Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.
Most Interesting Reading of 2023, Part Three
I must have encountered more interesting books than usual during the past year. At any rate, I’ve never had to take more than two weeks’ worth of In the Nick of Time to list them, but this year I do. As ever, I warn you that just because I found these books interesting does not mean that you will.
Kruger, Michael. Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022.
In my experience, the typical book on spiritual abuse boils down to, “My friends and I wanted to live really carnal lives, but a pastor told us it was wrong, so we’re mad.” While spiritual abuse is less common than some pretend, it does happen, and it should never be tolerated. What we need is a responsible approach to diagnosing and treating it by someone who understands that pastoral duty sometimes involves wounding as well as healing. Kruger provides that approach. He is a seminary president with a pastor’s heart who knows and understands the Scriptures, and who can apply them well. This may be the best book on spiritual abuse that I’ve ever read.
McIntire, Carl. Author of Liberty. Collingswood, NJ: Christian Beacon, 1946.
________. Rise of the Tyrant. Collingswood, NJ: Christian Beacon, 1945.
When he published these two volumes, Carl McIntire was the most publicly recognizable fundamentalist in the world. Both books wrestle with the problems of political economy, seeking to provide a biblical and theological underpinning for a Christian response to the problem of free markets versus managed economies. While it is more biblically grounded, McIntire’s approach comes close to that of the Austrian economists which, however, would not be widely known for another decade or so. Ironically, both these books appeared before Carl F. H. Henry’s Uneasy Conscience, where he lambasted fundamentalists for their lack of social and political engagement. Henry certainly knew about McIntire’s work. Perhaps he was simply unwilling to admit that a despised fundamentalist had beaten him to the punch.
Pivek, Holly and R. Douglas Geivett. Counterfeit Kingdom: The Dangers of New Revelation, New Prophets, and New Age Practices in the Church. Nashville: B&H, 2022.
A couple of years back, a friend gave me three books on the New Apostolic Reformation, and I finally got around to reading them this year. While I disagree with Charismatic theology in all its forms, I’ve never gone out of my way to study its variations. Turns out that the NAR is one of the most obnoxious forms, seeking to reintroduce the offices of both prophet and apostle. If Pivek and Geivett are anywhere close to right (and I know Geivett, at least, to be a careful scholar), then the practices that these new prophets and apostles have brought with them are nothing short of bizarre. For an example, run an internet search for “grave sucking.”
Poythress, Vern S. The Mystery of the Trinity: A Trinitarian Approach to the Attributes of God. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2020.
Everything that Vern Poythress writes is a treat. His style is as clear as polished diamond, and he brings a truly charitable bearing to all his work. In The Mystery of the Trinity he asks whether the traditional doctrine of the Trinity is fully scriptural, or whether it might rely upon some extrabiblical philosophical categories that orthodox theologians have smuggled into their systems. His approach is not to debunk, but to examine. As one might guess, he relies heavily upon Van Tilian philosophical categories into his own perspective—but he knows he is doing it, and he sees it as biblically justified. This is a Big Book, but Poythress handles his topic well.
Ramaswamy, Vivek. Woke: Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. Nashville: Center Street, 2021.
Since I read this book, the author has entered and left the race for the American presidency. Because I had read it, I believed that his campaign made sense. Ramaswamy comes from the corporate world. He is a Person of Indian Origin and a Person of Color. He is a Hindu. None of this exactly positions him within the supposed White Christian Supremacism of the Republican Party. But he also has a keen sense of how unjust social justice can be. He is particularly concerned with the economic results that arise when businesses are more concerned with scoring points for their social consciences than they are with serving their customers. Ramaswamy has left the presidential race, but his book is still well worth a read.
Stroud, Nick. The Vickers Viscount: The World’s First Turboprop Airliner. Barnsley, UK: Frontline, 2018.
I grew up flying on propliners. One of my earliest memories is of leaving the ground while sitting in the window seat of a Douglas DC-3. Over the years I flew on the Douglas DC-4 and DC-6, the Lockheed Constellation, and the Convair 340. Then the jets took over. Much of my childhood flying was on the Vickers Viscount. This was a British design powered by four Rolls Royce turboprop engines. It was quieter and smoother than the piston-driven airliners, and it had big, round windows that allowed a magnificent view. Nobody else will care about this book, but for me it provided a mental journey to a time when flying was comfortable and airlines treated passengers like people instead of cattle.
Trueman, Carl R. Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022.
In 2020, Carl Trueman published The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, a Great Big Book of intellectual history and social criticism. It is a good book, but far too dense for the ordinary person to understand. Two years later he followed it up with the present volume, which covers much of the same territory but does it in a shorter and more simplified format. I’ll put it bluntly: this is one of those books that every pastor and Christian teacher simply must read.
Yuan, Christopher. Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story. New York: Multnomah, 2018.
Christopher Yuan’s background was in drugs, gangs, and homosexuality. He came to Christ in prison, went on to seminary, and eventually became a professor at Moody Bible Institute. In this volume he sets discussions of marriage, singleness, homosexuality, and transgenderism within the context of a biblical theology of sex and gender. I now require this book for my course on Creation, Sex, and Gender. It’s another of those books that every pastor should read.
And that’s my book report for this year. Some of these books you’ll like. Some of them, not so much. But if there are any other Viscount fans out there, drop me a note. We can reminisce together.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
O for the Wisdom from Above
James Montgomery (1771–1854)
O for the wisdom from above,
Pure, gentle, peaceable, and mild,
The innocency of the dove,
The meekness of a little child.
Wise may we be to know the truth,
Reveal’d in every Scripture page;
Wise to salvation from our youth,
And wiser grow from stage to stage.
Then if to riper years, we rise,
And well the work of grace be wrought
Within ourselves,—we shall be wise
To teach in turn what we were taught.
Yet still be learning, day by day,
More of God’s Word, God’s way, God’s will;
His law, rejoicing to obey,
Pleas’d His whole pleasure to fulfill,
Wise to win souls, if thus we’re led,
How blest will be our lot below,
Blessings to share, and blessings shed
On all with whom to heaven we go.
So may we reach that home at length,
And, clad in righteousness divine,
Even as the sun, when in his strength,
And as the stars, forever, shine.
Most Interesting Reading of 2023, Part Two
Other people issue lists of the best books they’ve read or of the books that they want to recommend. I compile a list of the books I found most interesting. They are interesting for a variety of reasons, and one of those reasons may be that they are conspicuously bad. Hey, I’m not suggesting you read these books. For whatever reason they held my attention, but they may not hold yours. Or they just might.
Gagnon, Robert. The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. Nashville: Abingdon, 2010.
I previously noted that I teach a course on creation, sex, and gender. In that course I deal with the 2SLGBTQIA+ conglomeration (yes, you read that correctly, and I’ll betcha didn’t know about the latest additions to that text string, eh?). Robert Gagnon’s book on The Bible and Homosexual Practice is presently the most comprehensive response to those who insist that Scripture can be read in an accepting and affirming way. I re-read this work periodically, and it was one of the interesting books I read this year.
Ginna, Peter. What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, & Business of Book Editing. Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2017.
Having never received formal instruction in writing, I try to make books about writing a staple of my reading diet. The University of Chicago publishes a whole series of related guides for writers, and Ginna’s book is one of that series. The book discusses the many levels and varieties of editing. He describes the road that a book must travel to reach publication, and he explains what editors do at each stage of that journey. He also discusses the advantages and challenges of freelance editing and of self-publishing.
Greyland, Moira. The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon. Kouvola, Finland: Castalia House, 2017.
I hesitate even to mention this book. It is in many respects a good book, but it is a book that deals with a very bad thing, and it pulls no verbal punches in exposing the thing that it deals with. Moira Greyland was the daughter of celebrated author Marion Zimmer Bradley and famed numismatist Walter Breen, both of whom were leaders within gay paganism. The book describes what it was like growing up in their household with all its perversions and abuses. The message of the book is that pedophilia and abuse are hardwired into sexual perversion, including homosexuality. I do NOT recommend this book for most people, but it provides a bracing slap for anyone who thinks that the LGBTQIA+ agenda is harmless. As a counter to the prevailing narrative of acceptance and affirmation, I found Greyland’s story riveting.
Grunenberg, Antonia. Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger: History of a Love. Studies in Continental Thought. Translated by Peg Birmingham et al. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2017.
Martin Heidegger was probably the most influential philosopher of the 20th Century. He was also a Nazi. One of his students—and his lovers—was Hannah Arendt, who was born into a Prussian Jewish family. Arendt would later go on to write whole books condemning the kind of totalitarianism that she witnessed in National Socialism. Yet after the war, somehow Heidegger and Arendt were able to rebuild their friendship, in spite of the fact that she had been forced to flee Hitler’s Germany. Grunenberg explores their mutual intellectual influence and the recovery of their friendship. File this book under Philosophy.
Herriot, James. All Creatures Great and Small. New York: Saint Martin’s, 1972.
All Creatures is the first in a series of more-or-less autobiographical books from an English veterinarian who practiced during the mid-20th Century. I’ve known of the work since it was first published in the 1970s, but I never got around to reading any of it until this year. It is bucolic, gentle, good-humored, and homey. Spending time with this book was just fun. It left me wanting to read the rest of the series.
Hummel, Daniel G. The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over End Times Shaped a Nation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023.
The Central Seminary faculty read this book together, then discussed it during our annual in-service meeting. While we could quibble with some details, we give full credit to Hummel for his masterful knowledge of the history and varieties of dispensationalism. We particularly appreciate his discussion of the differences between scholarly and popular dispensationalism, as well as his noting the difficulties that scholars encounter in trying to articulate a responsible dispensationalism while the popularizers are making so much noise. Hummel has given us a valuable contribution to the discipline.
Koestler, Arthur. The Thirteenth Tribe. San Pedro, CA: GSG & Associates, 1976.
The thesis of Koestler’s book is that modern Jews—especially Ashkenazi or Eastern European Jews—are not descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Instead, they are the offspring of a Japethic kingdom, the Khazars, who flourished in Asia during the Middle Ages. Koestler posits that the entire tribe of Khazars converted to Judaism as a religion, but that their bloodline remains non-Semitic. Notably, Koestler’s work has become popular in certain Anglo-Israelite and White Supremacist circles. These types find in Koestler a basis for denying the Abrahamic blessing to modern Jewish people. Of course, Koestler wrote before DNA sequencing was a thing. DNA analysis has provided no convincing support for his theory.
A thing is about to occur that has never happened before. My list of “most interesting books” is going to have to spill over into a third week. I express my apologies if this isn’t your cup of tea. On the other hand, if your tastes are odd in the same ways that mine are, you may find that the remaining list will be useful.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Blest Are the Pure in Heart
John Keble (1792–1866)
Blest are the pure in heart,
for they shall see our God;
the secret of the Lord is theirs,
their soul is Christ’s abode.
The Lord, who left the heavens
our life and peace to bring,
to dwell in lowliness with men,
their pattern and their King;
Still to the lowly soul
he doth himself impart,
and for his dwelling and his throne
chooseth the pure in heart.
Lord, we thy presence seek;
may ours this blessing be;
give us a pure and lowly heart,
a temple meet for thee.
Most Interesting Reading of 2023, Part One
Every year at about this time I issue disclaimers. The disclaimers attach to a listing of the most interesting reading that I have completed over the preceding year. What the disclaimers state is that (1) interesting isn’t necessarily the same thing as valuable, and (2) what interests me may not interest anybody else. In short, the following titles may indicate nothing more than my own idiosyncrasies. Still, of all the books I read this year, these stand out as the ones that most captured and held my attention.
Beeke, Joel R. (ed). The Beauty and Glory of the Christian Worldview: Puritan Reformed Conference. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2017.
Once upon a time, when evangelicals held large conferences, they used to collect and publish the addresses in book form. The custom has now been largely abandoned, but that is exactly what Joel Beeke and Puritan Reformed Seminary have done in this volume. It contains the addresses delivered at the seminary’s conference on Christian worldview in August of 2016. I enjoyed this book as a hybrid of theology, biblical studies and devotional writing. It was good for my soul. Special mention should be made of Michael Barrett’s beautiful exposition of Ecclesiastes and of the two essays by Charles Barrett.
Bennett, Jeffrey. What Is Relativity? An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein’s Ideas and Why They Matter. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
My area of expertise—systematic theology—is not exactly one of the STEM disciplines. In the interest of broadening my understanding of the world, however, I try to do a certain amount of reading in the sciences. I picked up Bennett’s book on a whim and found it a delightful explanation of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. Bennett has the gift of making difficult ideas understandable for the non-technical mind. While his writing does not make the results of Einstein’s ideas seem any less strange, it does make the ideas themselves more comprehensible, and Bennett helps his readers to understand why those ideas follow from basic assumptions.
Bock, Darrell L. and Daniel B. Wallace. Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010.
C. S. Lewis set up the famous trilemma that Jesus must be either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. Against Lewis, modern criticism insists that Jesus was none of these. Instead, He was (is) essentially a legend, a mythic character who cannot be known historically. Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace are both professors of New Testament, specializing respectively in Jesus studies and textual criticism. In this book they offer a thoughtful, well-researched, but highly readable response to the “Jesus is just a legend” position that sees the New Testament as hopelessly corrupt and Christianity as the product of later developments. This is a book that an ordinary Christian can read and enjoy.
Callahan, Patti. Becoming Mrs. Lewis. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2018.
Reading this book was a mistake—literally. I misunderstood its genre, assuming that it was biography, when in fact it is historical fiction. Its value is that the fictional aspects are structured around and faithful to what is known about Joy Davidman, the woman who eventually married C. S. Lewis. If I had realized that it was historical fiction, I would not have read it. But I would have missed an enchanting retelling of the Lewis–Davidman story.
Cleaver, Thomas McKelvey. The Frozen Chosen: The 1st Marine Division and the Battle for the Chosin Reservoir. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2016.
When I was growing up, my best friend’s dad was a sergeant at Wurtsmith Air Force Base. Only later did I learn that he had been in the Marines during the Korean Conflict—the man never talked about that part of his life. Later still I discovered that he was one of the Frozen Chosen who were trapped behind the Chinese lines in bitter, subzero temperatures. This book retells that story from a political and military perspective. It explains the division between the Koreas, the involvement of the Chinese, and the failures of American policy that led to the conflict. It also narrates the near-defeat of American Marines (and some Army) during the battle of the Chosin Reservoir. I don’t read much military history, but this work helped me to understand a conflict that has not been resolved yet.
Cook, Becket. A Change of Affection: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019.
I teach a doctoral course on creation, sex, and gender, which means that I have to do a fair bit of reading in and about LGBTQIA+ topics. I always find it refreshing to come across personal written testimonies from people who have been in that world but who have been reached for Christ. Becket Cook offers such a testimony in this book. His story begins with his success as a set designer in the fashion industry and ends up with him completing a seminary degree and becoming a pastor. Cook’s is a story of genuine conversion by the grace of God.
