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.

Disclaimers to Inspiration?

by Kevin Bauder | Jun 23, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

The Bible affirms its own inspiration. Both testaments have the authority of Christ behind them. The New Testament authors treat their own writings as authoritative. They even cite one another’s writings as Scripture. Their affirmations about the text imply verbal inspiration, which in turn entails the inerrancy of Scripture as originally inspired.

Nevertheless, critics cite a handful of passages from the New Testament as evidence that at least some passages must not be inspired. Read in a certain way, these passages appear to disclaim inspiration. In them, the biblical writer seems to be insisting that his words are merely his and not divinely chosen.

Read correctly, however, these passages do not disavow inspiration. Instead, they serve to bolster the claims that the writers speak with divine authority. Three of the most commonly cited passages occur in the writings of Paul.

The first of these is in Romans 3:5 where, in the middle of his argument, Paul interjects the parenthetical statement, “I speak as a man.” Taken in isolation, the statement seems puzzling. Is Paul suggesting that during this particular discussion he is merely offering his own human perspective rather than speaking as the oracles of God?

As so often occurs, the answer becomes clear by paying attention to the context. The epistle to the Romans is a tightly reasoned theological treatise. In advancing the argument of this epistle, Paul anticipates that he will have to deal with objections that will occur to his readers. His strategy is to raise the objections himself, usually as if they were posed by some imaginary interlocutor.

For example, near the end of Romans 3 Paul says that God justifies Jews as well as Gentiles through faith (3:30). That observation raises a possible objection, and Paul frames the objection as a question in the next verse: “Do we then make void the law through faith?” Paul then answers his own question by exclaiming, “God forbid” (3:31). He then gives the reasons that this objection is mistaken. Paul has raised the objection simply so that he can refute it.

Similarly, in Romans 6:1 he asks, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” In 6:15 he follows up by asking, “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?” Paul’s answer to both questions is, “God forbid.” Clearly, he is not endorsing the objection. Instead, he raises it so that he can dispatch it.

Another instance occurs in the opening verses of Romans 7, where Paul argues that God’s law works through human depravity so as to provoke sin and bring death. This teaching might leave the impression that the law itself is a bad thing. Paul anticipates this objection and raises it himself: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin?” (7:7). Again his answer is, “God forbid.”

In each case, Paul not only states these objections and denounces them as wrong but also goes on to show why they are wrong. He shows where the reasoning of these questions breaks down. By the time readers reach Romans 7, they should have become accustomed to this pattern, and Paul continues to employ it through the rest of his argument (see 9:14, 19; 11:1).

Paul first deploys this strategy early in Romans 3. There he asks a cluster of rhetorical questions that constitute objections to his argument. The first is, “For what if some [Jews] did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” (Rom 3:2). He answers this question with the phrase that becomes his standard reply: “God forbid.”

His answer to that objection, however, raises a more serious objection. “But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?” (3:5). As in other instances, Paul does not think this is a good question, and he does not think that it advances a sound argument. In this case, however, Paul wishes to distance himself from the objection even more than usual. He wants people to understand that he is not endorsing it. So he inserts the parenthetical qualification, “I speak as a man.”

What Paul is saying is that this is the kind of argument that sinful humans are likely to cook up. He is imagining some guy who doesn’t want to believe the truth and who tosses this argument into the debate to confuse the issue. When Paul says, “I speak as a man,” he is saying, “This is exactly the kind of argument that that guy would make.” Paul then rejects the argument with his standard denunciation: “God forbid,” going on to expose its flaws.

In other words, Paul does not intend to make any statement at all about his authority or the inspiration of what he writes. Instead, he intends to put a bad argument, framed as a question, in context. Paul is saying that this isn’t his argument, but the kind of argument that an unbeliever would make. As in the other instances, Paul raises the question only to be able to answer it and to refute the bad thinking that it embodies.

