised Standard Version in the 1940s and 1950s. The New Testament appeared in 1946, the Old Testament in 1952, and the Apocrypha in 1957. This translation was done under the auspices of the National Council of Churches. It was widely and quickly adopted by mainline Protestant denominations. The church I grew up in (UPCUSA) had RSV pew Bibles, and we were given RSV Bibles in second-grade Sunday school (in 1971, the church gave its graduating high school seniors copies of Good News for Modern Man). The Hymnbook, a hymnal produced as a joint venture by several Presbyterian denominations in 1955, used the RSV text for the Psalms responsive readings that were printed at the back of the hymnal.

Conservative churches continued to use the KJV until the mid-1970s, when the NIV first appeared. The generally conservative tone of the NIV, its relatively easy readability, and its heavy marketing made it quickly the go-to translation for evangelical churches. In the last twenty years or so, things have changed. Crossway got permission to use the RSV as a base text and a translation committee produced the English Standard Version. About the same time, with funding from Lifeway, a translation committee produced the Holman Christian Standard Bible. This has recently been updated as the Christian Standard Bible. It serves as the base text for Sunday School literature for the Southern Baptist Convention. Five of the mainline denominations put together a translation committee that produced the Common English Bible, which is now used as the base text for their liturgical and Sunday school materials. Independent evangelical churches use generic Sunday School material, most of which is keyed to the NIV.

Most churches no longer have pew Bibles. So, the following situation is found in the American church: mainline churches use the NRSV (the 1989 revision of the RSV) or the Common English Bible. Southern Baptists (and perhaps other Baptist conventions) use the Christian Standard Bible. Conservative Reformed and Presbyterian churches likely prefer the ESV. Most evangelical churches use the NIV. There is no longer a single Bible translation used by all English speakers. In any given Protestant/Evangelical congregation, there may be five or six different versions being used by the congregants. At some level, this variety of translations can be helpful, as different translations can bring out different nuances of the original languages. But at another level, it is a real loss to the church. We no longer, as it were, speak the same language.

Sin and the Prophets

It may be simply my impression and nothing more. But it seems that modern evangelical discussions of sin focus on what sin has done to us. The cultural factors of addiction, pornography, climate change, and the recent news items about the prevalence of sexual assault have tended to focus our ideas of sin on the awfulness of the way humans treat one another and the planet we occupy. This explains in part the prominence of “brokenness” in our considerations of sin. This is certainly an important aspect to the doctrine of sin. The relationship between Adam and Eve was damaged, broken, if you will. Without the restraining work of the Holy Spirit, our treatment of one another would be far worse than it is.

The problem with this approach to the doctrine of sin is that it appears to make of sin something outside of us, some external evil influence that does damage to the soul in the way that mustard gas damages the lungs. This view finds its expression in the bumper-sticker theology of “Hate the sin. Love the sinner.” It separates the sin from the sinner. But this is not the biblical doctrine of sin. The biblical doctrine has it that “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” Sin is not some external force or power, but a part of our character, an innate corruption of soul. Adam fell, and we are fallen, and that fallenness expresses itself in all aspects of our lives.

A further difficulty with our modern conception of sin is that we see the effects of sin as primarily horizontal. Dr. Nassar’s abuse of the gymnasts under his care was a profound offense against them. Sex trafficking is a profound offense against those who are its victims. But sin, biblically defined is not exclusively, or even primarily a horizontal offense. It is primarily an offense against God. It is this truth that seems to be lacking in many modern discussions of sin. It may be mentioned, but the profundity of the offense appears really to be ignored.

It is for this reason that most moderns seem to be uncomfortable with the biblical prophets. They spoke much about sin, but not in our terms. They were concerned with the horizontal affects of sin. But they were far more concerned with the vertical effects of sin. They were profoundly aware of the depth of offense their sin, and the sins of their people, brought against God. Sin, in the prophetic view, was an abomination against God. It was a stench in his nostrils.

We don’t share that view. We understand that the being of God is not affected by our sin. God is complete and perfect within himself. But we think, therefore, that sin has no effect on God. The prophets understood how wrong that is. So, they depicted sin in the most awful categories, with the ugliest, most repugnant images they could set out. They understood how ugly and repugnant a thing it was to offend against the thrice-holy God. We need to regain their understanding, or we will continue to redefine sin until is means only that which we find offensive.

The Pastor and His Commentaries

Since part of the work of the pastor is to preach the biblical text, commentaries can make up a large part of a pastor’s library. There are pertinent questions to ask relative to commentaries: Which commentaries? And When? The second question is easier to answer.

When to Buy

My recommendation is that you hold off on buying commentaries on a particular book until you are ready to begin preparing to preach that book. My reasoning is as follows: first, new commentaries are always coming out. That means that what is a really good commentary now may be superseded five years down the road. For example, the two top-rated commentaries on Genesis on bestcommentaries.com are those by Gordon Wenham and Victor Hamilton. Both are a generation old. Hamilton was published in 1990 and Wenham in 1987. There are seventeen commentaries on Genesis listed as forthcoming, with several of them being candidates to replace Wenham and Hamilton. If you are not planning on preaching on Genesis any time soon, you are better off waiting to buy.

Second, for most pastors, commentaries can be a significant part of the budget. You need to ask yourself if you can afford to have several thousand dollars’ worth of unused books sitting on your shelves.

To sum up: my recommendation on when to buy commentaries is shortly before you are ready to begin preparing a series on a specific book of the Bible.

Which to Buy?