Doyle, Andrew. The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World. London, UK: Constable, 2022.
Be warned: the very first line of this book contains a double obscenity. The author is not a Christian and not even very conservative. He is liberal and secular—and therein lies the strength of his appeal. He has become convinced that the current social justice ideology is a new religion and that its adherents are zealous to enforce it throughout their civilization, by extirpating all heretics and unbelievers if necessary. Doyle’s claims seem extreme when he first makes them, but he backs them up with persuasive arguments, evidence, and narratives. I think that this is one of those books that will help conservatives and Christians to understand what the Left is really after.
Dreher, Rod. Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. New York: Sentinel, 2020.
The author is, of course, a well-known conservative. Like Andrew Doyle, he argues that progressivism in its current forms is (false) religion. Unlike Doyle, he sees the best antidote in countervailing, true religion. In this book, Dreher takes his cues from professing Christians and others who survived the totalitarianism of Soviet communism. While there are points worth quibbling, this book provides part of the helpful preparation in which Christians must engage if they are to face a future of tyranny.
Next week I shall continue with my list of “Most Interesting Reading of 2023.” Remember, I’m not necessarily recommending any book that I list here. I’m not saying it’s a good book, or that everything in it is true. It only appears here because I found it interesting.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
That Man Is Blest
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
That man is blest who, fearing God,
from sin restrains his feet,
who will not stand with wicked men,
who shuns the scorners’ seat.
Yea, blest is he who makes God’s law
his portion and delight,
and meditates upon that law
with gladness day and night.
That man is nourished like a tree
set by the river’s side;
its leaf is green, its fruit is sure,
and thus his works abide.
The wicked, like the driven chaff,
are swept from off the land;
they shall not gather with the just,
nor in the judgment stand.
The LORD will guard the righteous well,
their way to Him is known;
the way of sinners, far from God,
shall surely be o’erthrown.
Erecting the Right Fences in the Right Places, Part Ten: Complementarianism As a Secondary Doctrine
Gavin Ortlund explains his theory of doctrinal triage in the book Finding the Right Hills to Die On. His system involves three levels of doctrinal importance. Primary doctrines are essential to the gospel and to Christian fellowship. Secondary doctrines, while not essential to the gospel, do affect some levels of Chrisitan fellowship. Tertiary doctrines should not define Christian fellowship.
To illustrate second-rank doctrines, Ortlund deals with three specific areas of disagreement. The first is baptism. The second is miraculous gifts. The third is gender roles as understood in the debate between complementarians (who believe that God assigns specific leadership roles to men but not women) and egalitarians (who believe that true equality between the sexes requires opening all leadership roles to women).
Ortlund recognizes that both the complementarian and egalitarian labels apply to a range of positions and that not everyone under each label can be treated the same. Nevertheless, he notes that the differences between the two positions are so practical that the issue cannot be avoided and that no truly mediating position will be possible. A church either will or will not ordain women to the pastorate, for example. It will or will not disciple married couples to recognize male headship within the home (117). The necessity of these choices leads Ortlund to insist that the dispute between complementarianism and egalitarianism cannot be treated as a third-rank difference.
Furthermore, Ortlund sets this debate in a larger social context. The West in general, and America in particular, is backing away from any notion of natural and determinative masculinity and femininity. These and related categories, such as marriage, are hotly contested, and this secular debate adds urgency to the dispute between complementarians and egalitarians (117–118).
Then Ortlund notes that the debate over gender roles is often a debate over how one interprets and appropriates Scripture. This is where he might have said more, for egalitarians follow at least three hermeneutical roads in arriving at their conclusions. How they draw their conclusion is sometimes as important as the conclusion itself.
The first road recognizes full biblical authority but sees Paul’s teachings about the role of women as a particular local application of generalized principles. A parallel could be drawn with the way many complementarians view Paul’s teaching about head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11. Many or most see head coverings as a temporary and culturally-bound application rather than as a timeless requirement. Many who have traditionally defended women preachers have done so by following this road, including some fundamentalists (W. B. Riley and Oliver W. Van Osdel are examples).
The second road to egalitarianism utilizes some form of either trajectory (I. Howard Marshall) or redemptive-movement (William Webb) hermeneutic. These hermeneutical techniques pay lip service to biblical authority, but they insist that God’s final word must be discovered by following a line that goes beyond Scripture itself. This final position may even nullify or contradict specific biblical statements.
The third road to egalitarianism seeks to discredit some biblical teachings in favor of others. For example, Paul King Jewett in Man as Male and Female argued that Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy 2 reflected his chauvinism as a rabbi while Galatians 3:28 defined the true relationship between the sexes. This approach to the text severely undermines or flatly denies biblical inerrancy and integrity.
These three roads to egalitarianism require very different responses. While Ortlund chooses not to recognize it as such (119), biblical inerrancy is a fundamental of the faith. To arrive at egalitarianism by the third road places one on the far side of the watershed that divides orthodoxy from heterodoxy. Biblical inerrancy is a first-level issue, and defenses of egalitarianism that attack the inerrancy and integrity of the Bible are genuinely heretical. They exclude Christian fellowship at every level.
Defenses of egalitarianism that take the second road are also seriously flawed. While the trajectory and redemptive-movement hermeneutics claim to take a high view of the Bible, they nevertheless treat the biblical text like a wax nose. Advocates of these approaches have not succeeded in erecting methodological barriers and limitations that can successfully correct abuses of their hermeneutical techniques. While the use of either trajectory or redemptive-movement hermeneutics may not place their advocates outside the faith, it should certainly limit the possible circles of fellowship inside the faith. Using Ortlund’s classifications, I see this as an upper-second-level matter.
The first road to egalitarianism does not wreak nearly the damage to biblical authority that the other two roads do. Complementarians and egalitarians can meaningfully debate the question of applicability without calling into question either the clarity or authority of the Bible. Some level of Christian fellowship does exist and some level of Christian commonality should be demonstrated between the two groups.
Nevertheless, as Ortlund adequately shows, the difference remains both important and unavoidable. For that reason, fellowship between complementarians and egalitarians is necessarily limited and even impossible at some levels. As with other important differences within the faith, believers who do not agree must either limit their message or limit their fellowship if they are to get along.
I once heard a prominent professor from Dallas Seminary explaining to a student that he was complementarian, but his church was egalitarian—and he was determined that the church would not know his position. That is an example of limiting one’s message. He might better have found a church where he could live and teach his full convictions. That would be limiting one’s fellowship.
The degree to which either one’s message or one’s fellowship must be limited depends on the seriousness of the disagreement. The gravity of the egalitarian error hinges partly on one’s reasons for holding the egalitarian position. These reasons may constitute a fundamental error that places one outside the faith; they may constitute a severe error within the faith that bars most levels of fellowship; they may constitute a serious but not deadly error that allows some levels of fellowship while restricting others.
Perhaps it would be useful to weigh Ortlund’s three test cases against each other. The milder forms of the egalitarian error are less serious than the Charismatic error in almost any form. They are probably more serious than an error over the subject or mode of baptism—as long as the gospel is not at stake. See my previous essays on those topics to be reminded of my reasons for weighing them as I do.
It is worth noting that some complementarians also hold errors that may be as serious as some egalitarian errors. When complementarianism is used to defend a brutalizing, dominating, and dehumanizing attitude toward women, it is egregiously wrong. No biblical teaching held in a biblical way will ever justify abusive behavior. Sometimes we need to learn to limit our fellowship to both sides.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Faith! ’Tis a Precious Grace
Benjamin Beddome (1717–1795)
Faith! ’tis a precious grace,
Where’er it is bestowed;
It boasts of a celestial birth,
And is the gift of God.
Jesus it owns a King,
An all-atoning Priest;
It claims no merits of its own,
But looks for all in Christ.
To him it leads the soul,
When filled with deep distress;
Flies to the fountain of his blood,
And trusts his righteousness.
Since ’tis thy work alone,
And that divinely free,
Come, Holy Spirit, and make known
The power of faith in me.
Episode 44: The Mind/Body Connection with Mark-Stuckey & Brett-Williams, Part 1
In today’s episode, we discuss the mind/body connection with Dr. Mark Stuckey, M.D. and Dr. Brett Williams. We talk about how Scripture teaches us to answer the question of “Who are We?”
“It was really from that perspective that I first began to wrestle with these ideas as to how is God made us and are there limitations on what we should do and what are the principles in Scripture that guide how we treat people and how we deal with people? And again, back to that core issue of who am I?” – Dr. Mark Stuckey
Dr. Richard Redding, Colleague
Central Seminary opened a ministry in Romania shortly after the collapse of communism. Early on, we assumed that all the people of Romania were Romanians. Consequenlty, we tried to establish a campus in an ethnic Hungarian community. We soon learned that Romanians were reluctant to attend what they perceived as a Hungarian school. Thanks to the welcoming spirit and hard labors of Pastor Beniamin Costea, we were able to relocate to Arad in western Romania. In that location we could draw both majority Romanians and minority Hungarians.
We also drew one student who was neither. Richard Redding was an American missionary working in Romania under the Baptist Bible Fellowship. He began attending our classes, and he graduated with our first class in 1994, receiving his MABS. Two years later he graduated again with his MDiv. When I arrived at Central Seminary in January of 1998, the seminary was flying four men from Romania to Minneapolis to work on their DMin degrees. The goal was for these men to become the future backbone of a Romanian seminary. Richard was one of them, and he eventually graduated with his doctorate.
Richard and his wife Linda had been sent to Romania as part of the first wave of missionary activity after communism. They were already veteran missionaries from Colombia, and their skill in Spanish made it easier to learn Romanian. When they arrived in Romania, they found already-existing Baptist churches in nearly every major center. These were churches that had weathered the assaults of communist atheism and dictatorship. The churches were deep in piety but shallow in their understanding of the Bible and of Christian doctrine. As far as I know, Richard and Linda did not try to establish new Baptist churches. Instead, they gave themselves to strengthening the biblical understanding of existing Baptist pastors and to helping train up a new generation of ministry.
That is how Richard became the ideal go-between to help coordinate our Romanian and American administrations. He himself held a relatively minor post in the Romanian administration (I believe that he was the registrar). His true value lay in helping Americans and Romanians to understand each other’s mindsets and expectations. He and Linda also regularly hosted American professors when they came to teach in Romania.
In between class sessions, Richard also acted as an associate pastor to Beni Costea. This work included labors in two principal churches and several minor ones. Some American missionaries neither understood nor appreciated this arrangement—to them, it wasn’t really missions unless the Americans were the bosses. By working alongside Romanian pastors in their own churches, however, Richard managed to achieve a level of influence that far exceeded that of most American missionaries. He was able to play a significant role in bringing an entire contingent of Romanian pastors and churches to greater theological maturity.
Under communism, Romanian Baptists were very Arminian. They had little idea of how the Bible fit together or how the plan of God could be seen progressing across the biblical story line. They lacked skills in the biblical languages, and their understanding of Baptist distinctives had not been cultivated in decades. Central Seminary taught its students Greek and Hebrew. It introduced them to dispensationalism, and it got them thinking in terms of New Testament patterns for church order and cooperation.
Communism offered few benefits for biblical churches. One unintentional benefit was that, by blocking Western ideas, the communist government actually prevented liberal theologies from infecting Baptist churches. These theologies were only beginning to develop in Romania during the 1990s and early 2000s. The result was that the Baptist churches found themselves in the position that American churches had been in during the 1920s and 1930s.
Central Seminary tried to provide our students principles for dealing with this situation, and we saw some evidence of success. For example, at one point the government offered to begin paying Baptist pastors generously from state funds. To do this, however, Baptists would have to submit to a more centralized and controlled structure. Faced with this temptation, our graduates understood what was at stake. They opposed the offer and led Baptists to reject what would surely have become a poisoned chalice.
During those years, Richard Redding kept up quiet leadership from behind the scenes. As far as I can tell, he and Linda never attracted much attention to themselves, but their influence was evident. Romanian Baptists in their orbit were eventually able to plant churches in Austria, Italy, France, England, and even in the United States. Central Seminary graduates from those years have served churches in all those countries.
Richard and Linda left Romania for Mexico around 2010—maybe a bit earlier. By the time they moved, Richard had helped Central Seminary to educate nearly twenty percent of all the Baptist pastors in Romania. In about 2012 or 2013, financial considerations led Central Seminary to cease operations in Romania. By that time, however, Romanian pastors such as Gelu Pacurar and Marius Birgean had earned research doctorates. They had the knowledge and credentials to provide leadership so that seminary education could continue among Romanian Baptists.
In Mexico, Richard continued in educational ministry. He also found time to publish five science-fiction novels (the “Light-Plus” series) that can be found on Amazon. Incidentally, Richard claimed at least indirect responsibility for the fact that the Antichrist is depicted as Romanian in the Left Behind series.
After he began to develop physical difficulties, Richard and Linda retired from the mission field, eventually settling near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Then came a period of illness and decline. Finally, Richard was taken home to glory on New Years Eve.
Dr. Richard Redding was one of the best men I knew. He was a man of devotion, integrity, intelligence, warmth, hospitality, and humility. During the time that I saw him in action, he never occupied the driver’s seat. Yet he took responsibility for the smooth running of the vehicle, and his quiet influence helped to decide the direction it went. His work was never widely and publicly celebrated, but it deserves to be, and it will be someday. For now, we at Central Seminary acknowledge both our indebtedness and affection toward him.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Ye Faithful Souls, Who Jesus Know
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)
Ye faithful souls, who Jesus know,
If risen indeed with Him ye are,
Superior to the joys below,
His resurrection’s power declare.
Your faith by holy tempers prove,
By actions show your sins forgiven,
And seek the glorious things above,
And follow Christ your Head to Heaven.
There your exalted Savior see
Seated at God’s right hand again,
In all His Father’s majesty,
In everlasting pomp to reign:
Your real life, with Christ concealed,
Deep in the Father’s bosom lies;
And, glorious as your Head revealed,
Ye soon shall meet Him in the skies.
To Him continually aspire,
Contending for your native place,
And emulate the angel choir,
And only live to love and praise.
Word of the Father, Now in Flesh Appearing
[This essay was originally published on December 21, 2007.]
If Jesus Christ were not truly and perfectly God, He could not be our mediator. If Jesus Christ were not truly and perfectly human, He could not be our mediator. This much, Scripture makes clear.
Our problem is that we have absolutely no experience with divine‐human beings other than Jesus Christ. He is absolutely unique, the only one of His kind. For that reason, Christians have struggled to find words to express just who Jesus is.
With the Athanasian Creed we affirm that, as to their deity, the Father and Son are equally glorious, eternal, uncreated, incomprehensible, and almighty. Yet they are not two Gods, but one. So we confess.
Nevertheless, we also confess that we do not comprehend what we affirm. While the relationship of the Father to the Son involves no logical contradiction, it is inexplicable and impenetrable to the human mind. It rises above reason. We do not understand how such a thing can be.