In no sense does Paul disclaim divine authority for his teaching or divine inspiration for his writing. The text stands as a model of persuasion, with Paul dismantling every objection that sinful humans throw against his argument. As an objection to verbal inspiration, Romans 3:5 simply fails.

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 When the Prophet Moses Raised

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

As when the prophet Moses raised
the brazen serpent high,
the wounded looked and straight were cured,
the people ceased to die:

So from the Savior on the cross
a healing virtue flows;
who looks to him with lively faith
is saved from endless woes.

For God gave up his Son to death,
so gen’rous was his love,
that all the faithful might enjoy
eternal life above.

Not to condemn the sons of men
the Son of God appeared;
no weapons in his hand are seen,
nor voice of terror heard:

He came to raise our fallen state,
and our lost hopes restore;
faith leads us to the mercy seat,
and bids us fear no more.

The Foundations Baptist Fellowship International

by Kevin Bauder | Jun 16, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

One of the perks of my job is that I occasionally get to represent Central Seminary at conferences, conventions, and other meetings. Thus it was that Mrs. Bauder and I found ourselves earlier this week on the campus of Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary. There we attended the annual fellowship meeting of the Foundations Baptist Fellowship International.

The FBFI has its origins in the 1920 pre-convention conference called by J. C. Massee before the Northern Baptist Convention meeting at Buffalo, New York. That pre-convention conference eventually resulted in an organization known as the Fundamentalist Fellowship of the Northern Baptist Convention, which came to be led by Earl V. Pierce. It was essentially a protest movement within a convention that was increasingly dominated by liberal theology.

When the time came to take steps toward separation, the Fundamentalist Fellowship renamed itself the Conservative Baptist Fellowship and chose Chester E. Tulga as its leader. It became the fountainhead of the entire Conservative Baptist Movement, organizing the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, the Conservative Baptist Association with its three regional fellowships, the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society, and the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary (now the Denver Seminary). The CBF remained a fellowship of individuals within this network of missions, church fellowships, and schools.

By the early 1960s it became clear that much of the Conservative Baptist Movement had capitulated to neoevangelicalism. The CBF once again renamed itself, becoming the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship. It organized the World Conservative Baptist Mission (now Baptist World Mission) and the New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches. Unlike the older Conservative Baptist Movement, these newer bodies maintained no direct connection with each other, and people tended to choose between the FBF and the NTA depending upon whether they prioritized individual fellowship or church association. People like B. Myron Cedarholm and the Weniger brothers, especially Arno and Archer, gravitated toward the FBF, while Minnesota Baptists preferred the NTA. To this day the NTA is stronger within Minnesota, though there is no hostility in either direction.

Further name changes occurred with the addition of the word International to the organization’s title, followed by a shift in the published name from Fundamental Baptist Fellowship to Foundations Baptist Fellowship. I believe that the legal name is still the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International.

The current president of the FBFI is Kevin Schaal, pastor of Northwest Valley Baptist Church near Phoenix, Arizona. Schaal was deeply influenced by the ministry of James Singleton, one of the most responsible and thoughtful leaders within the FBFI. The result is that Schaal combines long standing in the organization with a definite vision to see it play a role as a responsible voice within the evangelical and fundamentalist world of the twenty-first century.

There are no business meetings at the FBFI fellowships. Since it is a board-governed organization, the membership attends purely for purposes of mutual encouragement. This year’s meeting in Ankeny, Iowa focused mainly on promoting evangelism. The speakers were men who had demonstrated the ability to foster an evangelistic mindset within their churches while maintaining theological integrity.

Several mission agencies were visible at the meeting. Two were particularly conspicuous by the presence of their chief executives. One was Baptist World Mission, represented by its new executive director, Ben Sinclair. The other was Baptist Mid-Missions, represented by its president, Pat Odle. While Mid-Missions is sometimes viewed as primarily a Regular Baptist agency, its constituency is much larger than the GARBC, and the pastors of the FBFI make a natural fit.