You’ll get different advice from different people on this. My approach is minimalistic. I recommend that you buy no more than five commentaries on any particular book. You should have one technical commentary based on the Hebrew or Greek text of the book. You should have one somewhat less technical commentary that deals with selected matters related to the original languages and that goes through the book passage by passage. A third commentary should be expositional, not necessarily dealing with the original languages, but explaining the movement of the book. A fourth commentary should be a pre-critical commentary, which would generally be any pre-1850 commentary. My rationale for this is that those commentaries are coming to the biblical material from a different cultural setting, and therefore with a different set of questions to ask of the text. This can make the pastor aware of some of the breadth of issues that the biblical text addresses. A good source for identifying these commentaries is Spurgeon’s Commenting and Commentaries (http://www.romans45.org/spurgeon/misc/c&c.htm). Reading Spurgeon’s comments on the various commentaries is an education in itself. Many of these older commentaries are now available online at archive.org. A fifth commentary can be something of a duplicate of one of the other four.

My own sense is that when you move beyond this minimum, you find yourself reading material that has already been covered in another commentary.

What Not To Buy

Don’t buy sets. The quality and usefulness of the commentaries in a set vary from one author to another. Commentary sets look nice on the shelf, but you end up with books you never use.

Don’t buy older commentaries that are available online. Yes, I know, that set of Keil & Delitzsch, or of Calvin, can look nice on the shelf. But they are available free online. Commentaries are for consultation and you will not be reading much at a time, so reading them online should not be too difficult.

Some Thoughts on Preaching

Three disclaimers: First, I don’t consider myself to be any better than average as a preacher. Second, aside from the preaching I hear at the church I attend, and the occasional conference, I don’t listen to much preaching. Third, no one has ever hired me to teach homiletics. Nonetheless, I’ve heard a lot of preaching over the last forty-some years, and I try, in my exegesis classes, to give the students some instruction in how to preach the passages we deal with.

Some preachers seem to be confused about some basics. A sermon is not the same thing as a theological lecture. Some preachers don’t seem to understand that, because their sermons focus exclusively on pouring out information about the text, more like a commentary than a sermon. A sermon is the explanation and application of a particular passage/topic/doctrine of Scripture. As such, the two key elements are the clear explanation of the text and the direct application of its message. It is not an exclusively intellectual exercise, but is intended to get to the heart through the head.

On the other hand, a sermon is not merely a means of moving the emotions of the congregation. Some preachers don’t understand that, as their sermons seem to focus on moving the emotions almost in a way that seems manipulative. Instead, both the head and the heart of the hearer must be involved.

Sermons are less about rhetoric than they are about connecting the text to the listener. I know that sounds vague, so an illustration might help. A number of years ago, I heard a sermon at a conference. It was clear that the preacher understood his text. He didn’t miss the main point. It was well-organized and clear. The preacher had obviously worked hard on the sermon. It was a rhetorical tour de force. But it was emotionally cold. It had not connected with the audience, and I heard very few commendations of the sermon afterwards. Another year, another conference, a different preacher. This time, the preacher had been assigned a topic common in Reformed theology. If you were to go to sermonaudio.com, and search for this topic, you would find many sermons on it. Most of them would use the same primary texts, and the outlines would be interchangeable. This man took a different approach. He didn’t take one text, he took many (sort of like the Book of Hebrews) and he came at the topic from an entirely unexpected angle. He, too, had clearly worked hard on the sermon. As with the other, it was well-organized and clear. The difference was that it was emotionally warm. By taking a different approach, coming at the topic from an unusual direction, he had made the topic clear, fresh, and applicable. He also, I think, had a clearer sense of his audience than the first speaker. I heard some complaints (from professors) about the approach he had taken. But I heard many more commendations of the message.

My own sense is that pastors, on the whole, spend less time in prayer and meditation over their sermons than they should. The sermon only begins with the exegesis of the passage or topic. It is brought to flower by being the subject of much reflection, much prayer, and an intimate knowledge of the congregation.

On Pastoral Praying

Hundreds, if not thousands of books have been written on prayer. Countless sermons have been preached on prayer. But the reading of books on prayer makes no one a praying man. The essence of prayer is in the praying. As Nike says, “Just do it!” It doesn’t matter how articulate the prayer is. What does matter is the praying itself.

All Christians must be pray-ers, but the pastor especially must be a man of prayer, and this in two aspects: in private and in public. The private prayer of a pastor also has two aspects. There is first his praying for himself and his family. This prayer is the essential foundation to any other prayer. The man who prays for himself prays out of a sense of need, out a knowledge of his inability and his unworthiness. The man who does not pray for himself, whatever his claims to the contrary, thinks he does not need prayer. But a man must also pray for his family. To do this adequately, he must know his family—their needs, their cares, their concerns, their fears, and their frustrations. Many pastors have sacrificed their families to their ministry, thinking the latter to be more important, but the family must come before the church or the ministry. It is one of the essential qualifications for the office.

The second aspect of a pastor’s private prayer is prayer for his church. These prayers must not be vague and general. There are of course, general concerns and cares that are reflected, for example, in Paul’s prayers for the churches. But it does little good to pray for the growth in grace of John Doe if the pastor is not aware that John Doe’s wife is threatening divorce, or that John Doe fears that he will lose his job. This sort of information the pastor only knows if he is indeed pastoring the flock. In addition to the prayers for the individual congregants, there is prayer for the congregation as a whole, for its growth, for its strength, for its unity.

The pastor’s private prayer is fundamentally a matter of discipline. He must set apart time for the exercise of prayer, and that time should be regular. I make no prescriptions as to when, or where, or how long; only that it must be done, and done regularly.