Already bewildered, we then encounter the full humanity of the Son. Here we discover a person who, as to His deity, is coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial with God the Father, but who, without ceasing to be fully God, also becomes fully human. We are asked to believe that a person who is equal with God is also one of us.
Not everyone agrees. Often, people reject what they cannot explain. Worse yet, they modify the truth to fit some human explanation. So they have done with the person of Christ.
Some have denied His full deity. Ebionites saw Jesus as a good man, a teacher and prophet who kept the law. Arians explained Jesus as God’s first creation, so highly exalted above others that He could be called “a god,” but who was still not properly “God.” Adoptionists (Dynamic Monarchians) understood Jesus as a human who was elevated to divine status by some act of God.
Some have denied the distinction of the Son from the Father. The Sabellians (Modalistic Monarchians) affirmed that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were simply three modes in which God presented Himself and not actual personal distinctions. As the same man might appear as husband to his wife, as teacher to his students, and as peer to his fellows, God presented Himself at one time as Father, at another as Son, and at another as Holy Spirit. Ultimately, however, the Trinity is a mask, and God is one and only one person.
Others have denied Jesus’ complete humanity. Docetists believed that the human body of Jesus was a mere phantom projected by the divine Christ. Apollinarians taught that Jesus possessed a human body and soul, but that the place of the rational, human spirit was taken by the divine Logos (in other words, Christ was 3/3 divine but only 2/3 human). Eutychians affirmed complete divine and human natures but saw the human nature as so recessive as to be almost completely overwhelmed by the divine—rather like a drop of honey in an ocean of water.
Still others have rejected the integrity of the person of Jesus Christ. Cerinthians believed that the divine Christ descended upon the human Jesus, only to abandon Him before the cross. Nestorians affirmed the full deity and full humanity of Christ but divided these two natures into two distinct persons, joined rather like Siamese twins.
The equal and opposite reaction was for others to affirm the unity of the person by denying the distinctiveness of the natures. Monophysites collapsed the divinity and humanity of Christ into a single nature. In principle this nature was supposed to be both divine and human, but in practice the divine so overwhelmed the human that Monophysitism became a reaffirmation of Eutychianism. A more subtle form of denying the distinction between the natures is Monothelitism, which denies that Jesus had a human will. De facto, this is a denial of the completeness of the human nature of Jesus.
These are not merely ancient heresies. They have had a tendency to reappear throughout church history. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are unreconstructed Arians. Mormonism applies Adoptionist principles not only to Christ but to all humanity. Many liberals have regarded Jesus simply as a human teacher or prophet, and contemporary biblical scholarship is witnessing a resurgence of interest in Gnostic understandings of Christ. Modalistic Monarchianism shows up in the teachings both of Witness Lee and of the so‐called “Jesus Only Movement,” represented by the United Pentecostal Church. The Coptic Orthodox Church still defends Monophysitism and condemns the Council of Chalcedon as “divisive.”
Our understanding of the person of Christ has been hammered out in opposition to these heresies. Each new heretical theory forced Christians to return to the Scriptures in order to test the theory against the text. At each new controversy, Christians erected a new barrier against heresy. They were forced to say, “Scripture teaches this but not that. We may say it this way but not that way.” This process resulted in the adoption of several public summary statements, each of which was more specific than the one that preceded it.
At the end of the day, here is what we must affirm. If Jesus Christ were not true God, He could not be our savior. If Jesus Christ were not true human, He could not be our savior. If Jesus Christ were not one person, He could not be our savior. If the person of Christ were divided, then He could not be our savior. If the natures were combined or transmuted, then He could not be our savior. All of this is summarized and elaborated in the formula of Chalcedon.
Nothing is more important to Christianity than the incarnation of Jesus Christ. A false step here can lead us to deny the gospel and plunge us into apostasy. We learn about the old heresies so that we may confront the new ones. We confront the new ones so that we may keep the gospel pure. We aim for precision in our understanding of Jesus Christ so that we may trust Him and worship Him as He is, rather than worshipping a false Jesus whom we have manufactured in our own idolatrous hearts.
In one sense, we are indebted to the heretics. Everything that we need to know about Jesus Christ is in the text of Scripture. If we had not been challenged by the heretics, however, we never would have studied the Scriptures as they deserved to be studied. We never would have noticed the depth and texture and richness of the biblical teaching concerning the incarnation. The heretics have forced us to discover exactly what Scripture says and what it forbids us to say.
We cannot explain the incarnation. We cannot fully comprehend the notion of a theanthropic person. But we can learn to be precise in saying who He is and who He is not. We can know Him. We can trust Him. We can love Him. We can worship Him. Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing: O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding
Edward Caswall (1814–1878)
Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding:
“Christ is nigh,” it seems to say:
“Cast away the works of darkness,
O ye children of the day!”
Startled at the solemn warning,
Let the earth-bound soul arise;
Christ, our Sun, all sloth dispelling,
Shines upon the morning skies.
Lo, the Lamb, so long expected,
Comes with pardon down from heaven;
Let us haste, with tears of sorrow,
One and all, to be forgiven.
So, when next He comes in glory,
And the world is wrapped in fear,
May He then as our Defender
On the clouds of heaven appear.
Honor, glory, might and blessing
To the Father and the Son,
With the Ever-living Spirit
One in Three, and Three in One.
Erecting the Right Fences in the Right Places, Part Nine: Continuationism As a Secondary Doctrine
The book Finding the Right Hills to Die On is Gavin Ortlund’s theory of doctrinal triage. According to his theory, primary doctrines are essential to the gospel and to Christian fellowship. Secondary doctrines are not essential to the gospel, but they are necessary to some levels of Christian fellowship. Differences over tertiary doctrines should not inhibit Christian fellowship.
Ortlund illustrates his category of second-rank doctrines by applying it to three specific controversies. His second controversy is the one over the continuation of what he labels “spiritual gifts.” He does not address spiritual gifts in general, however, but specifically miraculous and revelatory gifts.
At the outset, Ortlund identifies himself as a continuationist “in both practice and conviction” (108). He also tries to limit his discussion to Reformed attitudes toward continuationism. Given the widespread influence of charismatics across the contemporary theological spectrum (including not only gospel-believing groups like Reformed or Wesleyan evangelicals but also ecumenical liberals, Romanists, and even Mormons), he has defined his discussion too narrowly. Since gospel deniers regularly practice charismatic gifts, supposed appearances of those gifts cannot possibly be taken as self-authenticating evidence for God’s activity or approval.
Admittedly, a comparatively mild version of continuationism is voiced within certain evangelical circles. It is represented by figures such as Wayne Grudem, John Piper, and Sam Storms. I assume that Ortlund holds this version of the theory. These figures and their followers, however, represent only a small fraction of charismatic continuationism. Adherents to the prosperity gospel far outnumber them (especially worldwide), as do devotees of the New Apostolic Reformation. The Grudem-Piper-Storms (and Ortlund?) version of continuationism barely amounts to a pebble in the mountain range of these larger movements.
The prosperity gospel is not the biblical gospel. It is a gospel of a different kind, and it falls under the anathema of Galatians 1:6–8. Furthermore, anyone claiming to be an apostle today is necessarily a false apostle (Acts 1:21–22; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:8), and Paul denounced false apostles as ministers of Satan (2 Cor 11:13–15). In other words, at least some of the time continuationism is a first-level, fundamental error. I acknowledge no Christian commonality with (for example) a Benny Hinn or a Kenneth Copeland. If Ortlund thinks that he can, then worse and worse.
If, on the other hand, Ortlund is willing to acknowledge how serious the errors of a Hinn or a Copeland are, then he needs to bring considerably more nuance into his discussion of Reformed continuationism. But he does not. He rests his argument fundamentally upon the fact that he can find Reformed progenitors who acknowledged some element of continuation for miraculous or perhaps even revelatory gifts. He relies especially heavily upon figures of the Reformation and the Puritan movement.
The problem with this appeal is that both the Reformation and the Puritans came prior to the defining point for the doctrine of miraculous gifts. One can find loose expressions of Christology among orthodox Christians before Nicea. One can find loose expressions of soteriology by evangelical Christians before the Reformation. But what Arius was to Christology, and what Johann Tetzel was to soteriology, early Pentecostalism was to miraculous gifts. It was Pentecostalism (and its forebears Edward Irving and John Dowie) that forced the issue on miraculous and revelatory gifts. These influences brought Christian thought to a defining point over these doctrines. We presently find ourselves standing at much the point that Athanasius stood with respect to Arius or that Luther stood with respect to Leo X. We cessationists are no more deterred than Athanasius was when he was informed that the whole world was against him.
I am not suggesting that continuationism is always a fundamental error, but beyond question it sometimes is. Even when it is not, the implications of charismatic theology reach far beyond a simple misunderstanding about the role of the Holy Spirit. For example, older Pentecostals and charismatics grounded their doctrine of present-day divine healing in the atonement, seriously distorting the biblical doctrine of the atonement and badly misreading Scripture. Third-wave charismatics presently ground their doctrine of healing in an over-inaugurated understanding of the kingdom leading to “power encounters.” (Incidentally, most cessationists affirm that God is able to heal miraculously; what they deny is that He has given the gifts of healing to individuals to exercise with the kind of discretion that Christians witnessed during the apostolic age.)
Similarly, the doctrine of revelation must be taken seriously. In the Old Testament, a prophet was to be tested partly by his ability to produce miraculous signs that were unmistakable and verifiable. A single false prophecy earned him the death penalty (Deut 18:18–22). Grudem has tried to soften this understanding of prophecy for the New Testament, but two responses must be noted. First, even most Third-wave charismatics disagree with him, insisting that church prophecy today is just as authoritative as Scripture for those to whom it is delivered (see, for example, the Fuller Seminary doctoral dissertation on this topic by Stephen Oldham). Furthermore, contra Grudem, 1 Corinthians 14:29 and 1 Thessalonians 5:19–21 do not show New Testament prophecy being sifted and weighed, 1 Corinthians 14:30–31 does not show prophecy being ignored, Acts 21:4 does not show prophecy being disobeyed—indeed, it does not relate a prophecy at all—and Acts 21:10–11 does not show prophecy being mistaken.
It is impossible in a short space to review every argument, but it should be clear that the charismatic error does not just involve misinterpreting a verse or two. In all its forms it represents a gigantic shift that rearranges much of the biblical system of faith and practice. It also relocates the methodological basis of evangelical theology from sola scriptura to ambo scriptura et experientia.
Ortlund wants to place continuationism in between the second-level and third-level on the scale of doctrinal importance. I insist that various charismatic errors are often first-level, fundamental errors, and they are never less than upper-second-level (using his taxonomy). I do not deny that some level of Christian fellowship remains possible with the more balanced Pentecostals and charismatics, but I do believe that whatever levels of fellowship are possible will be those that require a bare minimum degree of doctrinal agreement.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
As With Gladness Men of Old
William Dix (1837–1898)
As with gladness men of old
did the guiding star behold;
as with joy they hailed its light,
leading onward, beaming bright;
so, most gracious God, may we
evermore be led to Thee.
As with joyful steps they sped
to that lowly cradle-bed,
there to bend the knee before
Him whom heav’n and earth adore;
so may we with willing feet
ever seek Thy mercy-seat.
As they offered gifts most rare
at that cradle rude and bare;
so may we with holy joy,
pure, and free from sin’s alloy,
all our costliest treasures bring,
Christ, to Thee, our heav’nly King.
Holy Jesus, every day
keep us in the narrow way;
and, when earthly things are past,
bring our ransomed lives at last
where they need no star to guide,
where no clouds Thy glory hide.
In that heav’nly country bright
need they no created light;
Thou its Light, its Joy, its Crown,
Thou its Sun which goes not down;
there for ever may we sing
alleluias to our King.
Professors’ Pancake Palace
As we near the finish line of our fall semester, we host our annual Professors’ Pancake Palace (pictures above from today’s festivities). This beloved tradition dates back to the days of Dr. Larry Pettegrew and his Aunt Hazel’s Secret Pancake Recipe. We have had countless wonderful moments sharing flapjacks and fellowship over the years. We’re already making plans again for next year. We hope you’ll join us! Apply today!
More pictures over on our Facebook page.
Erecting the Right Fences in the Right Places, Part Eight: Baptism as a Secondary Doctrine
In Finding the Right Hills to Die On, Gavin Ortlund develops a theory of doctrinal triage. In this theory, second-rank doctrines are not fundamental to the gospel, but they are important to some level of Christian fellowship. To illustrate how second-rank doctrines work, Ortlund addresses three areas of doctrinal controversy. The first one is baptism, a topic over which Christians widely disagree.
His discussion contains much that is helpful. Ortlund rightly notes that differences over baptism cannot be reduced to one simple issue. Instead, baptism involves a bundle of questions that get addressed differently by various Christians. Different answers to these questions result in whole varieties of positions on baptism.
Ortlund also argues that, in spite of these differences, baptism is important, and the questions cannot be avoided. He is right. Either churches will baptize or they won’t. If they do, they will either baptize infants or they won’t. They will either restrict baptism to immersion or they won’t. Believers who have committed themselves to definite views on baptism cannot usually settle contentedly in churches that deny those views.
According to Ortlund, baptism is obligatory for Christians. To use his language, being baptized is a matter of obedience to Christ. It plays an important role in the church’s life as a people of God. Baptism is a sign and seal of the gospel itself (103–104). Depending upon what Ortlund means by baptism being a “seal,” I find myself agreeing with most of what he says here (though I disagree with his remark that baptism symbolizes the washing away of sins). Baptism is sufficiently important that it does affect some levels of Christian fellowship. Specifically, it must not be ignored for church membership.
I also partially agree with Ortlund that baptism is not a doctrine on which the gospel is won or lost (104). He is right insofar as salvation does not depend upon getting baptized. As in the case of Cornelius (Acts 10–11), the New Testament clearly presents salvation coming before baptism.
And yet, sometimes the gospel can be and is lost over the matter of baptism. Ortlund notes in passing that some groups, claiming to be Christian, make baptism a necessary or even sufficient condition of salvation. Still, he never draws out the implications of this observation, preferring to limit his discussion mainly to Reformed understandings of baptism.
Nevertheless, the matter cannot be overlooked. In Roman Catholicism, baptism works ex opera operato (we might say automatically) to wash away the guilt of original and personal sins, to confer the grace of justification, and to place an indelible mark upon the soul. This form of baptismal regeneration constitutes a clear denial that justification is applied through faith alone. Thus, the Catholic understanding of baptism denies the gospel.
In Stone-Campbell (Church of Christ) soteriology, salvation is not applied until an individual is baptized. A professor in a Stone-Campbell college once explained to me that if someone trusted Christ for salvation but died in a car crash on the way to baptism, then that person would go straight to hell. While some Campbellites may have softened this view, it remains near the heart of Stone-Campbell preaching. It, too, constitutes a denial of the gospel.