Multiple institutions of higher learning were also represented. Of course, the meeting was on the campus of Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary. Other schools included International Baptist College and Seminary, Maranatha Baptist University (its new president, David Anderson, was present for the meeting), and Bob Jones University. I know that I spoke with someone from Appalachian Bible College, but I don’t recall whether that school had an exhibit.

The FBFI has traditionally maintained strong ties with Bob Jones University, and that long-standing bond was evident. The university’s chancellor was present. One of the best-known BJU professors, Jim Berg, spoke during a plenary session. One of the three members of the interim management team was also visible at the meeting.

In addition to its role as a fellowship, the FBFI also functions as an endorsing “denomination” for the Department of Defense. It stands behind scores of chaplains in every branch of the military, plus chaplains who work with prisons, hospitals, and police and fire departments. The FBFI annual meetings also include training sessions for these chaplains, who are highly visible throughout the event.

In terms of its public ministries, the FBFI publishes Frontline Magazine six times annually. It also sponsors a blog, Proclaim and Defend, and has recently begun a podcast. Anyone who wants to understand the spirit and ethos of the FBFI should look to these sources for first-hand information.

I did not grow up in FBFI circles. Through the years, however, I have found myself gravitating more and more to this organization. This week’s conference exemplifies my reasons. I can’t think of a single unpleasant thing about it. The hosts were gracious and accommodating. The preaching was challenging. The renewal of friendships was refreshing. Overall, this conference was a significant encouragement in the things of the Lord.

Brothers, Joining Hand to Hand

John Allen Warner (1851–1928)

Brothers, joining hand to hand,
In one bond united,
Pressing onward to that land
Where all wrongs are righted:
Let your words and actions be
Worthy your vocation;
Chosen of the Lord, and free,
Heirs of Christ’s salvation.

Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Who hath gone before you
Through the turmoil and the strife,
Holds His banner o’er you;
All who see the sacred sign
Press towards Heav’ns portal,
Fired by hope that is divine,
Love that is immortal.

They who follow fear no foe,
Care not who assail them;
Where the Master leads, they go,
He will never fail them;
Courage, brothers! we are one,
In the love that sought us;
Soon the warfare shall be done,
Through the grace He brought us.

The Baptist Paradox

by Kevin Bauder | Jun 9, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

[This essay was originally published on January 5, 2018.]

Denominations are like cans of soup. Each can contains a different mix of ingredients, and the label tells you which ingredients to expect. The ingredients of the soup with the Baptist label are called the Baptist distinctives. Taken together, these distinctives set Baptists apart from all other Christians. Briefly stated, the distinctives are:

The absolute authority of the New Testament for all matters of church faith and order.
Believer immersion (with emphasis on both words).
Pure church membership (including regenerate, baptized church members and the practice of church discipline).
Individual Christian responsibility (including both soul liberty and the priesthood of the believer).
The right of individual congregations to govern themselves under Christ.
The separation of church and state.

Christians who label or denominate themselves differently may disagree with any (or all) of these distinctives. Baptists certainly do not believe that they are the only true Christians. What they do believe is that these distinctives are essential for defining what churches are supposed to look like and how they are supposed to operate.

I am a Baptist by conviction. On my view, all of these distinctives are taught by the New Testament. Simply because they are biblical and true, however, does not mean that they are easy to implement. Some distinctives come with complications and tensions. The unwillingness to live with those tensions is part of the motivation that leads some people to reject them.

One example is the Baptist insistence upon the separation of church and state. This distinctive has become one of the political shibboleths of American government, but it began as a Baptist idea and its acceptance is the result of Baptist influence. What is now a secular political principle originated as a Baptist theological conclusion. Originally the political principle rested upon the theological rationale, and even now it can be rightly understood only in terms of that theology. To remove the theological foundation is to ensure that, sooner or later, the political principle will be redefined and misapplied in vicious ways. The necessity for a theological foundation creates a paradox: the only way to keep church and state properly separated is to maintain a theologically informed definition of church-state separation.