The pastor’s public prayer is a matter of preparation. In the Puritan period in England, there was a great deal of debate between those who preferred the set prayers of the Book of Common Prayer, and those who argued for extemporaneous prayer. Both sides had a point, but the points got lost in the heat of the debate. Public prayer, the pastoral prayer that forms a part of public worship, should be planned. It need not be written out ahead of time, but the pastor should have carefully thought through the themes and points of the prayer before he prays. Many pastors are particularly weak on this. There are three books, then, that I recommend for pastors as they consider the public prayers of the church. The first is Samuel Miller, Thoughts on Public Prayer. The second is Matthew Henry’s A Method for Prayer. This is available as A Way to Pray, edited by O. Palmer Robertson, and as A Method for Prayer, edited by Ligon Duncan. The third is Hughes Oliphant Old’s Leading in Prayer. All three of these are excellent resources for the pastor who desires to improve in his public praying.

On Pastoral Reading

I know many pastors. Some of you don’t read much. Perhaps you don’t read well. Perhaps the busyness of ministry and family inhibits your reading. Perhaps you have little interest in reading beyond what is necessary for sermon preparation and the occasional counseling issue. Others of you read a fair amount. I’ve seen your plans on Facebook. You’re going to read Bavinck this year. You’re going to read Calvin’s Institutes again. Perhaps you’re going to dive into the two-volume Banner of Truth reprint of the works of Jonathan Edwards. Or you’re going to read the collected works of John Piper in sixteen volumes that Crossway recently published. At any rate, you have plans for reading this year.

I would encourage those of you who read little to read more. Spend less time on social media. Maybe listen to fewer podcasts, and replace them with reading time. Spend some time thinking about how you spend your time. Surely time to read can be carved out for even the busiest pastor. Even ten pages of reading a day can get you through Calvin’s Institutes in five months. You can get through Bavinck in less than a year.

Whether you realized it or not, pastoral work is, among other things, reading work. You don’t know everything you need to know to be an effective pastor. You barely begin to lay a foundation for that in seminary. You consult the wisdom of the ages by reading. Take C. S. Lewis’s advice and read old books (www.covpres.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/On-Reading-Old-Books.-CS-Lewis.pdf). Maybe replace the latest Paul Tripp book with some dipping into Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor. (This is not a hit at Paul Tripp. It’s just an example.) At any rate, read. Improve yourself as a pastor by reading.

Especially, however, read the Bible. It’s relatively easy to read theology and church history and not be particularly rebuked about your sins, or, for that matter, even particularly encouraged about your successes. If you read the Bible, you will regularly be rebuked for your sins. You will wade through Jeremiah and be reminded of your sins and the sins of your church (both local and denominational). But you will also be encouraged; you will be reproved; you will be corrected; you will be trained in righteousness. The more you read the Bible, the better you will know it. The better you know it, the more well-trained you will be in righteousness.

I hear men examined for licensure by presbyteries. It is disappointing to me how poorly most men do on the English Bible exam. That poor performance reflects poor preparation—not so much a lack of cramming before the final, but a lack of regular faithful reading of the Scriptures.

With all your reading this year, discipline yourself to read the Bible—prayerfully, attentively, meditatively. You’ll be pleasantly pleased at the end of the year not only with your own progress in righteousness, but with that of your church as well.

PCA GA 2017

Debate on the Report of the Ad Interim Committee on Women Serving in the Ministry of the Church. This committee was formed at the behest of last year's General Assembly, amid concern that women were not getting their rightful due in the PCA. The Committee was appointed and did a great deal of hard work over the last year to get the report ready. For that, they are to be commended. There are three parts to the report. There is first what is called the narrative part of the report. This consists of the following chapters: I. Introduction, which explains the origin of the committee and its purpose; II. A Biblical Foundation for the Roles of Women in the Church; III. Ordination--A Definition, With Special Reference to the Office of the Diaconate; IV. Encouraging a Robust and Gracious Complementarian Practice; V. Pastoral Letter and Recommendations. This portion of the report is about sixty pages, so it is not a brief document.
The second part is the recommendations. The third part is the rationale that the committee provided for each of the nine recommendations.
Ordinarily, with aa report such as this, if it is approved, the report and the rationales are preserved in the Minutes of the GA, while only the recommendations are sent down to the presbyteries for implementation. The first recommendation was a matter of procedure and was unexceptionable. The remaining eight recommendations are debatable. There was first a substitute motion to send the whole report (narrative, recommendations, and rationales) to the presbyteries for study and debate. That motion was defeated. The first recommendation was approved. The remaining eight recommendations could have been approved omnibus (all together) or each debated and dealt with separately. The vote was to deal with each separately. Recommendations 2 and 3 were debated but eventually passed. The Assembly was debating Recommendation 4 when it became apparent that we would not finish the debate before the order of the day, which was worship (4:30 PM). In parliamentary procedure, an order of the day item is fixed, and cannot be postponed. The Assembly thus recessed about 4:20. We will continue to deal with the recommendations when we reconvene tomorrow at 9:30 AM. If you are interested in the text of the Report or the Recommendations, you can PM me on Facebook.

Praying the Bible #2 Genesis 2

O Lord God, we praise you that you have made us, that you have breathed into us the breath of life. We thank you that you have established for us the pattern of six days of labor and one of rest. We thank you for the day of rest, that it is not simply a day of relaxation, but a day blessed, a day sanctified unto you, a day in which you are the object of our praise and our consideration.

We praise you that you have given us the gift of labor, that we are not called to idleness. Enable us to praise you with the work of our hands, that we may labor as unto you and not as eye-pleasers. We pray especially for those who labor in tilling the soil, for those who provide the bread for our tables. Bless them in their labor. Make their labor fruitful for the good of all.

We thank you for the gift of marriage. You have given man a helper suitable to him. The two you have joined together as one. We pray for all those who are married, that we would treasure this gift, that we would cultivate our marriages as the farmer cultivates the soil, ass the shepherd cares for his flock. We pray for those who are unmarried, yet long to be. Provide for them according to your wisdom. We pray for those whom you have called to be unmarried for the work of the kingdom. Strengthen them that they might be careful for the work of the Lord.