In other words, sometimes errors about baptism are first-level, fundamental errors. They place the people who hold them outside the circle of gospel fellowship. Bible believers should not extend any level of Christian fellowship to advocates of Roman Catholic or Stone-Campbell soteriology.
Ortlund also lists Lutherans among those who affirm baptismal regeneration, but he fails to note that their situation is different. Conservative Lutherans (such as Missouri Synod Lutherans) believe that salvation is applied through faith alone, but they also affirm that baptized infants are justified. How can they have it both ways? The answer is that they see infants as capable of faith. This faith is dormant in that the infant is not aware of it (like our faith while we are asleep), but it is nonetheless real. This dormant faith can be created in the infant through baptism.
In other words, the Lutheran view does not teach that baptism is either a necessary or a sufficient means of salvation. Granted, it is an odd view. Menno Simons is supposed to have wryly asked a Lutheran how many people the apostles baptized in their sleep. Furthermore, the Lutheran view sometimes communicates false assurance to those who were baptized as infants. In spite of these problems, this view does not deny that justification is applied through faith alone. While I judge that this Lutheran view is badly in error, it is consistent with the bare message of the gospel. Consequently, some level of Christian fellowship is possible with such Lutherans. I personally cherish the warmth of Christian friendship with professors at the Free Lutheran seminary across Medicine Lake from the Baptist seminary where I teach.
In the Reformed view, baptism identifies an individual with the believing community. It is administered to the infant children of church members, not because they are thought to be saved but because they are seen as part of the community. While this view confuses Old Testament Israel with the New Testament Church, it is miles away from denying anything that is essential to the gospel. I could not join a church with members who held this view, but I am willing joyfully to extend multiple other levels of fellowship to them.
In sum, the crucial issue with baptism is not so much its subjects or mode (though those questions do matter) as its meaning. Baptism can be understood in some ways that deny the gospel. These denials elevate some errors about baptism to the level of fundamental, first-rank errors. They break all Christian fellowship.
Other errors are of a lesser nature, limiting Christian fellowship at some levels but not others. As with all differences over non-fundamental doctrines, the question here is not whether Christian fellowship is possible. The question is which levels of fellowship are affected by the differences. Where the gospel is not at stake, doctrinal disagreement rarely makes fellowship an all-or-nothing proposition.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
The Lord Is Come
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
The Lord is come; the Heav’ns proclaim
His birth; the nations learn His Name;
An unknown star directs the road
Of eastern sages to their God.
All ye bright Armies of the Skies,
Go, worship where the Saviour lies;
Angels and Kings before Him bow,
Those gods on high, and gods below.
Let idols totter to the ground,
And their own worshippers confound;
But Judah shout, but Zion sing,
And Earth confess her sov’reign King.
Erecting the Right Fences in the Right Places, Part Seven: Ranking Secondary Doctrines
Through the fourth chapter of Finding the Right Hills to Die On, Gavin Ortlund has been discussing primary or first-rank doctrines—the doctrines that are traditionally known as fundamentals or essentials. His thesis thus far has been that when these doctrines are threatened, they are worth fighting for. His attitude toward these doctrines he characterizes as “courage and conviction” (95). While I have expressed niggling criticisms here and there—for example, I wish that Ortlund had gone into more detail about the kind of fighting we ought to do over the fundamentals—I have found myself largely in agreement with his approach.
In chapter five, he switches to the discussion of second-rank doctrines. This discussion, he says, is the most difficult part of his book, and here he aims to foster an attitude of “wisdom and balance.” While he recognizes that these doctrines are not fundamental (essential to the gospel), he suggests that they are sufficiently serious as to “justify divisions at the level of denomination, church, or ministry” (95). He illustrates his “wisdom and balance” approach by examining three second-rank (as he sees it) areas of doctrinal controversy. These are baptism, miraculous gifts, and women in ministry. His discussion of these three areas occupies most of the chapter.
Ortlund’s discussion of the three controversies is so revealing that I want to spend special time on it. I hope to examine his treatment of each of these three areas separately. In preparation for that examination, however, a review of Ortlund’s general treatment of second-rank doctrines is necessary.
While Ortlund does not see these doctrines as fundamental to the gospel, he nevertheless claims that they are important for two reasons. First, they affect our understanding and presentation of the gospel. Second, they lead to practical differences that cannot be avoided in the life of the church (96).
At this point in the discussion, Ortlund introduces at least three important caveats. First, he admits that doctrines do not fit into neat categories of importance such as first-rank, second-rank, and third-rank. He concedes that doctrines fall along a spectrum of importance, and that on this spectrum some second-rank doctrines may be closer in importance to some first-rank or third-rank doctrines than to other second-rank doctrines (97).
In my view, this concession is both obvious and important. I believe it is possible to draw a clear line between fundamentals and non-fundamentals (though even some fundamentals are more important than others). When it comes to non-fundamentals, however, I question the usefulness of categories such as second-rank and third-rank. If doctrines really do fit into a sliding scale of importance (and it seems clear that they do), then the better approach is to learn the principles and measures for weighing each doctrine on its own merits. Any other approach is likely to result in ham-fisted choices about fellowship and separation.
Ortlund’s second caveat is that Christian fellowship takes place at multiple levels. He says it this way: “Being a member in a church and being an elder in a church should have different doctrinal criteria” (98). This sentence is the merest nod toward recognizing levels of fellowship, but it is sufficient to illustrate the point: different levels of doctrinal agreement are necessary for different levels of fellowship. One expects more of a church officer than one expects of a church member.
Without question, Ortlund knows about other levels of fellowship. Later in the chapter he talks about creedal choices that were made by the Gospel Coalition (118–119). Obviously, the Gospel Coalition is an instance of Christian fellowship. Equally obviously, the Gospel Coalition does not aim to embrace all Christians (Wesleyans, for example) within its fellowship. Furthermore, the Gospel Coalition is not a church or denomination, so it cannot base its creedal requirements upon the qualifications for either church membership or church office.
While Ortlund may not realize it, he is really creating a grid for making choices about fellowship and separation. Along one axis of the grid we must weigh the importance of the various doctrines and practices of the Bible. Along the other axis we must discover the degree of agreement that is necessary for any particular level of fellowship. While Ortlund does not seem to have worked out the detailed implications of this approach, its outlines can be glimpsed in his writing.
Ortlund goes a step further, however. He presents a third caveat that effectively transforms this grid into a matrix. He opens up a third dimension for making decisions about fellowship and separation when he suggests, “Many doctrines defy a once-for-all classification without consideration of context” (122).
My initial reaction is to disagree with this statement, but upon consideration I think that Ortlund is on to something here, and it is something important. While I insist that no doctrine varies objectively in its importance, certain circumstances may underline the importance of a given doctrine at a given time and place. For example, we may not realize how important a fundamental is until someone denies or distorts it. We then discover its genuine importance in the process of defining and defending it.
This recognition helps us to flesh out Ortlund’s third dimension for the calculus of Christian fellowship. This dimension becomes unavoidably personal. For example, two people may hold a doctrinal view that disagrees (as I see it) with the Bible. One of them holds this view in a deferential way, while the other holds it with aggression and hostility. I may be able to fellowship with the first at some levels where I cannot work with the second. Ortlund is right that sometimes our context will influence the way that we perceive the role of particular doctrines in either enabling or blocking fellowship and cooperation.
I do see one significant problem in this chapter. Ortlund names biblical inerrancy as one of the “doctrines that are disputed at times by other Christians within the boundaries of orthodoxy” (119). This assessment is badly mistaken. To be clear, Ortlund does not deny the inerrancy of Scripture. What he denies is that inerrancy should be treated as a first-rank (fundamental) doctrine.
Why is this a mistake? Because all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16). If the Scriptures (as originally inspired) affirm errors, then those errors must come from God. If errors come from God, then God is either capable of making mistakes or else God is willing to affirm what He knows is not true. The consequences of either will be devastating. Inerrancy towers as a watershed doctrine in which the whole truthfulness of God—and therefore the reliability of the gospel—is at stake. Denying the inerrancy of Scripture does indeed place one outside the pale of orthodoxy.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Hark! How the Watchmen Cry!
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)
Hark! how the watchmen cry!
Attend the trumpet’s sound;
Stand to your arms! the foe is nigh!
The powers of hell surround:
Who bow to Christ’s command,
Your arms and hearts prepare;
The day of battle is at hand!
Go forth to glorious war!
See on the mountain-top
The standard of your God!
In Jesu’s name I lift it up,
All stain’d with hallow’d blood,
His standard-bearer I
To all the nations call:
Let all to Jesu’s cross draw nigh!
He bore the cross for all.
Go up with Christ your head,
Your Captain’s footsteps see:
Follow your Captain, and be led
To certain victory.
All power to him is given:
He ever reigns the same:
Salvation, happiness, and heaven
Are all in Jesu’s name.
Only have faith in God:
In faith your foes assail:
Not wrestling against flesh and blood,
But all the powers of hell:
From thrones of glory driven,
By flaming veng’ance hurl’d,
They throng the air, and darken heaven,
And rule the lower world.
Understanding the Kingdom of God–Episode 043 with Roy Beacham & Jeff Brown, Part 2
In today’s episode, we discuss the kingdom of God with Roy Beacham and Jeff Brown. We talk about how to teach on the kingdom of God in your church and community. Be sure not to miss this episode!
Transcript coming soon!
Radical Monotheism: What Is Worship?
[This essay was originally published In the Nick of Time on August 12, 2005.]
The doctrinal core of all biblical religion—the most fundamental of all fundamentals—is the shema. It affirms the existence of one and only one true and living God, Yahweh. Since any object of worship becomes a god, to say that there is only one true God is to say that only one being is worthy of being worshipped. To worship anything other than the true God is to become an idolater.
Monotheism revolves around worship. If the shema is at the center of true, biblical religion, then worship is also the center of true, biblical religion. The two are inseparable. Therefore, for the monotheist, worship is a matter of the highest importance. Those who wish to be monotheists need to know what worship is. The temptation is to seek out lexical definitions of the various Greek and Hebrew terms for worship. Those who yield to this temptation will find that most of the words translated worship have something to do with bowing. They will also find that this knowledge furnishes them with little understanding.
The problem is that the Bible assumes that we already know what worship is. It never defines the activity, though it does give some descriptions of and regulations for true worship. Scripture seems to take for granted that anybody would know what it means to worship Baal or Dagon.
The Bible expects us to carry at least a rough-and-ready definition of worship into its pages. Such a definition does not rely upon the technicalities of biblical languages, but upon a general knowledge of the concept of worship. In the biblical civilizations, the idea of “bowing” predominated because bowing was thought to be the appropriate posture in worship. While most worship involved bowing (at least of an inward sort), however, not all bowing constituted worship. Abraham bowed himself before the people of the land (Gen. 23:7); Jacob bowed before Esau (Gen. 33:3); David bowed to Saul (1 Sam. 24:8). These bows did not constitute worship and therefore did not implicate the bowing person in idolatry. To understand worship, we must somehow distinguish between bows.
The English word worship confronts us with a similar problem. The term is from two Saxon roots: weorð (value, price, worth) and scipe (to say or to impute). Essentially, to worship a thing is to impute value to it. The problem with this understanding is that not all imputations of value are equal and not all are directed toward deities. For example, the lower gentry in the United Kingdom are addressed as “worship.” This form of address does not mean that they are gods, but that they are respected and valued members of society.
Some bows constitute worship and some do not. Some ascriptions of value constitute worship (in the technical sense) and some do not. How can we tell the difference?
Let us imagine an inanimate object, say, a broom. Why would we value a broom? Because it sweeps cleanly, of course. We value the broom, not for what it is, but for what it does. Its value derives from the fact that we value a clean floor. Why do we value the clean floor? Perhaps for hygienic reasons. In that case, the value of the clean floor is not in itself, but in the thing to which it contributes, namely, health. Why do we value health? Because it contributes to yet another thing, and that to another, and so forth. None of these things are valued as ends in themselves, but as means to something else. Or imagine a pen. We value the pen because it writes—its value derives from its ability to write. If it stops writing we throw it away because it has no more value. The value of the pen lies in the writing. The value of the writing lies in the ability to communicate. The value of the communication lies in the ideas that are communicated. At no point does the value lie in the thing itself, but rather in its ability to serve some greater good.
At some point, however, this chain of values must come to an end. We reach that point when we encounter something that has value, not because it is instrumental to some other good, but simply because it exists. Such a thing has its value in itself. It becomes a center from which other things derive their value. It is an end rather than a means.
The value of the broom or of the pen is instrumental. Everything that helps to achieve some other good is valuable as an instrument. To ascribe instrumental value to a thing is not to worship it except in a very loose and relative sense.
A thing that is valued as an end, however, possesses absolute value. It is valuable in and of itself. It is to be valued, not because it serves something else, but because of what it is. It becomes a point of definition, a center of value. To impute this kind of value to anything is precisely to worship it in the proper and technical sense.
Anything that we value as an end rather than a means is a thing that we worship. Therefore, anything to which we impute absolute value becomes a god to us. Such a thing defines and determines whole chains of values in our lives. In fact, the things that we value absolutely are the things according to which we construct our own identity. We can properly say that they are the things in which we delight ourselves.
The shema affirms that there is one and only one true God, and that He is Yahweh. What this means is that Yahweh alone is worthy of worship. Only Yahweh deserves to be valued as an end rather than a means. For the monotheist, Yahweh must become the absolute value, the center from which absolutely everything else derives value. He must become the point of definition according to which we understand our own identity. He must be the only thing in which we delight ourselves. He alone must be our God.
This is why a true monotheism is always a radical monotheism, for it goes straight to the root of the matter. Everything—everything—exists to serve the LORD our God. Our time, health, possessions, power, leisure, spouse, children, and absolutely anything else we can think of are merely means to an end. The end is God Himself, what He enjoys, and what magnifies Him. The radical monotheist (the only monotheist worthy of the name) lives all of life to bring pleasure to God and to glorify Him.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
For Children, On a Lord’s Day Evening
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
Lord, how delightful ‘tis to see
A whole assembly worship thee!
At once they sing, at once they pray;
They hear of heaven, and learn the way.
I have been there, and still would go
‘Tis like a little heaven below!
Not all my pleasure and my play
Should tempt me to forget this day.
O write upon my memory, Lord,
The text and doctrines of thy Word,
That I may break thy laws no more,
But love thee better than before!
With thoughts of Christ and things divine
Fill up this foolish heart of mine:
That, hoping pardon through his blood,
I may lie down, and wake with God.
Give to the Max 2023
In the Nick of Time comes to your inbox free of charge fifty weeks a year. We only talk to you about money during one of those weeks, and this is it. It’s time for Central Seminary’s annual Give to the Max event, and we’re going to ask you to participate with a gift.