The paradox is broader than the mere concept of church-state separation. The social and political institutions of the West have grown out of Christendom. So have the definitions of abstractions such as liberty and justice. These concepts and institutions are informed by Christian (or Judeo-Christian) categories. Eliminating or altering these Christian categories inevitably distorts the definitions and subverts the institutions. If Christian categories do not regulate the institutions, and if the institutions are captured by those who remold them around anti-Christian categories, then the institutions will be used to obstruct the very Christian categories upon which they were erected, and then eventually to oppress Christians.

T. S. Eliot understood the importance of Christian categories for undergirding Western social and political institutions. This understanding led him overtly to deny the separation of church and state. In his essay, “The Idea of a Christian Society,” he argues for the importance of an established church, even if that establishment is merely nominal. He hoped that Christian categories could be upheld formally by the institutions that rested upon them.

Even if Eliot’s proposal might once have worked, however, we are well past that point. Christendom was dethroned long ago by Enlightenment secularism. The education and amusement industries have spent generations redefining the fundamental principles upon which Western, and especially American, institutions rest. A majority of Americans have been taught to fear Christian categories and definitions as a theocratic attack upon the separation of church and state. New definitions have been imposed and are now being enforced by the remolded institutions.

The Anabaptist response has typically been almost the opposite of Eliot’s: to abandon the public sphere. Even under Christendom the Anabaptists saw the political order as dominated by principalities and powers opposed to God. They shunned military and public service, even refusing to swear oaths. The Anabaptist approach, however, is not shared by Baptists, who have rejected the Anabaptist withdrawal from the public sphere as firmly as they have rejected religious establishment.

The Puritans, especially those in America, were true theonomists. They envisioned a society in which theological concerns would dominate the political order and in which the power of the state would enforce ecclesiastical rectitude. Theirs was the regime that whipped Baptists, hanged Quakers, and drove Roger Williams from his sick bed into the wilderness snows of a New England January. Nevertheless, even the rigid and mutual reinforcement of church and state could not permanently shield the Puritans from the pressures of the Enlightenment, nor did it protect them from the corruption and eventual contempt of their own children.

Baptists argued, not for religious toleration, but for genuine religious freedom. The paradox is that religious freedom can only be maintained in a society that holds definitions and principles congenial to Christianity. No other religion—including the presently-dominant religion of radical secularism—has put itself forward as a vigorous defender of soul liberty. The freedom to believe and practice whatever faith one thinks to be true depends upon the social and political dominance of Christianity.

To appearances, by insisting upon a firm separation of church and state, Baptists are effectively depriving themselves of the opportunity to determine the very definitions and institutions upon which that separation depends. In the face of this paradox, some may feel the allure of Eliot’s establishmentarianism, of the Anabaptists’ isolationism, or of the Puritans’ attempt at theonomy. Before submitting to that pull, however, two considerations are worth noting.

First, none of the non-Baptist alternatives has proven itself particularly effective at resisting the corrosive effects of the Enlightenment. Each has given way to some version of modernity and then postmodernity. Furthermore, none has exhibited the power permanently to preserve Christian categories in its surrounding social and political order, let alone to instill those categories where they have been lost. In short, none appears to be any more successful than the Baptist alternative at maintaining a society in which truly Christian liberty will endure for long.

Second, the separation of church and state does not imply the separation of church saints from the public square. Christian individuals can and should participate in the whole social order, including agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, education, the arts, and even politics and jurisprudence. They should bring their Christian definitions and perspectives into the public square with them. Whenever and wherever they can, they should apply their Christian perspectives to the full-orbed business of life.

Christians in secular civilization should aim to pattern themselves after Daniel and the Hebrew children in the Babylonian court. They should remember the counsel of Jeremiah 29:7, to seek the welfare of the city in which they live as exiles. They can and should participate up to the point at which participation requires disobedience to God. As a result, they may sometimes be promoted or they may sometimes be cast into the furnace. In either event, their circumstances and godly responses will place their faith, values, and priorities on display.