We ask all this in the name of Jesus, who carried out all his labor for your glory and for the sake of his bride, the church. Amen.

Praying the Bible #1

The chapter divisions of the Bible are not inspired. In some cases, they seem downright loony. But they do present a convenient way of breaking the text down into smaller, more manageable units. Those of you who follow me on Facebook will know that I have been posting brief prayers of the day for several months. I will continue to do that. But I will occasionally post a longer prayer, based on, or drawn from, a chapter of the Bible. There are 1189 chapters in Protestant Bibles. I would eventually like to post a prayer based on each one, but that will depend on the length of life God is pleased to grant, since I won’t be posting one a day. I will proceed sequentially through the Bible, so the prayers from Leviticus and Numbers might be interesting. At any rate, here is a prayer based on Genesis 1.

O God, you spoke and it came to be. Everything. Then you spoke again and the everything began to be divided into somethings. You made light. You made the day and the night. You separated the waters and gathered them together into seas. You populated the sky and the sea and the land with creatures adapted to each. We scan the skies and the seas and the land and we are astounded by the diversity and the beauty of the lives that you created. We look at the sun and the moon and the stars and we know that however immense is the universe, it is not immense to you. The intricacy of the systems you created overwhelms us, yet they are not overwhelming to you. On the sixth day, you created man male and female. We wonder what is man, such a small part of such a great creation, yet you have made us in your image. You have called us to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue it, to have dominion over it. Make us equal to the task. Make us faithful to our calling to be the stewards of your creation. Most of all, let us remember that we are not our own. We are your creatures, created for your glory. Help us to seek that glory in all that we do. We ask in the name of Jesus, by whom and for whom all things were created. Amen.

Twenty-five Years in the Seminary Business, Part 3: What to Expect From Seminary

When I started seminary almost forty years ago, I had no idea what to expect, and probably had not really thought about it. I had just graduated from college (having crammed my four years into six) and most likely considered seminary as just another three years of college. The church I attended was in transition, and I did not know the pastor very well. He told me nothing about seminary. The candidates committee of my presbytery was also mum on what to expect from seminary. I have the distinct impression that most students attending seminary today are in the same boat. They have vague ideas about classes, and being prepared to be pastors, but beyond that, they are clueless about seminary. As a result, many find themselves feeling overwhelmed in their first pastorate, and blame their seminary for not properly preparing them for the rigors (or even the day to day trials) of pastoral work.

My first recommendation on what to expect from seminary is to keep your expectations low. No seminary can possibly prepare you for pastoral work. All that most seminary curricula do is to give the student an introduction to basic tools and skills necessary for pastoral work. The student will need some knowledge of the biblical languages and principles of interpretation in order to prepare sermons that are actually based on the text of Scripture, and are not just flights of fancy. Some knowledge of church history, including denominational history, is also necessary. Systematic theology is needed to help men differentiate between truth and error. Instruction in preaching and counseling and education and missions also form part of the curriculum. And there you have three years of seminary. Most seminaries also require an internship in a local church. This is ostensibly where the student learns to use the tools that the classes have given him. Whether it does or not is another issue and that is usually out of the hands of the seminary and in the hands of the session of the church where the internship is done. Some internships are very good; some are not.

My second recommendation is that you use seminary to figure out your strengths and weaknesses. If you’re not a self-starter, you probably will not do well as a solo pastor. Are you thin-skinned? You won’t do well in the pastorate because Christians can be astonishingly hateful. Intellectual ability and an interest in theology will not necessarily make you a good pastor. Make use of your professors, fellow students, spouse, and pastor in figuring out whether you really are gifted for pastoral ministry.

My third recommendation is that you be generous to your professors. Recognize that some of them will be very able, others will be merely competent, and some (hopefully few) will be borderline incompetent. Most seminaries try to hire faculty who have spent some time in pastoral work so that they can bring some practical considerations into their lectures and assignments. But just because they spent some time in the pastorate doesn’t necessarily mean they were very good at it. Their interests and aptitudes may be more scholarly or esoteric than pastoral.

Fourth, don’t be in a big hurry. Make good use of your classes, especially those you despise or think lightly of. You’ll be surprised how often that knowledge will later come in handy. It may be that due to family pressures, financial considerations and other factors, you have to take an extra year or two to finish. That’s part of God’s providence. Your being “late” to the pastorate is not going to delay the coming of the kingdom, and it may save you some heartache later on.

Finally, “Be humble, carry low sails, walk softly all your years. Be not proud of your gifts, graces, privileges, or attainments: but remember ye were children of wrath, even as others.” (Thomas Boston, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State.)

Twenty-five Years in the Seminary Business, Part 2

Some men, thankfully not many, do not come to seminary to learn. They already know everything. Of these, there are two types: loud and quiet. The loud ones make their presence known in every class (and outside of class). They regularly question/correct their professors. They frequently are busy “teaching” and correcting other students. They make it clear that they resent having their pet theological theories questioned. Usually these men are bright (though not as bright as they think), but not nearly as well-read as they seem to think they are. They present themselves as authorities on everything, but generally have one special area that they have “mastered.” This area has become the center of their theology, and they are unhappy with anyone thinking that it might not be, or might not need to be, the center of everyone else’s theology. For the most part, they do well academically, but no one is really sorry when they graduate. Professors tend to refuse writing recommendations for these men because the perception is that they will be a disaster in pastoral work. They lack two chief characteristics that are necessary not only for being a good student but also a good pastor. They are neither teachable nor humble. Most of these men, if they remain in pastoral work, generally do so by taking small churches that eventually become populated by a group of folks who simply agree with the pastor on everything.