Give to the Max is the creation of GiveMN, a private coordinator for charitable donations in Minnesota. The original event—a decade and a half ago—was a single day, and it was called “Give to the Max Day.” At the time we had a local pastor in Minnesota (now retired) whose name was Max Day. The first “Give to the Max Day” created a certain amount of confusion.
Now the Give to the Max event is one of our primary occasions for telling our friends what is happening at Central Seminary. During COVID we made the shift to distance education using the Zoom® platform. While many schools declined and even shut their doors, our student population has grown globally. We now reach into twenty-seven states, thirteen foreign countries, and five continents. We are educating pastors and missionaries in places like Windsor (Ontario), Kitwe (Zambia), Albion (New York), and Ockenheim (Germany). We are training Christian counselors not only in Minnesota but in places like Nairobi (Kenya) and Cape Girardeau (Missouri).
Not one of these students pays the full cost of seminary education. Each of them is subsidized generously by your gifts. Without your help, seminary education would become so expensive that only the elite could afford it. Because people like you want pastors and counselors who are well equipped, we can offer a very affordable seminary experience to our students.
The ministry of WCTS AM-1030 continues to blanket the Twin Cities along with much of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. The Bible Station broadcasts Christian music, biblical exposition, and scriptural perspectives into homes that have few or no conservative Christian alternatives.
Central Seminary also provides a variety of services to churches and individuals. In the Nick of Time is one of those. So is the Central Seminary Podcast (if you haven’t listened to it, you should). Central Seminary provides assistance to many churches seeking pastors or pulpit supply. We sponsor both a fall conference and the Charles MacDonald Lecture series. Incidentally, next February’s MacDonald Lectures will feature Dr. Manfred Kober talking about “Living Under a Hostile Government.” Kober knows something about that topic, having experienced both Hitler’s Germany and the communist East German regime.
The point is that Central Seminary gives you a lot of bang for your buck. We are getting the Lord’s work done, both here in Minnesota and around the world. That’s why we’re not embarrassed to ask for your support. Every penny goes toward advancing the gospel and proclaiming the whole counsel of God.
This year, a generous donor has promised $50,000 as a matching gift. What does that mean? It means that he will give when we (the rest of us) give. When we give a dollar, he gives a dollar. When we give a thousand, he gives a thousand. If you can give ten thousand (not many can), he will give ten thousand. Every dollar that you give will automatically be doubled. You can help to turn this donor’s $50,000 promise into a $100,000 reality.
How can you give? The easiest way is to follow the link here and to give online. To give to WCTS, follow this link. If you wish, you can mail a gift to Central Baptist Theological Seminary at 900 Forestview Lane North, in Plymouth, Minnesota 55441. Or you can call 763.417.8250 between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM Central Time. No matter how you give, your donation will help to make that $50,000 promise into a $100,000 reality.
How much does a Central Seminary education help our graduates? Here is what one graduate says:
Every year at Give to the Max time, I’m reminded of how grateful I am for my time at Central. I thank the Lord for the men and women who have made Central’s ministry possible. I cannot adequately describe how important it was for me to come into my first senior pastorate with these tools at my disposal, because of the reality of ministering in a small congregation where I need to work part-time outside the church to make ends meet. I cannot imagine what a guy in that situation would do who did not have access to the trunk loads of jewels that I’ve been given. During plenty of long weeks and late nights, having such a reservoir to draw from has allowed me to be ready for Sunday time and time again, with wholesome meals to offer to the flock of God.
That’s exactly what we aim to do. We aim to give pastors, missionaries, and biblical counselors the tools that they will need to succeed in real-life ministry. Will you help us to fulfill this task?
Go Preach My Gospel
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
“Go preach my Gospel,” saith the Lord;
“Bid the whole Earth my Grace receive:
He shall be sav’d that trusts my Word,
He shall be damn’d that won’t believe.
I’ll make your great Commission known,
And ye shall prove my Gospel true,
By all the Works that I have done,
By all the Wonders ye shall do.
Teach all the Nations my Commands;
I’m with you till the World shall end;
All Pow’r is trusted in my Hands,
I can destroy, and can defend.”
He spake, and Light shone round his Head;
On a bright Cloud of Heav’n he rode;
They to the farthest Nations spread
The Grace of their ascended God.
Chisago Lakes Ordains Pastor Gunderson
Article from the November 2023 edition of the North Star Update from the Minnesota Baptist Association
Chisago Lakes Baptist Church is excited to announce the ordination of their pastor, Ben Gunderson. The ordination service was held on Sunday, October 22 at the church, with a large number of members and guests in attendance.
Pastor Ben Gunderson has been involved in ministry at Chisago for over 8 years, and has served in a variety of roles, including assistant/youth pastor, interim pastor, and lead pastor. He is a graduate of Central Baptist Theological Seminary and is passionate about preaching the Gospel and helping people grow in their faith.
The ordination service was a special time of celebration for the church, as they affirmed Pastor Gunderson’s fitness for ministry. The service included a charge to the candidate by Pastor Steve Brower, a charge to the congregation by Pastor Dave Stertz, testimonies from church members, and a prayer of dedication (pictured above). Pastor Gunderson also shared his own testimony and appreciation for the call to minister.
Chisago Lakes Baptist Church is committed to exalting God, equipping the saints, edifying one another, and evangelizing the lost. We gather each week to worship the one true God revealed in the Bible. We’re grateful for the privilege He has given us to worship, live, and serve in our community.
The following are statements from the ordination council with respect to Pastor Gunderson’s ordination:
“The council recommends that the church proceeds with ordination. With this recommendation, we express our high commendation for the candidate’s presentation and defense of his doctrinal statement.”
“The council thanks the church for its kind invitation and hospitality of this occasion today.”
Present at the council convened on Saturday, October 21 were:
Dr. Jon Pratt (Moderator), Pastor Joel Albright (Clerk), Pastor Steve Brower, Pastor Craig Muri, Dr. Kevin Bauder, Pastor Dan Mohler, Micah Tanis, Pastor Andrew Solarek, Pastor David Stertz, Pastor Chad Williams, Bernard Dodeler.
Erecting the Right Fences in the Right Places, Part Five: Why Primary Doctrines Are Worth Fighting For
In chapter four of Finding the Right Hills to Die On, Gavin Ortlund makes the case that primary doctrines are worth fighting for. The first part of the chapter is a discussion of how to distinguish primary (fundamental) doctrines from doctrines of lesser importance. He also discusses the difference between types of fundamental doctrines, specifically, those that must be known for salvation and those that must not be denied. He further differetiates confused learners from false teachers. Finally, he distinguishes profession from belief, recognizing that some people who formally deny fundamental doctrines may nevertheless be trusting Christ for salvation, however inconsistently. On all these points I have expressed general agreement with Ortlund and I am glad to see him making them.
During the second part of the chapter, Ortlund applies his principles to two specific doctrines, treating them more-or-less as case studies. One is the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ. The other is the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
In his discussion of the virgin birth, Ortlund appeals to J. Gresham Machen for a further distinction concerning fundamentals. There is a difference, he says, between affirming the virgin birth as true and affirming that the virgin birth is a fundamental. In other words, Christians must answer two questions with respect to every doctrine. The first question is whether the doctrine is true, i.e., whether they believe it. The second is the question of how important the doctrine is.
In his interaction with people like J. Ross Stevenson and Charles Erdman, Machen encountered Christians who genuinely believed in the virgin birth but who were willing to maintain ties of organizational fellowship with others who denied it. Such Christians believed that the virgin birth was true, but they did not believe that it was fundamental to Christian identity and fellowship. Because Machen did see the virgin birth as fundamental, he denounced people like Stevenson and Erdman as “indifferentists,” accusing them of being indifferent to the role of the virgin birth in defining the boundary of Christianity. Machen saw indifferentism as such a serious error that because of it he left Princeton Seminary to found Westminster Seminary, he left the denominational Presbyterian mission board to found the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, and he was expelled from the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in the USA to found the Presbyterian Church of America (later the Orthodox Presbyterian Church). For Machen, how one weighed the fundamentals was itself a condition of Christian fellowship.
Ortlund does not mention this history. Instead, he extrapolates three principles that he believes are implicit in Machen’s treatment of the virgin birth. First, doctrines become fundamental as they relate more directly to biblical authority (85–86). Second, fundamental doctrines are “bound up with larger worldview conflicts between historic Christianity and current heresies or fads” (86). Third, fundamental doctrines are so closely connected to the gospel that “if they are denied, the gospel itself is ruptured” (87). I suggest that while all three of these principles are correct, the first two really find their grounding in the third, which, if properly expressed, will encompass them.
Here I must express a minor disappointment. This would have been the ideal place for Ortlund to talk about what should be done with those who affirm the gospel but who extend Christian fellowship to those who deny it. He appears to have read quite a bit of Machen, and this was perhaps the key issue that Machen had to face. I am still hoping that Ortlund will get around to addressing it. I wish that he had done so here.
In addition to the virgin birth of Christ, Ortlund also takes justification by faith as an example of an essential doctrine. Indeed, he names this doctrine as a “quintessential first-rank issue,” but then almost immediately begins to qualify this statement (88). He notes that justification was not clearly distinguished from sanctification until the Reformation. He points to instances in which Protestants have quibbled over aspects of the doctrine. He suggests that the doctrine of justification involves multiple components, not all of which are equally important. In the end, he tries to establish a range of latitude for the expression of justification by faith.
One component of justification is the doctrine of imputation. Ortlund notes that gospel-believers have disagreed as to whether the active obedience of Christ was necessary for justification, or whether Christ’s passive obedience is sufficient. So far, so good; it is possible to argue that the active obedience of Christ, while important, is not fundamental.
But then Orlund points to the New Perspective on Paul and the 1999 Joint Declaration of Evangelicals and Catholics Together. He seems to think that these viewpoints represent differences that do not interfere with “mere justification” (88). In doing so, however, he overlooks the fact that Roman Catholicism still anathematizes justification through faith alone, and that the New Perspective so redefines justification as to make it into a different conversation altogether. You can believe the Council of Trent or you can believe the gospel, but you can’t consistently believe them both at the same time. You can believe E. P. Sanders or you can believe the gospel, but you can’t consistently believe them both at the same time (though it may be possible so to attenuate New Perspective thought that it might permit a both-and approach).
In the long run, however, Ortlund knows that justification by faith alone has to be important because the writers of the New Testament were willing to fight over it (90). Here he goes directly to Galatians 1:8–9, which (I agree) is a critical text for this conversation. In that text, the apostle Paul calls down damnation upon those who preach “gospels” that incorporate elements of works into justification. What is interesting, however, is the logic behind Paul’s argument: a supposed gospel cannot be true if it contradicts an essential element of the true gospel. It becomes a different, false gospel, and those who preach it are subject to condemnation.
So Ortlund thinks that fundamental doctrines are worth fighting for. Good for him! I still wonder, however, what shape he thinks that fight should take. For Machen, the fight included proclaiming the true doctrine, and I’m sure that Ortlund would approve. Machen’s defense, however, also included exposing those who taught the false doctrine and eventually severing Chrisitan fellowship with them. In fact, for Machen, fighting for first-order doctrines included severing fellowship with Christians who believed right doctrine but who would not sever fellowship with those who taught false gospels. I am still waiting to learn whether Ortlund would go that far.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
O God, Look Down from Heav’n and See
Martin Luther (1483–1546); tr. W. Reynolds, R. Massie, and E. Cronenwett
O God! look down from heav’n and see
A sight that well may move Thee!
Thy saints, how few! How wretchedly
Forsaken we who love Thee!
Thy Word no more shall have its right:
And faith itself is vanished quite
From all this generation.
Fictions they teach with cunning art,
And lies of man’s invention;
Not ‘stablished in God’s Word, their heart
Is full of strange dissension;
One chooses this, another that,
And while divisions they create,
They cant of love and union.
May God root out all heresy
And of false teachers rid us,
Who proudly say: “And who is he
That shall our speech forbid us?
We have the might and right alone,
And what we say must stand; we own
None as our lord and master.”
Wherefore, saith God, I will arise!
My poor they are oppressing;
I hear their crying and their sighs,
Their wrongs shall have redressing;
My Word, endued with saving might,
Shall suddenly the wicked smite,
And be my poor ones’ comfort.
As silver sev’n times furnace-tried,
Is found for it the purer,
So doth the Word, whate’re betide,
But prove itself the surer;
The cross reveals its worth aright,
‘Tis then we see its strength and light
Shine far in earth’s dark places.
O God, keep Thou it pure and free
From this vile generation,
And let us too be kept by Thee
From their abomination;
The wicked walk about in ease,
When loose, ungodly men like these
Are in the land exalted.
Understanding the Kingdom of God–Episode 042 with Roy Beacham & Jeff Brown, Part 1
In today’s episode, we discuss the kingdom of God with Roy Beacham and Jeff Brown. We talk about how Scripture teaches on the kingdom of God from cover to cover. Be sure not to miss this episode!
Spotify Link: Season 2, Episode 42
Host: Micah Tanis, Director of Communications
Guests: Dr. Roy Beacham, Senior Professor of Old Testament & Dr. Jeff Brown, Adjunct Faculty, Missions
Topic: The Kingdom of God
Book Suggestion: Alva McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom
Transcript:
Micah Tanis: Welcome to the Central Seminary podcast. We are delighted to have you with us today as we discuss Biblical and theological issues relating to life and ministry. This podcast is a ministry of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Plymouth, Minnesota. To learn more about Central Seminary, visit our website at www.centralseminary.edu. My name is Micah, and I will be your host.
Thanks for joining us today on the Central Seminary Podcast.
Today we have two guests with us. We have Dr. Roy Beacham, one of our professors here at Central. And we have missionary Dr. Jeff Brown with us to talk about the topic of understanding the kingdom.
MT: It’s often that we can think about the kingdom, whether that’s from the Old Testament perspective, a New Testament perspective. Are those different? How are they joined together? So, as we have Dr. Beacham and Dr. Brown, they’re going to introduce themselves and just give a little of their background. One of the angles that we’re going to think about, the kingdom is from for us in presenting the truth of the Kingdom from the Word of God, how do we present that maybe from an academic in the classroom or in the pew? How do we think about it from a pastoral perspective to going through the regular instruction of Scripture, thinking about the Kingdom and reminding people of the wonderful truth of the kingdom?
So, I’m going to ask Dr. Beacham if you could go first just to introduce yourself with the connection of who you’re sitting across from today. Dr. Jeff Brown as I’m understanding, there’s a lot of neat connections between you guys, a lot of history. So, if you could just tell our listeners just a little bit of that background that you have with Dr. Brown and yourself.
