The Christian canon is not a fixed deposit of traditions from the past, but a dynamic vehicle by which the risen Lord continues through the Holy Spirit to guide, instruct, and nourish his people. The imperative “to search the Scriptures” reveals the need for its continuous interpretation. The activity of hearing, reading, and praying is required, indeed mandated by the Scripture itself. In every successive generation new light has been promised for those seeking divine illumination to provide fresh understanding, new application to changing cultures, and a call for repentance for persistent failure in living out the imperatives of the gospel. In this constant struggle to live a faithful Christian life, the Scriptures of the church afford the abiding context from which to grow into the image of Christ. It is thus a theological gyroscope for maintaining one’s direction when buffeted by the ever-shifting winds of change.
Childs, Brevard S. The Church’s Guide for Reading Paul: The Canonical Shaping of the Pauline Corpus (p. 26).
Archives For Scripture
Recently, Truett Seminary’s professor of theology Dr. Roger Olson shed light on his low view of the Old Testament in a comment on his blog. Olson states:
I would go so far as to say that we should not focus on the cultural meaning, the circumstances, etc., except out of historical interest. Everything we need to know about God and salvation is in the New Testament. The OT was types and shadows. It provides some context for understanding the New Testament, but it provides nothing essential for doctrine or practice that Christians cannot find in the NT.
Source: Regarding Old Testament “Texts of Terror”: Comment #25098
The post itself has many disappointing comments about the Old Testament and Olson’s “interpret everything through a lens of love” theologizing, but his comment in view shows where the rubber meets the Marcion-esque road he is traveling. Continue Reading…
John Gill on 2 Timothy 3:5:
Having a form of godliness
Either a mere external show of religion, pretending great piety and holiness, being outwardly righteous before men, having the mask and visor of godliness; or else a plan of doctrine, a form of sound words, a scheme of truths, which men may have without partaking of the grace of God; and which, with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, the church of Rome has; or else the Scriptures of truth, which the members of that church have, and profess to hold to, maintain and preserve; and which contains doctrines according to godliness, and tend to a godly life and godly edification:but denying the power thereof;
though in words they profess religion and godliness, the fear of God, and the pure worship of him, yet in works they deny all; and though they may have a set of notions in their heads, yet they feel nothing of the power of them on their hearts; and are strangers to experimental religion, and powerful godliness: or though they profess the Scriptures to be the word of God, yet they deny the use, the power, and efficacy of them; they deny the use of them to the laity, and affirm that they are not a sufficient rule of faith and practice, without their unwritten traditions; and that they are not able to make men wise, or give them a true knowledge of what is to be believed and done, without them; and that the sense of them is not to be understood by private men, but depends upon the infallible judgment of the church or pope:from such turn away;
have no fellowship with them, depart from their communion, withdraw from them, and come out from among them: this passage sufficiently justifies the reformed churches in their separation from the church of Rome.
View Gill’s entire Bible commentary here.
In Isaiah 9:6, the child prophesied to be born will be called “Everlasting Father.”
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isa 9:6 NIV
At first look, the text seems to be calling Jesus, the second person of the Triune Godhead, the Father. However, there is no need for confusion or a perceived contradiction. John Gill explains:
The everlasting Father; which does not design any relation of Christ in the Godhead; and there is but one Father in the Godhead, and that is the first Person; indeed Christ and the Father are one, and the Father is in him, and he is in the Father, and he that has seen the one has seen the other, and yet they are distinct, Christ is not the Father; the Son and Spirit may be considered with the first Person as Father, in creation and regeneration, they being jointly concerned therein, but not in the Trinity: it is easy to make it appear Christ is not the Father, but is distinct from him, Continue Reading…