The quiet ones are harder to identify. They share the lack of humility and lack of teachability that is characteristic of the loud ones, but they hide it by simply keeping their heads down. They work diligently, and do well academically, but they never really learn anything. They leave seminary with the same ideas they had when they began. I suspect that often these quiet ones have chosen a seminary that is really not in tune with their basic theological convictions and they decide simply to wait it out. When they graduate and take a call to a church, they pastor the way they would have had they never been to seminary.

Sometimes, these non-learners (both the loud and the quiet) get educated in the school of hard knocks, when ruling elders and church members refuse to put up with their arrogance. Eventually, they begin to grow and occasionally even prosper as pastors. But the road would have been less difficult had they come to seminary to learn.

Why do these folks go to seminary? Probably because their denomination requires them to have an M.Div. They come for credentials, not for learning.

Why do churches and presbyteries (and other church bodies) send these men to seminary? I suspect that sometimes it is just a way for a church to get rid of someone who has become obnoxious to the church. Sometimes, the church hopes that seminary will indeed teach them something and make them useful in gospel work. Often, presbyteries do not really know the men well. It has become something of a habit in the PCA that men do not come under care of their presbytery until they are already most of the way through seminary. But that is a discussion for another day.

As I said at the beginning, there are not many of these men, but they can make their time in seminary a real trial for their professors and their classmates. Ultimately, when they graduate, they depart to no one’s regret (2 Chronicles 21:20).

Twenty-five Years in the Seminary Business, Part 1

I realized at the end of the 2015 Fall Semester that I had completed twenty-five years of teaching at GPTS (I began in the Spring Semester of 1991). There are many seminary professors who have been teaching loner than I, at larger schools, who therefore have more experience than I do. But I intend to put down some of my reflections based on the last twenty-five years.

First, in general, students entering seminary today seem to have a weaker grasp of the content of the English Bible than they did when I started teaching. That’s bothersome to me. I remember when I went back to my home church after my first year of seminary. There was an older lady who said to me, “How wonderful it would be to just study the Bible all day.” I didn’t correct her, and perhaps that’s the view many people have of seminary. But English Bible is only part of the curriculum. There are languages to be learned. Church history and theology have much in the way of required reading. Even the English Bible courses are often more concerned with technical issues, than with a mere recitation of content. Then there are the extra-curricular activities that seminary students get drawn into, such as teaching Sunday school, occasional supply preaching, and the demands of family life. So a student who comes to seminary with a weak grasp of English Bible content likely will not leave seminary with his understanding of the English Bible much improved. This is further confirmed by the fact that many men, even after seminary, do not do all that well on presbytery Bible content exams.

So my recommendation is that those who are contemplating attending seminary should work first on their grasp of the English Bible. Read it regularly and carefully. Develop your own outlines of the books. Yes, study Bibles and other books provide such things. But if you spend the time working out your own outlines, they will be more meaningful, and stick with you longer than those pre-digested outlines that have been provided for you.

Second, it might be the impression of many that seminary is where men learn their theology, so that the perspective of the school would naturally have a significant effect on a man’s theological commitments. However, I’ve found that not to be the case. Usually a man comes with his commitments already in place. A man’s commitments generally reflect the commitments of the church or the pastor under whom he began his growth as a Christian. Further, a pastor will generally direct any of his men who are considering seminary to a school that is congenial to his own commitments. So in general, seminary will give a man greater theological sophistication, but rarely will it alter his basic theological commitments. More on this next time.

Hindrances to Reading the Bible

At this time of the year, many people are resolved once again to read the Bible through in a year. But there are various hindrances to the fulfilling of that resolution which lead most to leave off the project well before it is finished.

To begin with, I would say that the Christian should feel no compulsion about finishing the Bible in a year. It’s merely a convenient way of thinking about it. There are plans for reading through the Bible in two years (http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/tgc/files/2010/12/TGC-Two-Year-Bible-Reading-Plan1.pdf) or even three years (http://www.moodychurch.org/static/uploads/globaladmin/bible_reading_plans/bible_threeyear.pdf). There is even a Bible reading plan for slackers and shirkers (http://www.ransomfellowship.org/publications/notes_biblereadingprogram.pdf). The point is not necessarily to get through the Bible in a specified period, but rather to be reading regularly in the Word of God. But there are hindrances even to that goal.

First Hindrance: An Inability (or Limited Ability) to read. If the reader is not a reader, there is a simple solution. Get an audio Bible and listen to the Bible. For the person who reads, but not well, I would recommend one of the simple-language translations of the Bible, such as the New Living Translation, the Contemporary English Version, or the New International Reader’s Version. Reading levels of various translations can be found here (http://www.mardel.com/bibleTranslationGuide) and at similar websites. I don’t ordinarily recommend those simple-language translations, but for the reader who does not read well, they are a decent place to start. For those who either don’t read, or don’t read well, I also suggest that you attend regularly a church where the Bible is read and preached from on a weekly basis (this applies more generally to all, regardless of reading ability). That will help you not only to read the Word, but to understand the Word.

Second Hindrance: Parts of the Bible are Boring. Absolutely right. The directions for building the tabernacle in Exodus 25-40; the sacrificial and cleanness regulations in Leviticus; the seemingly endless pronouncements of judgment in Jeremiah, all are places where people suddenly lose interest in reading through the Bible. So skip them. Especially if this is your first time through the Bible, you can glance at the subheadings provided in most modern translations and decide if you want to read, to skim, or to skip. Some parts of the Bible are more important than others. On the other hand, you might at least try reading these sections, going for the big picture and trying not to get lost in the details. After all, most of life itself is boring. Why should the Bible be any different?