RB: Okay. I, of course, have taught in the seminary for a long time, 40 some years. I’d have to do the math. And I’m not a math person, but I began seminary in the fall of 1973, graduated from Pillsbury College, moved up to the cities, and as I moved up and began classes that semester, I met another new student by the name of Jeff Brown, and we became fast friends. We have stories that we could tell for the entire podcast, some of which probably should never be aired. But it was. It’s just been a pleasure to know Jeff for years. He’s probably the best friend that I have who knows me more than anyone except my wife. And we just had a great time together as students. And over the years in our fellowship. One of the funny things about our relationship is as we were going through seminary, it was my goal to be a missionary, probably on a foreign filled field. And it was Jeff’s goal to be a seminary professor. And now for 47 years I’ve been a seminary professor, and for 40 some years he’s been admissions. So, it’s great. God has amazing ways to direct our lives.
MT: Dr. Brown Missionary Germany. Understand that you’re a missionary. How long were you in Germany? 31 years. 31 years?
JB: Yeah. I was a pastor. Yes. Seven years in Michigan? So, when I came, I had gone to a secular school ball State University in Indiana. I had studied biology, and the Lord called me to preach in the end of my year, in my senior year at at Ball State. And I came up here to Central Seminary and Roy is talked about how we met each other rather quickly. And it’s always been what’s the word from the proverbs? Iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend and that’s how it’s been. I’ve always looked forward to being with Roy. He was always just a just a edge ahead of me. Talk about academics or anything else. He got married before I did and you name it. Roy has been ahead of me. So, it’s been great to be friends for all these years.
MT: One of the things we like to ask our guests is what’s a current book that you’re reading that that maybe it’s completely off the topic of the kingdom. We’ll ask a little bit later thinking about a book that is relative to the kingdom. But what’s a book that you’ve been reading that’s been an encouragement to you? You just like to let our listeners know about
Dr. Beacham. What’s that book that you’ve been reading?
RB: Something I’m not sure it’s been an encouragement to me, but that’s been of interest to me. I also teach a course and dispensation exam, which is kind of tied to the question of the kingdom, but written rather recently by a man named Hummel, right now his first name escapes me, but he’s a historian and the book was titled The Rise and Fall of Dispensation, he believes that apparently dispensation is and has fallen as a teacher of the course. I don’t agree with that. So obviously there’s much in the book that I don’t agree with, but it was very interesting to read. I try to keep up on that topic as well and that’s one of the most recent works that I finished. So, thinking about a favorite book,
Dr. Brown, what’s something you’ve been reading recently?
JB: Well, I’m the type of person that never reads just one book at a time. I’ve been. I’ve been pleased in recent years to get to know a number of people who are just like me. So, I don’t feel I’m that odd. One of the books that I am reading, I get there because I am so interested in personal evangelism. When you do personal evangelism, then you are by necessity involved in apologetics. And I always think of, well, what about somebody who’s never been to seminary? What kind of apologetics do they do? And a lot of times when you are in that area, you’re thinking about, okay, if I’m just talking with somebody on the street or I’m sitting down in his house just talking to him, how I’m going to unload some heavy theological book. I want to know how I can just talk to somebody. That’s what Jesus did. He had an apologetic and he’d just talk to people. And so, I came across one that is called tactics by a man named Gregory Koukl. You can see him on YouTube. He has all kinds of presentations, and he’s been at this for a long time because he was in my generation is in my generation, and he was on a secular campus, came to Christ there. So, from those days, he’s been involved in personal evangelism. Well, this is his book on apologetics. And you basically say you need to learn how to ask questions. You don’t have to be a theologian. You just need to learn how to ask questions and think with the person. And it’s a great book. I wish that he would get to evangelism quicker to the gospel, but nevertheless, I’m learning a great deal from this book.
JB: A second book that I’m reading at the present I’ve just launched into it is called The Pauline Corpus of Early Christianity or in Early Christianity, by Benjamin Leard from Liberty University. And I am really looking forward to that, talking about how the Pauline Corpus of the books of the Bible came together. And then I never like to just stick with theology. Okay, I think you get to be well, anyway, let’s leave it there.
JB: And so, I’m reading a biography of Nathan Bedford Forest by Jack Hirst, and in recent years he has become a boogeyman. But I don’t think he was had his positives and his negatives. And he was one of the original leaders of the Ku Klux Klan. What people don’t realize is that went for about two years in his life and then he was asked to come to Congress. They asked him to help out with what they wanted to get done in the country, and he renounced it. He got out of it. He realized it was the wrong thing. He got saved late in life, and after he got saved, he renounced racism and taught people against it. And as a matter of fact, the black people of Memphis looked to him on different occasions. For help is a is very an interesting book.
MT: When you guys started talking about this topic of the Kingdom, it was immediately observable to see your guys’ excitement to know. And that knowing that from a student in Dr. Beacham’s classes taking Kingdom of God class and knowing the excitement of being taught it and also even the books that that we would be assigned.
MT: One of those books was Alan McLean’s The Greatness of the Kingdom. So obviously a in a connection to encourage us as students with the with the greatness of the kingdom. That’s really the question that’s going to drive our time together today is thinking about the greatness of the kingdom. And I want to ask you guys, just as we begin what got you interested in the topic of the kingdom, that it has been a significant part of your ministry and that desire to instruct in the Word of God and help people understand the kingdom.
How did you get interested in the topic of the kingdom?
Jeff, we’ll start with you.
JB: All right. I think it’d be similar with Roy. I had a course from Dr. Roland McCune, and it was called “The Greatness of the Kingdom.” We used Dr. McClain’s book, and we just went through that book, and then he brought in all kinds of other things. I’ve got all kinds of notes in my book of the Greatness of the Kingdom. They’re all from that time that we were in the course together, of all the courses I took, and I had just fabulous courses here at Central, that is one of them was Remain one of my very favorites. I have read a few books, a few books many times through. That’s one that’s The Greatness of the Kingdom. I read that three times through as a big book. and ever since then I’ve wanted to communicate. those ideas to whatever congregation I was involved in, and I’ve wanted to understand it more and more. And of course, it is an important factor when we talk about politics today, government today, it has to do with all of that. And so there was my interest.
RB: Dr. McCune taught the course. We all sat there in awe just reading through McClain marking up, McClain taking rabbit trails off of McCune, listening to Doctor McClain, who was a fabulous teacher. It became my great privilege as I became a professor at Central to take over that course and to teach that course. And for many years I as well walked students through the book. I felt, just as Jeff did, that this was probably the best course that I had at Central, mainly because it tied the whole Bible together. I mean, the book, McClain’s book goes from Genesis to Revelation in discussing the Kingdom of God, and this book put the Bible together in a in a metanarrative. That was something I’d never thought about before. It was just fantastic.
RB: And I’ve loved teaching it since then, and I’ve had many students tell me that it’s been their favorite course as well, not because of the teacher, but because of the material.
MT: That’s exciting for me. Just asking as a student; that excitement I heard that through the classes and could catch it. But understanding that and that’s only been my experience of opening up the greatness of the kingdom and seeing that as a system from cover to cover as we’re thinking about the kingdom.
MT: One thing that you guys both mentioned was the greatness of the kingdom, the opportunity to think cover to cover from Scripture. And so that was the first question I wanted to ask as we come to that is how soon do we see the development of the kingdom here in Scripture with the pages in Genesis? Roy, I’ll start with you.
RB: A few years ago, I’d been teaching Kingdom for quite a long time, and I don’t remember why this dawned on me. I should have thought of it a long time before that, but it was interesting to me to think about the Kingdom from Genesis to Revelation, and there is a great jumping off point right in the chapter one of the Christian account of Genesis. But it dawned on me too, as I looked at the entire corpus of Scripture and particularly the Old Testament, that if you look at the beginning of the Book of Exodus, so think of the exodus from Egypt around 1445 B.C. Let’s round that off to 1500. So, I could do the math. If the world was created around 4000 B.C., according to Usher’s calculations from the genealogies, if there are gaps in the genealogies, conservative young Earth creationists say maybe it was created at 6000, maybe 8000 B.C., but let’s just go with 4000 B.C. The Book of Genesis covers from 4000 B.C. to 1445. You have, you know, 2500 years crammed into the Book of Genesis. And then from Exodus to Malachi, you have the Kingdom of God in history. You have Israel coming out of Egypt, becoming God’s kingdom on Earth. And so, I mean, it became pretty obvious to me. It was already obvious to me. But God, God’s revelation focuses on the kingdom because the vast majority of the Old Testament, from Exodus to through Malachi, with the possible exception of Jacob, is all about the kingdom. This is kind of an overstatement, but the only reason the Book of Genesis is there is to get us to the exodus to the kingdom. Now, again, that’s an overstatement. You have Abraham, in fact, in Chapter 12, and Abraham is around 1800, let’s say 2000. So, you have 2000 years of history, Earth history, crammed into the first 11 chapters of Genesis to get us to Abraham, who is the father of Israel, the nation that God made into the kingdom. And so, on that level, I would say we see that the kingdom is very important in Scripture, particularly to the Old Testament. Jeff can tell us how it all begins in Genesis chapter one. Well, one thing that we find in Genesis one is that as God creates human beings, he tells them to be fruitful and multiply and to rule the Earth. And we can talk about what that rule means. I don’t think we have time right now, but that was man’s original responsibility was to rule for God on Earth. He was the Viceroy of God on earth. Didn’t last very long. Sin came in. He put himself under the direction of Satan. And so, then the rest of the story after that is how God brings this into being, that there is His kingdom, which is in existence from the very beginning, everywhere. It’s everywhere and it’s everywhere now, but that it actually comes to Earth. We have to wait until Israel, and I appreciate what Roy just said. And let me add one more feature to all of that. You have, what, 1680 years. If you go by a literal calculation of the genealogy, what is about 1680, something like that. And you have from the time of Moses to as we said about that to Malachi, you’ve got, what, a little over a thousand years right. It’s a lot more time before the flood, right? Why doesn’t God say more about that? And I think there’s good reason. He was totally disappointed to the point that he said, I repent that I have made, man. It disappointed him in, you know, in a way that we can hardly describe. If you had a man who was an older man and he had a son and his son went wayward and he never straightened out, and you were sitting down with him and you wanted to ask him about his son. He probably wouldn’t talk long about that son. And that’s how I look at that. That may be something needs a whole lot more tweaking, but or argument, I don’t know, but that’s how I see it.
MT: Yeah. As you mentioned there, in thinking through that development, just even of Genesis, what’s going on there and something you mentioned in the beginning of talking about the evangelistic fervor that you seek to have with taking the truth of Scripture and then bring him down to that everyday level. Many of the things you even just reiterated there about Genesis is the understanding the gospel, what, what, how man has fallen and then how the story. So how has your even understanding of the kingdom thrust you forward into evangelism? How does that the message of the Gospel come through in how you even teach people about the kingdom and then that leads to the evangelism opportunities?
JB: Well, I would say, first of all, when I’m trying to reach somebody for Christ, I normally and if I have enough time, I will take them and buy enough time is 15 minutes. Okay. I will take them then to Genesis and briefly explain that and how we became sinners. So that’s where you that’s where you start. All right. And you also realize that we have a problem with Satan. He’s involved in all of this. He is fighting against God’s kingdom. I may not use the word kingdom. Sure. I don’t want to make it too complicated for people, but there it is. And you begin right there. And of course, if you’re presenting an evangelism, you take them to the cross. Jesus, the King of Kings. I may not say king of kings, but that’s where it is, isn’t it? Yes. And then he is going to come back to rule. So, in a nutshell, that’s where it all happens. I think it’s a little bit difficult to be able to convince people about receiving Christ being saved if they don’t realize they are sinners and where that came from.
MT: Yes. Excellent. When you are presenting as we think as we think about the evangelistic opportunities in thinking about the kingdom, when you have somebody that then understands comes to know by faith in Christ and is continuing to study their Bible, and maybe even you have some stories of this point where people are looking through their Bible and asking those questions. I’m seeing this word kingdom. I’m seeing the nation of Israel. And how do I think through that, especially with current events that there is on the globe, Israel is a country. How do you think about that? So, this is moving it a little bit for from maybe the pastoral into the academic realm, but how do you help people to think about the kingdom when you are just introducing it to them, that concept of the kingdom? And then what? How do you begin to develop that concept of Israel, not to just leave them in the Old Testament, but then to give them that full picture from cover to cover of how the kingdom is in God’s hands and not something that just in Israel is in the Old Testament, but yet God is still holding that. So how do you develop the concept of the kingdom for somebody who is developing the understanding of Scripture?
JB: Well, I think Roy can answer this even better than I do. So, when I’m done, ask him. Yes, but that’s a big thing. Yeah. And so, I wouldn’t get at that right away. I would tell the person just briefly just I would briefly outline what’s going to happen and Jesus is coming back and that he is going to rule. But there are other things in the Bible that tell us about why governments succeed and why they fail, and that is connected with God’s kingdom, because he is the king and governments have to decide, are we going to follow him and his truth or are we going to follow our own hearts? One will succeed, the other will fail dismally. So, if we get to talking about that and you asked about Israel, just a brief answer on that. I will tell people the Kingdom of God is always connected with Israel. If you understand what’s happening in Israel, then you’ll understand better what’s happening with God’s kingdom, and I’ll give the rest to Roy. Yeah.
MT: Dr. Beacham How do we think about that topic in when it can be politically charged or in thinking through that the essence of what is Israel and how do we connect to that?
RB: Okay. Well, let me let me back up and throw a monkey wrench into the works, because I think a lot of people who are listening to the podcast probably don’t understand the word kingdom the way Dr. Brown and I are talking about it. Most people today, I believe, think of the kingdom as some ethereal spiritual realm that we enter when we when we get saved, accept and be born again. We shall not enter the Kingdom of God. So, we are born again. We do enter the kingdom. We’re all in the kingdom. Let’s all you know, worship God in the kingdom, in the spiritual kingdom that itself, this idea of a spiritual realm, where the kingdom is some ethereal, you know, experience tied to soteriology, there’s a huge misconception there that would take a great deal of time to talk about. Maybe we’ll get into that a little bit. But the point of a true definition of the kingdom is that that God established he made man in his image, or some would say as his image an image. God said, let us make man in our image. Or I’d like to translate that perhaps as our image. An image in the Old Testament is of visible representation of an invisible deity. God rules over his creation all of the time, but he made Adam to be his representative, to let us make man as our image and let him rule over the fish. And to see the fall over he is to rule, as Jeff said, and failed in that. So eventually, throughout in history, God called Abraham out of all of the day, all of the peoples of the earth. He said, I’m going to make of you a great nation. He took Abraham’s ethnic descendants into Egypt, consolidated them, brought them out to Mount Sinai at the Exodus, as we discussed earlier. And he gave them the Mosaic covenant he made of this ethnic group, a nation, a kingdom. So now Israel is God’s representative nation on earth. They are to emulate what God living is like, what God faith is like, what God economy is like, what God’s sociology is like, what God worship is like there to show the world what God’s kingdom looks like. It’s a visible physical thing as represented by the nation of Israel. Israel also fails in her responsibility, but God has a plan for the nations. Read the book of Daniel Nebuchadnezzar’s vision with the head of gold, chest of silver. And so forth, which ends in the stone without hands. The image. All the nations of the earth are defeated and destroyed by God’s kingdom. When Christ comes, He will establish His kingdom. Daniel sees the same kind of vision in Chapter seven. So, God is ruling over everything all the time. But He chose Israel to be His representative people on earth and the prophets speak much about how God is going to use how He used Israel in the past, how God is going to use Israel in the future.