The Lord Will Come and Not Be Slow

John Milton (1608–1674)

The Lord will come and not be slow,
his footsteps cannot err;
before him righteousness shall go,
his royal harbinger.

Truth from the earth, like to a flow’r,
shall bud and blossom then,
and justice, from her heav’nly bow’r,
look down on mortal men.

Rise, God, and judge the earth in might,
this wicked earth redress;
for you are he who shall by right
the nations all possess.

For great you are, and wonders great
by your strong hand are done:
you, in your everlasting seat,
remain the Lord alone.

Jesus and the New Testament

by Kevin Bauder | Jun 2, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Jesus cited, used, and endorsed every section of the Old Testament, whether law, prophets, or writings. Consequently, the Old Testament stands as a unit with His stamp of approval upon it. To reject its authority is to assail the authority of Christ Himself.

The authors of the New Testament had a very high view of their own writings. They asserted the authority of what they wrote, comparing it to the authority of recognized biblical texts and of the Lord’s own words. They also endorsed each other’s writings. To accept apostolic authority is necessarily to accept the authority of the New Testament.

A question arises, however, and it is an important question. Did Jesus ever endorse the New Testament? Does it stand beside the Old Testament with His stamp of approval upon it?

To discover Jesus’s opinion of the New Testament will require a different kind of evidence than His explicit endorsement of the Old Testament. By the time Jesus was born, the most recent document from the Old Testament was several hundred years old, widely distributed, and well known. Yet not one book of the New Testament was written during the earthly life and ministry of Jesus. If Jesus endorsed the New Testament at all, then He had to do it before it was written. His words about the New Testament would have to take the form of foretelling a later event.

Such words can be found in Jesus’s discourse on the night before He died, which appears in John 13–17. This discourse is divided by the departure of Judas in John 13:31. After Judas had gone, Jesus addressed the eleven remaining apostles. Most of what He said was directed specifically to them. When Jesus meant to include other believers, He either used indefinite language, such as when He referred to “every branch in me” (15:2) or broadened His reference with some phrase such as “them also which shall believe on me through their word” (17:20). In this discourse, when Jesus used the plural “you,” He usually meant specifically, “you apostles.”

He certainly meant the apostles when He said, “I have yet many things to say to you” (16:12). Throughout His ministry Jesus had been revealing new truth to His disciples. Here, on the last night before the cross, He told them that He had more to say to them. This was an intimation that His revelation to the disciples remained incomplete.

The reason it was incomplete is because the disciples were “not yet able to bear it” (16:12). They lacked some capacity for bearing up under the weight of the truth that Jesus wanted to communicate to them. That deficiency would be corrected, however, with the coming of the Holy Spirit in His New Testament ministries (12:13). At that time, the Spirit would guide them “into all truth.”

To be clear, Jesus’s promise is not that the Holy Spirit would help the disciples to understand truth they had already received. Rather, the Spirit would guide them into the truth—all of it—that Jesus wanted them to have but that they were not yet ready to bear. In other words, these verses are about receiving truth (new revelation) and not about understanding truth already given (illumination).

Of course, the expression “all truth” must be understood within a particular universe of discourse. These words were not a promise that the Holy Spirit would make the disciples omniscient. He was not going to reveal the intricacies of differential calculus or the techniques of neurosurgery. Rather, Jesus was promising that the apostles would receive all the truth that Jesus intended them to have.

In guiding them to this truth, the Holy Spirit would not “speak of himself” (John 16:13). In other words, the truth would be coming through the Holy Spirit but not from the Holy Spirit. It would be coming from Jesus, who would impart it through the Holy Spirit. Helped by the Holy Spirit, the apostles would become mouthpieces for Jesus’s words.