Third Hindrance: I Don’t Understand It. Again, absolutely right. The Bible, being the Word of God, is as deep as God himself. I have been studying the Bible since I was converted 42 years ago. I have been studying it in a more professional manner since I began seminary 38 years ago. I have been teaching the Bible at the seminary level for 25 years. Though I understand a great deal more of it than I did when I first started, there is much that I still do not understand. The man who claims to understand all of the Bible is a liar and a fool. So recognize at the outset that there will be much you don’t understand. Pray for grace to understand as much as you can, and pray for patience to struggle through the parts that are completely incomprehensible.

Fourth Hindrance. I don’t have the time. Wrong. How much time do you spend on social media, television, movie streaming services? Surely there are fifteen minutes you can carve out of every day to spend time in the Word of God. Not every day’s reading will be a profound spiritual experience. But a daily dose of the Word of God will, carried out patiently over time, produce the fruit of God in your life. So go ahead. Try it.

The Spirit was Really Moving

More than thirty years ago, when I was in grad school at Duke, I knew a number of the undergrads who were involved with InterVarsity. A Christian singer, who was very popular at the time, but who has since gotten old and faded into obscurity, was giving a concert in Raleigh. I went to the concert with several of the students because someone bought me a ticket, and I was curious. It struck me as an average rock concert (I had been to a few of those) with Christian lyrics. On the ride home after the concert, one of the students said, “The Spirit was really moving tonight!” I thought to myself that he needed to have been to a few more rock concerts. Because the performer did everything that any good rock musician does to get the crowd involved. Now the Spirit may have been moving that evening. I have no way of knowing. But my guess is it was simply stirred-up human emotion that made everyone feel good.

We have a tendency as Christians to link good feelings, whether it be at a concert or a worship service, with the moving of the Spirit. But we should be careful about that. We are too dependent on our feelings and too little dependent on faith. We are told that the Spirit moves where he will, but it is also clear that the Spirit moves in conjunction with the preaching of the Word (John 16:1-7; Eph 5:18-20; 6:17; Rev 19:10). We also know that the Spirit can move to convict as well as he can move to exalt. In fact, most of the preaching that we are given in Acts is used by the Spirit to convict of sin.

Thus we should recognize, by faith, that when the Word is faithfully preached, the Spirit is moving, whether we feel good, bad, or blah. It is probably the case that in any given service, some are being convicted by the Spirit, others are being encouraged by the Spirit, and others are being spiritually strengthened by the Spirit, but they all may or may not feel the Spirit. We are to walk by faith and the assurances of God’s Word, not by sight, or whether the service or the concert, made us feel good.

Message to Beginning Seminarians

Welcome to graduate school! If you want to be successful here, you need to know a few things about how seminary works.

First, this is school, not Sunday school or church. We do what we can to help you in your spiritual development. We have chapel. We have faculty advisee prayer groups. We have a course in Reformed spirituality. But you are responsible for your spiritual development, as a man and, as it applies, as a husband and father. We faculty can help, but we aren’t mind readers. If you need help, ask for it.

Second, classes are not exercises in test-preparation. Be aware that tests and examinations can cover anything that the professor covered in class, as well as whatever was in the required reading that he might not have covered in class. It is your responsibility to learn the material presented. If the professor is specific about what will be on tests, he is being kind. It is not in his job description to do so.

Third, you are no longer in college. In college, you might have gotten away without preparing for class, because the professor covered everything in his lecture. Some of your classes here will be like that. But some will not. Some will require that you have worked through the material ahead of time; that you have mastered it, and can discuss it in an intelligent fashion. Make it your aim to do that for every class, as a man studying to show himself approved.

Fourth, learn to listen and take notes. Most of you will want to use your computers to take notes. You are sufficiently fast typists that you can get down every word. But if you do that, all you are doing is taking dictation. Try taking notes with a pencil and paper. Listen carefully to what the professor, and other students in discussion, are saying. Write down the salient points and also what will help your remember the significance of those salient points. You will find that careful listening and note-taking are hard mental work. Then, after class review your notes. Make additional notes that will put everything in context. For some of your classes, your professor will distribute relatively detailed lecture outlines. Do not think of the lecture outline as a substitute for note-taking. Make your own notes and use the outline as a help to remembering.

Fifth, learn to use the Seminary style sheet and the resources given there. Learning to use proper academic style in writing papers is no more than common courtesy, and is part of the culture of an academic institution.

Finally, please do not think of seminary training as a series of hoops through which you must jump before you can get to the real work of the ministry. If that is your opinion, I ask you to drop out now. Seminary is introducing you to the tools of ministry and training you in their use. After seminary you will still have much to learn that can only be learned by practice. But at least you will have the tools you need, and you will know how to use them.

Again, welcome to seminary, and may God bless you in your studies.  

(Suggested by: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-m-parsons/message-to-my-freshman-st_b_7275016.html)

A Well-Ordered Church, William Boekestein and Daniel R. Hyde

In our day in the US, the church is thought little of, even by many Christians. Oh, they attend church but probably not with any regularity. In a recent study, for example, regular church attendance was defined as three times in eight weeks. In other words, a regular attender attended church less than half of the time. This fact, more than any other, indicates the low view of the church held and practiced by many Christians.

This book is an attempt to address that problem. It is a non-technical work on ecclesiology, the study of the church. Underlying the book is the view expressed in the title of a nineteenth century work by Stuart Robinson: The Church of God An Essential Element of the Gospel. The book is divided into four parts: the church’s identity, its authority, its ecumenicity, and its activity.

As to the church’s identity, the church belongs to Christ. He is its head, and in him the church finds its unity. As to the church’s authority, it comes from the Bible to the church through Christ’s appointed officers. As to the church’s ecumenicity, there is an internal ecumenicity, which is expressed in the mutual edification of churches within a denomination. There is also an external ecumenicity, in which churches of different denominations work together for the sake of the gospel. The activity of the church is multiform, including teaching, worship, witnessing, and discipline.