One of the big topics is how do we interpret the prophets?
And both Dr. Brown and I would say we interpret them at face value. We take them for what they mean, what they say, and that is that there is a future, a literal future reestablishment of Israel as God’s kingdom in the end times. That’s the kingdom we’re talking about. How does anyone ever enter that kingdom by being born again? You’re not entering some ethereal, physical or ethereal spiritual realm at this moment, but you will someday inherit the kingdom as spoken of in the Epistles.
So, it’s a very tangible thing. Israel, as Jeff said, is at the very center. If God is using national Israel in his plan for this world and his plan for the future. So, picking up even on that national idea that using that word nation, the understanding that the prophets speaking literally and speaking, many of them spoke about that understanding of the nations that forget God,
MT: Jeff, I want to come to you just to ask him and how do we how do we think through that? The nations that forget God is that that’s something that we should be mindful of, even as we read the prophets and what they are speaking about. How do we process that?
JB: Well, in the first place, if you’re reading the Prophets, you need to understand God is speaking to Israel. At times He is speaking to other nations. Read in the book of Amos that he speaks very plainly why he’s going to judge them for specifics. In the nation around Israel. He talks to Babylon through Jeremiah, I believe, and says that he’s going to they’re going to have total rule and even the beasts of the of the earth are going to be under the rule of Babylon. So, God is very much at work in the in the nations. So the nations that forget God and it’s basically all of them, right? Yeah. And he’s talking not just about Israel, okay? It’s plural. It’s the nations that forget God and. And you read about it in. History. And from the time of Christ, so many nations were introduced to the gospel. They were introduced to the Word of God. They were introduced to concepts of Christianity, and they had development. As a result of that. They had some very positive development. As a result of that, a Germany was one of those places that had tremendous Christian development, I would say. All right, where the early Christian No, where a lot of bad things going on. Yes. But we see the Reformation taking place there. We see what happened in all of Europe, really the rise of modern science, the rise of technology. I don’t have time to go into it, but where did they get all those ideas? Modern technology, a lot of it came from the monks. Okay. And that those were centers of learning. They were Christian centers of learning. Even if not all those guys were saved. They were Christian centers of learning. They wanted to lighten the burden of man who was made in the image of God. Where in the world that the wheelbarrow come from? We don’t think about that or use it. It came from the monks. Nobody else came up with that idea. And they came up with that idea because they wanted to lighten the burden of the average person made in the image of God. They cared because God cared.
Now, let’s talk about what happened in nations forgetting God and Germany, where I spent so much time, is just what in German, we say rather by spiel. It is the example in up to our day, the example of forgetting God. And they turned away. They followed someone on as their Messiah. Practically not everyone, but the majority of the people they joined in, or they tolerated. Or they went along with it, even if they didn’t believe that was a godless society that was turning away from God. And Hitler had the goal to kill all the Jews, at least all that he could reach. And secondly, when he was done with that, I read this in a book by Dr. Richard Weichert, who is just an impeccable scholar. He has a book on Hitler’s religion, and he was determined when the Jews were eliminated that the Christians were next in line. He was going to eliminate all Christians. And what happened? Well, we all know what happened. There were terribly punished, terribly punished. And they were they were laid low. And afterward they were ashamed. And for many people in Germany for decades afterward, they were so ashamed that they didn’t even want to talk about it. That’s what God will do if a nation forgets him. so as, as we’ve seen Christianity impacting cultures what are ways that that has had development in ideas whether in science or historical understanding just of how people have seen the world, maybe how they see themselves?
MT: How has this development of the Kingdom of God actually thrust forward a right understanding of how we see ourselves as human beings in this world?
JB: Let me say a couple of things. One, when we talk about men caring for other human beings, men and women caring for others, nothing has brought that forward in the world quite like the Christian faith has done. The Christian faith took it from both the old and the New Testaments. But when we talk about healing, when we talk about medicine, when did hospitals come into being? They came into being in the early three hundreds or mid three hundreds A.D. And it was because of Christians that hospitals came into being. How did modern medicine come into being? That came into being the father of modern medicine is called is noted as Thomas side and ham side and hammer seed and ham. I can’t remember how you pronounce that in England in the late 1600s and he wanted to magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of how the Bible talks about human beings, he felt, this is what we need to do. We need to seek healing for them. And so, he investigated in a scientific way, and he was wanting to do this for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the impact of Christianity upon health, upon medicine. And I’ll add one more. Modern science, if you read the book, and not many people do, but some of us do, called Science in the Modern World, written now almost 100 years ago by Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead was no Christian at all, but he said, I have to admit that it came. Science got started, modern science got started through the rational God of Christianity. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have any basis for investigating because you have to have a rational God to have rational nature. And let me add one more thing to it. I read a book in my doctoral studies by a man named Stanley Yockey, who was both a theologian in the Roman Catholic Church and also had his Ph.D. in astrophysics and in his book, Science and Creation. He spends enormous time showing how nearly every civilization had a cyclical view of nature. It had a beginning; it had a development. It reached its high peak, and then it had its downturn and decline until it ended. And what happened after that? It all started over again. All right. This was the view of history. You can read it as you study cultures all over the world. Basically, everyone had it like this. And he said, when you have this view of history and this view of the world, there is no motivation to push onward. If, however, and there was only one nation that did not have that view, Israel, Israel believed everything was created in a particular time. History goes in a lineal view or lineal way. What did we get that you learned it, Dr. Beach, and learned it. I learned it. Everybody learns that history in a lineal presentation. Okay, we can follow it. Where did that come from? Came from the Jews. Jews got it from the Bible. And the Jews passed it on to the Christians. And the Christians spread it all over Europe. All right. You can have science because you can. You can look back to the past and figure out how did this event get caused from this lineal view. Yeah, that’s where it came from. Yeah, I think we if we talk about history, I’d like to give the rest of it over to Dr. Beacham.
RB: Well, as you think about Israel’s view of history again, I would revert to the book of Daniel. The Book of Daniel has the most amazing, specific discussions of what God is doing in history. One of his particular visions down to the very day specific event hundreds of years later. But going back to the vision of Nebuchadnezzar and chapter two, where You have the head of gold, which is Babylon, the chest of silver, which is Medo-Persia. Then you have the belly and thighs of bronze, which is Greece. And then the feet of iron clay, which is Rome. There’s a progression of four major empires just mentioned Babylon. Ruling over everything. Nebuchadnezzar was it was told him that vision that you, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, you are the head of gold. You are ruling over the entire creation. Now, that’s called in scripture very specifically, more than once, the times of the Gentiles, God has said Israel will say they have gone into captivity. Now the Gentiles are running things until God restores the kingdom to Israel, which is what Jesus offered in the gospels. But that’s another discussion. The point we’re making here is that God is a God of history. He is ruling over everything all the time, though man fails or Israel fails or the church will fail. God is ruling over everything all of the time He puts up since he takes donations, puts up leaders, takes down leaders, and history is moving toward an end point. That end point is the return of Jesus Christ to establish his kingdom, His rule on earth over Israel, who will rule over all of the other nations.
If you read the prophets literally for what they say, and Jesus Christ will rule for a thousand years until the end of time, He will put down all rebellion. He will put down all nations who have opposed him. He will put down all peoples and essentially what he does at the end of the thousand years is he brings the earth back to the original created order where God saw everything that he is made of. Behold, that was good. And when Jesus brings the entire created order back to the beginning, then at the end of his rule, his kingdom, he turns the kingdom over to the father.
Paul tells Secret the ends where God will destroy this world. He will make a new heaven and a new earth. And all of those who have come to faith in the Messiah, Jesus, faith in God and have a relationship with Him. God will dwell with them on the New Earth forever and ever. That’s where history is going. And we’re told that very explicitly in Scripture over and over again. If we read it for what it says, excellent.
MT: I think as we are encouraged in the truthfulness of the Kingdom of God, we can often be sidetracked by the evidences of this world that seem to show that God is not in control. How do we think about our current day events? Those things are going on. You just gave us the biblical understanding of how God and what God has still in plan for us as we look as maybe watching the news looking around us today. What are those either evidences of the Kingdom of God? How do how do we look at that and not say and there’s no way or even just speaking it apologetically to the person that say, there’s no way God’s in control. Look at look at all these things that are happening. How can we give an encouragement to the people understanding that God is still in control of all these events and they’re unfolding in a way that He has perfectly planned? And I know that’s a faith element and I’m answering the question in that way. But how do we present that in in looking at what’s going on in that apologetic way to see that God is still in control?
JB: Well, there’s a lot of things that we can say. And I’m and I’m going to look to Roy in a minute because I’ll just I’ll just say just say a little. Yes, it does involve faith, but it’s also God gave us eyes, gave us ears. He gave us a sense of smell, a sense of taste so that we could understand and test what is going on. God made us that way. All right. And so, you see, you observe. You’re not just coming up with ideas. You watch. If you know the Lord and if you know his word, then you see things are happening. I have a presentation. I’ll come to that later. But I have a presentation on the Kingdom of God from Genesis, from the creation, I call it from Creation to Eternity. And I talk about what God has done. Of course, I use the Scripture going through all of history. And I had a teenager come up to me after two sessions of that, 2 hours of it, any.
And he said to me, “I really want to thank you, because before I came in here, I had real questions about whether God was even working in the world.” Today, this young man is planning on a matter of fact, he started studying for the ministry, so part of it is just being willing to take in what the Bible says and then you can get it.
Okay. But all right. We’re talking about apologetics. Okay. And how do we talk to an unsaved person? There are plenty of things. Now, ultimately, if a person is agnostic enough, they can say it’s all chance, if they’re agnostic enough. All right. But you cannot cross the street believing in chance, right. So, I will give one illustration that I’m sure you can come up with a lot more of a of a whole broad presentation God at work in the world. And I’d like to come back to Germany, where I spent so much time when the when the main persons were judged in the Nuremberg trials, the first round there were 12 who were accused of crimes against humanity. One of them was gone. They couldn’t find him. He was accused and he was convicted. One of them during a committed suicide the night before. And so, on the day of the execution, there were ten. And one of the men who was who was hung was the guy name you will use Trisha. And Trisha was involved in propaganda and doing all he could to make the Jews look bad, to make the Germans detest the Jews, to hate the Jews. And when it came time for him to have he was a Roman Catholic by on paper at least, to have someone come as a counselor and say last words with him or last rites. He said, I don’t want to talk to anybody. And then he started into a rant, and it was how all of you here are going to fall under the under the arm of communism, and they’ll destroy all of you and it’ll be the worst thing you ever did. And he just went on and on. And then all at once, he stopped Julius Trisha because he wanted to destroy the Jews, studied and studied Jewish culture, including the Bible, to a fair extent. And when he stopped, he then said Purim 1946. Those were his last words. Why was he saying that? Because there were ten sons of Heymann, who were trying to he was trying to destroy all of the Jews. There were ten. And they are listed in a if you’re in a read, a Jewish scroll, not the Hebrew Bibles that we use here, okay? But in the Jewish scroll, those are in big letters. And it’s the only book like that. The only scroll like that in in the Jewish Bible. All right, all those ten sons of hangman, they were executed on the day Purim. The ten men in Nürnberg were executed on the day of Purim. You’ll strike. Recognize that the Americans, the Russians had no intention of doing that on the day of Purim. It just happened. And everything that took place, they got executed on that day. They were not concerned about the Book of Esther, but it turned out exactly like that. Yes, God is active in history, and he is looking over his people. Israel
MT: I’ll ask Dr. Beacham, just give us a final word, just as we think about the greatness of the kingdom and the comfort that it is to us as believers in these days, going forward, just as we’ve had the biblical truth we see with that evidence in our eyes, what are those comforting thoughts that we have as an encouragement in these days ahead that we can think that God is still in control and His kingdom is at hand as we as we pray for his kingdom to come?
RB: Well, again, let me just reiterate that we need to think about the kingdom, not in some esoteric spiritual way, but as something that God had used in history of Israel that God is going to reestablish in the future. It’s a literal, tangible coming time of the rule of Christ over Israel is all over the nations. And the epistles to the church actually tell us how we as church people, not we are not Israel, we are the church, but God is using the church now during the time of the Gentiles in gathering many Gentiles to rule with him in that kingdom.
“Here’s what the Epistles tell us. We as believers in the church are citizens of this future kingdom That is our homeland, that is our inheritance. That’s what we look forward to.”
We are citizens of the coming kingdom. We should be living kingdom lives. We should not be living as the people in this world. We should be living differently. We’re strangers, foreigners, pilgrims. We’re passing through. We’re ambassadors, as Jeff has said, to share the gospel of the coming kingdom, salvation and entrance to the Kingdom. We’re ambassadors of the kingdom. We are kingdom citizens. We have a kingdom message. We should be living kingdom lives and we should be living every day of our lives in anticipation of this coming kingdom.
Certainly, I’m concerned about affairs in America, certainly I’m concerned about upcoming elections and all of those things. But God is in control of this one. God is going to accomplish His purpose. I am a citizen of his kingdom. I need to live that way. I need to share that truth, and I need to look forward to that coming kingdom. And I do. The older I get, the more anxious I am. Even so come Lord Jesus. Amen.
MT: Thinking of God’s involvement on that big scale. But even something that we ask on this podcast is thinking on a personal level that work of God in your life, whether that’s in your personal family, your ministry, or things that you’re seeing. Now. What I want to ask you, you both, just as we close this time.
What is a work of God that you’ve seen recently in your life that you just want to give a word of thanks to God in that way that he is working in and among you?
Jeff, what’s the way that God is working in your either family or ministry or work of God that you’ve seen recently?
JB: When I returned from Germany and we now live in South Carolina, ended my ministry there, it was time I was really physically done in. I was mentally done and perhaps spiritually done in, I don’t know for sure of a spiritually done then, but physically and mentally I was done in. It took me a good while to recover. My wife can say better. I’m always optimistic on things, but she can tell you how long it took for me to recover. But it was almost a year that that I had felt still done in, and I thought God was all done with me as a preacher. And so, I began to think in terms of, well, I’m not going to do this anymore. And God convicted me, and I prayed, and I said, Lord, you give me a chance to preach. I will preach, I will serve you. I’m no longer a missionary in Germany, but however you want to use me, you can use me. And within about a week and a half, I had an invitation to preach. And so, I immediately said, yes, this I know this is God’s answer. Yeah. And we’ve had ministry. We are in the in the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina. That is our new church home. And they have put us into more and more ministry there, both Linda and me. And we’ve appreciated it and we have thrived in it. And God has used us to reach others for Christ. Linda with a what is it called child evangelism Ministry. She has she led a young boy to Christ last year. And I was able to lead my neighbor to Christ in the past four months. And so, God’s not done with me. And I just I just had a I was a keynote speaker for a seminar of pastors in Wisconsin, and there were about 70 pastors and their wives there. And the topic was discipleship. And I guess God isn’t done with me yet. So, I think that’s the best way, the best example I could give. Yeah. God, does it work? Wonderful.