What would this new revelation include? One description occurs in 16:25. There Jesus says that in the past He spoke to His disciples in proverbs (KJV) or figurative language (NASB). The term is paroima, and it conveys the idea of an utterance whose meaning is not readily apparent to the listener. This term reminds the reader of the many occasions upon which Jesus’s disciples failed to catch the meaning of what He was telling them.

Now, however, Jesus promised that in the future He would speak plainly. The disciples would understand the revelation that He would communicate to them through the Spirit. (One might even suggest that they would no longer see as through a glass darkly, but as face to face.) Jesus further specified that this revelation would be about the Father (16:25).

This future revelation would also include “things to come” (16:13). In other words, Jesus planned to give His disciples additional truth about the future. They would receive this truth after He went to His Father and they could no longer see Him (16:16).

Jesus specified that whatever the Father has also belongs to Him (16:14–15). Consequently, additional revelation about the Father would entail more complete revelation about the Son. Revealed truth about His person and work would become more and not less clear after His departure. (One might even say that they would know even as they were known.)

This new revelation that the disciples would receive was not for their benefit alone. Later in the same discourse, Jesus stated that His disciples would share what they learned and that others would believe through their word (17:20). A very high level of authority came with apostolic teaching. When the apostles spoke, their words carried the authority of Christ behind them.

In sum, Jesus told His apostles in advance that He was going to give them more revelation in the future. This revelation would be mediated through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but it would be from Christ. It would include future events, the person and work of Christ Himself, and a clearer understanding of the Father. When the apostles shared this teaching, it would invoke and strengthen belief in those who submitted to its authority.

Granted, Jesus did not specifically mention that the disciples would write new books of the Bible, but an analogy to the Old Testament is appropriate. During the Old Testament dispensations, some revelation was written down while some was not. If the analogy holds, then Jesus’s promise of future revelation carries at least the possibility of new writings. Since the apostles did indeed claim divine authority for their writings, the words of Jesus in this discourse place His full weight behind their claim.

The Lord’s Eternal Gifts

Ambrose (340–397); tr. Edward Caswell (1814–1878)

The Lord’s eternal gifts,
Th’ Apostles might praise,
Their victories, and high reward,
Sing we in joyful lays.

Lords of the churches they;
Triumphant Chiefs of war;
Brave Soldiers of the Heavenly Court;
True lights for evermore.

Theirs was the Saints’ high Faith;
And quenchless Hope’s pure glow;
And perfect Charity, which laid
The world’s fell tyrant low.

In them the Father shone;
In them the Son o’ercame;
In them the Holy Spirit wrought,
And fill’d their hearts with flame.

CCGG 2023

by Kevin Bauder | May 26, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

This past Monday, the First Baptist Church of Rockford, Illinois hosted its twentieth Conference on the Church for God’s Glory. The event is always held on the Monday before Memorial Day. It is a small conference, but one of the most useful that I attend.

The conference was first organized by Scott Williquette, who was the pastor of First Baptist Church. The church had just completed a new building and Williquette had a vision for using it to minister to fellow pastors. The conference has always focused on conservative music and expositional preaching, though it has featured presentations of other sorts. Furthermore, CCGG was organized at a time when Illinois Baptists were being subjected to public diatribes against Calvinism. Pastor Williquette hoped to provide a venue where pastors—Calvinistic and otherwise—could fellowship and listen to preaching without some of the heated exchanges that were taking place elsewhere.

By the time Williquette left for a teaching ministry with Baptist Mid-Missions, the congregation at First Baptist had taken ownership of the conference. The Conference on the Church for God’s Glory continued without a hiccup, except for the year when public meetings were banned because of COVID-19. The people of First Baptist have made it their mission to offer a welcoming and encouraging environment to the pastors and others who attend.

While originally a pastors’ conference, CCGG has been gaining a more diverse attendance. Educators and missionaries are conspicuous in the crowd. Many pastors have begun to bring men from their congregations. The past few years have seen more women accompanying their husbands to the meeting.