The book presents a standard Reformed view of the church. This is seen in two primary ways: first, in its references to the Scriptures as the basis for all principles regarding the church; and second, in its frequent reference to Reformed doctrinal confessions and catechisms. Each chapter is accompanied with questions for discussion and additional reading. There is an additional bibliography at the end of the book. Most of the additional reading material is non-technical, and easily understood by the average church member.

No one will agree with everything presented here. But the reader who is interested not only in the “what” of the church, and not only in the “why” of the church, but in his own relation to the church will find this a stimulating aid to his thinking about the church.

Modern English Versions and the Greek New Testament

Some of us remember the days before the internet and Google, when a new software program came with an immense user’s manual. If you have ever seen any of these in a used bookstore, you probably noticed that it was relatively unused. The problem with those manuals is that they really were unusable. The indices were usually poorly done and the text was written by the people who wrote the program. Between “geek speak” and making gratuitous assumptions about what the computer illiterate user actually knew, the manuals provided more frustration than clarification to the user.

Modern English versions, in relation to the Greek text of the New Testament, are somewhat like those old user manuals. They tend to assume too much, and hence give the ordinary reader too little information. For example, the Preface to the ESV makes the following statement: “The ESV is based on … the Greek text in the 1993 editions of the Greek New Testament (4^th corrected ed.) , published by the United Bible Societies (UBS) and Novum Testamentum Graece (27^th ed.), edited by Nestle and Aland.… in a few difficult cases in the New Testament, the ESV has followed a Greek text different from the text given preference in the UBS/Nestle-Aland 27^th edition.”  The Greek texts referred to here are the NAET of my prior post. Similar statements are found in the prefaces of other modern English versions. The problem is that, while accurate, it is full of “geek-speak” and thus of relatively little use to the ordinary reader of the New Testament. It does not, for example, note the existence of MT and TR texts. Granted, the NAET is currently something of a consensus text among New Testament scholars, but a significant minority support for an MT probably should merit some recognition. In my estimation, the Preface to the New King James Version is much more informative and more “user-friendly” for the ordinary reader.

The other point at which most modern English versions under-serve their readers is in the textual notes. For the most part, the notes themselves are clear enough, but the rationale behind them is unclear. So, for example, 2 Thessalonians 2:3 in the NIV reads, “the man of lawlessness.” There is a textual note that says, “Some manuscripts sin.” In other words, some manuscripts have “man of sin” instead of “man of lawlessness.” The ESV has the same note. The NASB (1995) has “lawlessness” but no textual note, as does the NLT. What the various versions do not make clear is why in some cases there is a note, whereas in other cases there is not. One might think that the idea is to have a note whenever there is a difference between the NAET and the MT or TR, but that is not supported by the evidence. For example, in regard to one of the most notorious passages in the New Testament (1 John 5:7), the NIV and the NASB (1995) both have a note explaining the “missing” verse, the ESV and NLT do not.

On this issue, my philosophy is “less is more.” The modern English version indicates its textual preference in the preface. The reader should assume that the translation reflects that textual preference. In that case, textual notes are unnecessary, unless there is a case where the translation differs from its preferred text. Then there should be merely a note indicating that the translators have preferred a different reading. As it is, most of the textual notes serve merely to confuse the reader.

Next: The New Testament text and the Westminster Confession.

Removing Verses from the Bible

What do the following verses have in common: Matthew 17:21; 18:16; 23:14; Mark 7:16; 9:44, 46; Luke 17:36; 23:17; Acts 8:37? That’s right. They are all verses that the "heretical new translations" have removed from your Bibles. Those “heretical” bibles include the NIV, the NASB, and the ESV. This assertion showed up in my Facebook newsfeed from a Facebook friend who wondered about it, because he had looked those verses up, and sure enough they were missing from the Bible he was using.

First, this is just an old scam from KJV-Only folks that want to stir up people against any translation but the KJV. But the real question is, why are these verses “missing” from most modern versions? The answer is: textual criticism. (Warning: the following discussion is simplified.)

Translations of the New Testament are based on printed texts that are collations (detailed comparisons) of ancient manuscripts. The manuscripts that we have of the New Testament originated in the period between the early second century and the late Middle Ages. These are copies of copies at least. Any time a text is copied, errors will occur. Such things as misspellings, mishearings (some manuscripts were copied by scribes from a manuscript that was read to them), accidental skipping of lines and words, “corrections” supplied by the copyist, and other issues accrue in the copies. New Testament scholars, in working to determine what the New Testament originally said, need to get behind these copies to what the original read. They do this by comparing manuscripts, and evaluating diverse readings on the basis of generally accepted principles. The result is the modern printed Greek New Testament.

There are, at present, essentially three modern printed Greek New Testaments: the Textus Receptus (TR), the Majority Text (MT), and the Nestle-Aland Eclectic Text (NAET). The TR is the text that lies behind the King James Version of the Bible. It was based on a relatively small number of Greek manuscripts. In the four centuries since then many more manuscripts have been recovered.

The MT and the NAET are both modern (20^th-21^st century) printed texts. They both use a large number of manuscripts that were not available to those who developed the TR. The main difference between the MT and the NAET is the set of principles used to compare and evaluate differing readings in the manuscripts.

Most New Testament scholars today (including theologically conservative scholars) hold that the NAET is the closest to the original New Testament. Some modern scholars (mostly theologically conservative) hold that the MT is closest to the original. Almost no one holds that the TR is the closest to the original.