What is a work of God that you’ve seen recently in your life that you just want to give a word of thanks to God in that way that he is working in and among you?
RB: Jeff and I are kind of in the same because we went to seminary together. We’re in the same stage of life. We are two months apart. Yes, exactly two months apart. So, in any case, I so semi-retired, but I still have the opportunity to teach one class a semester at the seminary, which scratches the edge of teaching. I love all of those classes. I look forward to them every year. I did retire from 19 years of work with the Plymouth Police Department as a chaplain, though I still meet occasionally with many of those officers and with the retired officers of the department who I knew when I did serve there. So, I have many opportunities with them that I could talk a lot about. But I think personally, you know, as we age, as our bodies fall apart, as the world gets more difficult to live in, as we have children and grandchildren and their lives become complicated, it’s just interesting to me to see how God works.
“Even in our trials, our hardships, the turmoil and the traumas that arise. But he’s driving us closer and closer to him. And as I said, the older I get, the more I look forward to the world that is really to be. But until then, we are learning to trust and learning to walk by faith in deeper ways than we ever could. We are still learning, and we are still growing and it’s just a wonderful, wonderful thing to walk with the Lord every day and see what he’s doing personally.”
MT: Amen. Thank you both for being on our podcast today and thank you for listening to the Central Seminary podcast.
Our mission at Central Seminary is to assist New Testament churches in equipping spiritual leaders for Christ-exalting Biblical ministry. Since its founding in 1956, Central Seminary has sought to provide serious students of God’s Word with robust theological education as they prepare for ministry. We have many graduates around the world who are serving in countless ways to spread the Gospel and proclaim the name of Jesus Christ! Find out more at our website, centralseminary.edu.
Next Podcast Episode: Teaching the Kingdom of God: Part 2 with Roy Beacham & Jeff Brown
Erecting the Right Fences in the Right Places, Part Five: Why Primary Doctrines Are Worth Fighting For
Gavin Ortlund has written Finding the Right Hills to Die On to work out a theory of doctrinal triage. While I have expressed reservations over the analogy to triage, I am all in favor of every thoughtful attempt to weigh doctrines for their importance. Like Ortlund, I recognize that some doctrines are primary in the sense that they are fundamental or essential to the being of Christianity. His concern in the present chapter is to articulate a way of identifying those doctrines, to distinguish them from doctrines of lesser importance, and to encourage what I can only describe as an attitude of militancy with respect to these most important doctrines.
The task that Ortlund sets for himself is nothing new. Each generation of Christians has recognized that some doctrines are essential. In times of controversy such as the Reformation, identifying the most critical doctrines has taken a special focus. Interestingly, the most thoughtful theologians have consistently denied the possibility of developing an exhaustive list of fundamental doctrines. We articulate doctrines in the face of denials and aberrations, and new denials and aberrations are still taking place. We discover that doctrines are fundamental only when heresies drive us to examine and articulate them. Consequently, we do not yet know what all the fundamentals are.
Fundamental teachings have been articulated at different points in doctrinal history. Trinitarian fundamentals were defined first, followed by fundamentals related to the person and natures of Christ. Certain aspects of human nature were discovered to be fundamental during the Pelagian controversy. The doctrine of justification was not fully articulated until the time of the Reformation. Biblical inerrancy received definition during the century beginning in about 1880. Exhaustive divine foreknowledge only began to receive full attention after the incursions of Open Theism in the 1990s, and I suspect that more remains to be said about this doctrine.
In an important sense we are still discovering new fundamentals. I am not suggesting that the doctrines themselves are new. What is new is that the denial of the doctrines leads to a subsequent focus upon and articulation of them. Every fundamental doctrine has a defining point in history. Before that point, Christians do believe the doctrine, but they believe it in a loose, imprecise, and even inchoate way. After the defining point, precision becomes a requirement for orthodoxy.
So how does one identify a fundamental doctrine? Ortlund examines a couple of schemes that he says “are a bit long” (79). Nevertheless, he eventually lands on three criteria that have commonly been articulated in the wake of the Reformation. I’ll summarize them in my language. One identifies fundamental doctrines (1) by their clarity within Scripture, (2) by their centrality to the gospel, and (3) by the catholicity by which they have been received among the true people of God. To these three Ortlund adds a fourth criterion, which he calls “the doctrine’s effect upon the church today” (79).
Every fundamental doctrine—or, in the case of complex doctrines like the Trinity, every component of the doctrine—must be revealed with clarity somewhere in Scripture. Every fundamental doctrine must be so integral to the gospel that the denial of the doctrine implies the denial of the gospel itself. Every fundamental doctrine must have been believed, at least implicitly, by true Christians in all generations.
The third test is the stickiest, for two reasons. First, it involves an element of circularity. Fundamental doctrines are believed by all true Christians, but we recognize people as true Christians because they believe the fundamental doctrines. Second, before the doctrine reaches a historic defining point it may be very loosely expressed, and some of those expressions may become unacceptable after the defining point. For example, the relationship of Christ to the Father was not formally defined until the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and even Athanasius expressed himself in ways that would later become unacceptable. Nevertheless, Christians had been worshipping Jesus Christ as God all along. The fundamental doctrine was believed, even if it was not defined.
During his discussion, Ortlund addresses each of the foregoing considerations in one way or another. He also recognizes three other important distinctions. One is the distinction between doctrines that must be explicitly known and believed for salvation versus doctrines that may not be known but must not be denied. In other words, while all the fundamentals are essential to the gospel, some are not essential to sharing the plan of salvation. A new believer will not know all the fundamentals. A growing believer may even be confused about some fundamentals. Yet all the fundamentals are implicit in saving faith, and to deny them knowingly is to deny the gospel itself.
The second distinction is between a learner and a teacher. In the process of learning the faith, some believers may temporarily fail to grasp the significance of some fundamental doctrines. Some learners may even develop wrong beliefs, and they may hold those beliefs until the importance of the truth is made clear to them. Because such believers are learners, they do only minimal (if any) damage to the faith. The same cannot be said of teachers. Those who put themselves forward as teachers have an obligation to know the faith and to teach it correctly. They are more culpable for error, and they profoundly damage the gospel if they teach falsehoods with respect to fundamental doctrines. As Ortlund puts it, “We must distinguish between confused sheep and active wolves” (81).
The third distinction that Ortlund recognizes is the distinction between profession and belief. Human beings have a massive capacity for inconsistency. In our inconsistency, we may deny speculatively some truths upon which we really rely in ordinary life. In Christian terms, this means that people might deny fundamentals theoretically while nevertheless trusting Christ for salvation.
The upshot is that, except in the most extreme cases, we are not equipped to evaluate whether people are saved, even when they deny important doctrines. We must adopt a double attitude toward such people. In deciding whether to fellowship with them, we must base our choices upon what they say they believe. In doing so, however, we do not usually make any judgment about whether they are headed for heaven or hell. That involves a question of heart beliefs that we cannot readily observe.
Ortlund touches on all the foregoing issues. While we express ourselves in slightly different ways, I believe that we largely agree on these points. In the second half of his chapter, he applies these principles to two particular doctrinal issues. In doing so, he raises other questions that deserve consideration. I want to address those issues in the next discussion.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
How Precious Is the Book Divine
John Fawcett (1740–1817)
How precious is the book divine,
by inspiration given;
bright as a lamp its doctrines shine,
to guide our souls to heav’n.
It sweetly cheers our drooping hearts,
in this dark vale of tears;
life, light, and joy it still imparts
and quells our rising fears.
This lamp, through all the tedious night
of life, shall guide our way,
till we behold the clearer light
of an eternal day.
How To Think About Israel
The following essay was written in 2015, during Barak Obama’s presidency. It originally addressed specific events in the relationship between the United States and Israel. Recent events indicate that the core ideas of the essay are still germane. References to the events of 2015 have been removed, but the essay is otherwise substantially identical.
* * *
Given the controversy in the Middle East, Christians sometimes wonder how they should think about Israel. The problem is especially acute for dispensationalists, who believe that national Israel is still a chosen people of God and will someday be restored to God’s favor. Several observations might help Christian people to adopt a correct attitude toward Israel.
First, the modern state of Israel is not equivalent to the national Israel of the Bible. Most of the world’s Jewish population is still scattered in the Diaspora. In fact, about as many Jewish people live in the United States as live in the state of Israel (perhaps more—getting a count of the Jewish population in America has been controversial). Israel was not regathered to the land (in any prophetic sense) in 1948 or at any time since. Furthermore, about a quarter of the Israeli population is not Jewish.
Second, as a corollary of the foregoing, the modern state of Israel is not in a position to claim promises made to the biblical nation of Israel. It is not in any sense inheriting the “land” provisions of the Abrahamic covenant. In fact, no part of biblical, national Israel can claim those promises at this moment. The apostle Paul depicts biblical Israel as presently experiencing a dual relationship with God during the present age. Concerning the gospel, God has permitted national Israel to fall into a position of enmity for the sake of the church. Concerning their election, however, God still loves national Israel for the sake of the patriarchs (Rom. 11:28). While occupying the status of “beloved enemy,” biblical Israel is temporarily under the judgment and not the blessing of God. The modern state of Israel can certainly point to its territory as a historic homeland, but it has no right to claim the land by divine title.
Third, no aspect of biblical prophecy depends for its fulfillment upon the existence of the state of Israel. Specifically, the Rapture is not contingent upon Israel being in the land. If the Arabs were to succeed in pushing Israel into the Mediterranean, not one biblical prophecy would be altered. Those who believe in a pretribulational Rapture could still believe in a pretribulational Rapture, complete with a doctrine of imminency.
Fourth, while the modern state of Israel is not identical with the biblical nation of Israel, those Jews who are presently in the land do constitute a part of ethnic Israel as it exists today. Furthermore, even though national Israel is presently and temporarily under God’s judgment (the Diaspora has not been revoked), God cares about His people while they are being judged. In the Old Testament, God used Gentile nations to judge Israel, but He held those nations accountable for what they did. As instruments of judgment, they had a choice about how they would treat Jewish people. God blessed those who treated Jewish people well, and He visited calamity upon those who persecuted Israel. In other words, Gentiles will always find it in their interest to treat Jewish people with respect and to provide protection when they come under attack. This respect and protection should have been extended to the Jewish population of Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. It should be extended to the Jewish population of the United States and other countries today. And it certainly could be extended to the state of Israel.
Fifth, the modern state of Israel was not imposed by the aggression of one nation against another. Rather, it was carved out of a decaying section of a disintegrating Ottoman Empire by powers that had defeated the Ottomans in just war. It was created to provide a home for a displaced and decimated people, only a fragment of whom survived Hitler’s death camps. Those who survived had endured the confiscation of their homes and their wealth. Many were interred in refugee camps. No wonder they flocked to Israel when the opportunity presented itself. The state of Israel has every right to exist and every right to survive.
Sixth, modern Israel is a sovereign state with the rights and privileges of any present-day nation. These rights and privileges include self-determination and self-protection. They also include the right to form alliances or treaties, and modern Israel has chosen to do just that with the United States. As a purely pragmatic matter, Israel is the only reliable ally that the United States has in the Middle East. The interest of America is served at multiple levels by helping to secure the peace and prosperity of Israel.
Seventh, Arabs, including those who consider themselves Palestinian, also have rights. Furthermore, God has a future for other Middle Eastern nations besides Israel. A day is coming when both Egypt and Iraq will stand beside Israel as peoples of God (Isa. 19:19ff). Christians must not allow their genuine respect for Jewish people or their loyalty to the state of Israel to blind them to the real rights of the surrounding nations or of the Arab population within Israel.
Eighth, no nation is without fault, including the state of Israel. Neither Christians nor Americans are obligated to defend every choice and every action taken by the Israelis. The United States has sometimes been wrong in its own policies—so has Israel. The United States has sometimes blundered and committed evil deeds—so has Israel. Both Israelis and Americans ought to work to correct past wrongs and to prevent future ones. Deciding what those wrongs are, however, and determining how they are best corrected requires mature and responsible deliberation, not political grandstanding or visceral reactions. Such decisions cannot be made justly or effectively at gunpoint.
The Christian attitude toward modern Israel ought to be one of committed but tempered support. Under all circumstances, Christians ought to be found blessing the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—never cursing them. Realism requires us to recognize that Israel will commit injustices, but occasional injustices should not lead us to abandon our closest ally in the Middle East.
Postscript
When this article was written in 2015, Israel was not enduring invasion by a foreign power. At present, Christians should expect the United States to respond in at least two minimal ways. First, the U.S. has no business trying to restrain Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel should be given a free hand in protecting its citizens from foreign invasion. Second, the U.S. must provide no aid or comfort to the powers that have invaded Israel, including so-called “humanitarian aid.” Sending aid relieves the terroristic authorities in Gaza of the need to care for their own people, and “humanitarian aid” will almost certainly be expropriated to support the campaign against Israel.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
The Promise of My Father’s Love
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
The promise of my Father’s love
Shall stand for ever good:
He said, and gave his soul to death,
And seal’d the grace with blood.
To this dear cov’nant of thy word
I set my worthless name;
I seal th’engagement to my Lord,
And make my humble claim.
Thy light, and strength, and pard’ning grace,
And glory shall be mine;
My life and soul, my heart and flesh,
And all my pow’rs are thine.
I call that legacy my own,
Which Jesus did bequeath;
‘Twas purchas’d with a dying groan,
And ratifi’d in death.
Sweet is the mem’ry of his name,
Who bless’d us in his will,
And to his testament of love,
Made his own life the seal.
Central Baptist Theological Seminary Announces Recipient of the Dale Goetz Christian Leadership Scholarship
Central Seminary is proud to announce the recipient of the Dale Goetz Christian Leadership Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded at our Fall Conference to an upperclassman in the MDiv program who best exemplifies the qualities of Christian leadership. This year’s recipient is Tim Bonebright, the current pastor of Goodland Bible Church in Goodland, KS.
The scholarship is named after Chaplain Dale Goetz, who received his MDiv from Central Seminary in 2000. After serving as a pastor in White, SD, Chaplain Goetz became a chaplain and in God’s bitter providence he was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2010, the first Army chaplain to die in combat since Vietnam.
At Central Seminary, we are grateful for all our donors who fund scholarships that help reduce tuition costs for our students. The Dale Goetz Christian Leadership Scholarship is particularly significant as it honors the memory of a courageous and selfless Christian leader.
APPLICATION & AID