All modern versions of the New Testament, except for the New King James Version, are based (with some variation) on the NAET. In the judgment of the editors of the NAET, the verses in the list above were later additions to the text of the New Testament. In other words, the modern versions are not removing verses from the Bible; the TR was adding verses to the Bible.

I’ll have more to say in a later post.

Making Sense of Kings

For many people, the Books of Kings are two of the most confusing books in the Old Testament, for the simple reason that the historian is telling two stories at once. Here are some clues to helping make sense of it all.

First, get the big picture. The two books easily divide into three sections. The first section is the reign of Solomon (1 Kgs 1-11). The second section is the period of the Divided Kingdom, down to the fall of the northern kingdom (1 Kgs 12-2 Kgs 17). The third section is the story of Judah, from the end of the northern kingdom until the Babylonian Exile. Another big picture item is the story of Elijah and Elisha, which covers most of the material from 1 Kgs 17-2 Kgs 8.

Second, get the names straight. The northern kingdom is Israel. The southern kingdom is Judah. The first king of Israel is Jeroboam. The first king of Judah is Rehoboam. Later on there is a second Jeroboam in Israel. There are two kings named Jehoram (also spelled Joram), one in Israel and one in Judah. They rule about the same time. There are also two kings named Jehoash (or Joash), one in Israel and one in Judah. They also reign about the same time. Then there is a King Azariah in Judah, but he is known as Uzziah in 2 Chronicles and in Isaiah 6.

Third, notice how the historian tells the story. He begins (after the split) with Israel, telling the story of Jeroboam. After the death of Jeroboam, he tells the story of the kings of Judah until he reaches past the end of Jeroboam’s reign. Then he shifts back to Israel. It is the back-and-forth nature of the narrative that loses most people.

Fourth, the order of the story is as follows, identifying the king, the nation (I for Israel, J for Judah), and the length of his reign: Jeroboam (I, 22 years); Rehoboam (J, 17 years); Abijam (J, 3 years); Asa (J, 41 years); Nadab (I, 2 years); Baasha (I, 24 years); Elah (I, 2 years); Zimri (I, 1 week); Omri (I, 12 years); Ahab (I, 22 years); Jehoshaphat (J, 25 years). At this point, we have arrived at the end of 1 Kings. 

Ahaziah (I, 2 years); Jehoram (I, 12 years); Jehoram (J, 8 years); Ahaziah (J, 1 year); Jehu (I, 28 years); Athaliah (J, six years, a usurper); Joash (J, 40 years); Jehoahaz (I, 17 years); Jehoash (I, 16 years); Amaziah (J, 29 years); Jeroboam II (I, 41 years); Azariah (J, 52 years); Zechariah (I, 6 months); Shallum (I, 1 month); Menahem (I, 10 years); Pekahiah (I, 2 years); Pekah (I, 20 years); Jotham (J, 16 years); Ahaz (J, 16 years); Hoshea (I, 9 years). At this point, the nation of Israel is destroyed by Assyria.

After the end of Israel, the story is straightforward, because there is only one nation to deal with. The rest of the kings of Judah are as follows: Hezekiah (29 years); Manasseh (55 years); Amon (2 years); Josiah (31 years); Jehoahaz (3 months, then taken captive to Egypt); Jehoiakim (11 years); Jehoiachin (3 months, then taken captive to Babylon); Zedekiah (11 years). At that point, Judah was destroyed, bringing the period of the monarchy to an end as well as ending the narrative of the Books of Kings.

How Do You Read the Bible?

I can hear the answer now: Same way I read any book, one word after another.

I just re-read C. S. Lewis’s An Experiment in Criticism and it got me thinking about how we read our Bibles. He makes a distinction between reading for use and reading to receive. Since he is dealing with literature, he’s really making the distinction between reading literature for the sake of the literature (reading to receive) and reading for some other purpose, such as learning truths about life, or learning a worldview (reading for use).

In some sense the Bible is literature. But I fear that most Christians never read it as such. They read it for use, to use Lewis’s category. They read it in bits and pieces. They read selected verses that they’ve drawn together with the help of a concordance so that they can do word studies, or investigate particular doctrines. That’s not necessarily bad. It is an application of Paul’s statement about “all Scripture” in 2 Tim 3:16ff. But the end result of such an approach can be that the Bible is never really seen as anything more than a mine of doctrinal or practical nuggets: verses that can be committed to memory for some memory plan, or pulled out in case of need, like the lists of recommended verses for different counseling situations.

That may be part of the explanation for why many sermons on the psalms seem to completely miss the psalm itself. The preacher has, instead of seeing it as a literary whole, seen it as a series of doctrinal assertions. It may also explain why many Christians have a hard time reading the Bible. They’ve been taught that they need to read it for use. But as they begin to read it, they realize that the only parts they understand are the handful of verses they’ve memorized. Even the Sunday school stories they learned are a lot more complicated than they remember them to be: there’s a lot more to Noah than a big boat, or to David than the battle with Goliath. And don’t even mention the prophets.

Another part of the difficulty is that the Bible isn’t written at a fifth-grade level. Yet folks seem to think that they ought to be able to understand it the first time through. I’ve been reading it regularly for over forty years and there are parts that only now I think I am beginning to get a real handle on.

So try this the next time you read the Bible. First, lower your expectations. There’s a lot you’re not going to understand. There’s even a lot you’re not going to like. Second, get a Bible without the chapter and verse divisions. When was the last time you read a piece of literature that had page-long chapters subdivided into verses? Then just read it. Read it for its own sake. Read it receptively. Read it the way you would listen to a friend tell you a story. You listen because you want to hear, not because you think what he says is going to change your life, or teach you something you didn’t know before. The Bible will do that, because it’s God’s word. But if you read it just because you think you must, you’re missing out on the joy of it.