Geographically, most attendees come from Illinois and Wisconsin. There is always a contingent from Minnesota, another from Iowa, and still another from Michigan. Small numbers come from other states, and this year a pastor even drove down from Quebec to enjoy the meeting.

It is a meeting (singular) and not meetings (plural). The Conference on the Church for God’s Glory is a one-day event. It begins at ten o’clock in the morning and goes until after seven in the evening. During that time, attendees sit through six plenary sessions with generous break times between. There is also an extended lunch break, which allows attendees the opportunity to renew personal friendships.

At this conference, friendships abound. The meeting has no political dimension, offers no opportunities for climbers, has no strings to pull and no wheels to turn. It has no business session, hears no motions or seconds, takes no votes, and passes no resolutions. All it offers is simple fellowship, uncluttered by institutional or organizational entanglements.

The non-political nature of the conference allows the host church to invite an unusual spectrum of speakers. Last year, Bob Jones III, retired president of Bob Jones University, delivered two messages. A few years ago, one of the speakers was Michael Barrett, at that time the dean of Puritan Reformed Seminary. This year, Josh Buice was invited to speak twice. Buice is the pastor of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church near Atlanta, and he is the founder of G3 Ministries.

If you have never heard of G3, it is an organization of mainly pastors who seem to be feeling their way out of an amorphously conservative evangelicalism and toward a position closer to fundamentalism. It appears to have grasped more of conservatism and separatism than the older “gospel-centered” organizations like T4G and The Gospel Coalition. G3 Ministries is consistently conservative when it comes to political and social issues. Its leaders are reacting against the Woke influence within much of the evangelical world. Buice in particular has led his church to sever its ties with the Southern Baptist Convention. Perhaps some of the separatist influence is being mediated through Scott Aniol, who is executive director of G3 Ministries. As it happens, Aniol was one of the pastors at First Baptist Church in Rockford who helped to organize the first meetings of the Conference on the Church for God’s Glory.

At least five institutions of higher education were represented at the conference. These included Central Baptist Theological Seminary (of course!), Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, Maranatha Baptist University, Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary, and Bob Jones University. The faculties of these institutions enjoy a particularly warm relationship, and the CCGG is one of the rare opportunities when they have a chance to visit with each other.

Conferences and seminars are abundant these days. Some of them are sponsored by denominations or quasi-denominations, and they focus on ecclesiastical or para-ecclesiastical business. Others are sponsored by Christian celebrities, and they tend to feature big-name preachers. A pastor with plenty of time (which is oxymoronic) could probably find a conference to attend during every week of the year. If I could only attend one, however, I believe it would be the Conference on the Church for God’s Glory. If fellowship is about what we hold in common, then the conference that holds the most in common with me is CCGG.

People of the Living God

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

People of the living God,
I have sought the world around,
Paths of sin and sorrow trod,
Peace and comfort nowhere found.
Now to you my spirit turns—
Turns, a fugitive unblest;
Brethren, where your altar burns,
Oh, receive me into rest.

Lonely I no longer roam,
Like the cloud, the wind, the wave;
Where you dwell shall be my home,
Where you die shall be my grave,
Mine the God whom you adore,
Your Redeemer shall be mine;
Earth can fill my heart no more,
Every idol I resign.

Tell me not of gain or loss,
Ease, enjoyment, pomp and power;
Welcome poverty and cross,
Shame, reproach, affliction’s hour
“Follow me!” I know the voice!
Jesus, Lord! thy steps I see:
Now I take thy yoke by choice;
Light thy burden now to me.

The Biblical Writers on Inspiration

by Kevin Bauder | May 19, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Christians affirm that the Bible was written by both human authors and a divine Author simultaneously. One of the most interesting consequences of this simultaneous authorship is that the human authors were conscious of the fact that they were writing Scripture. This consciousness shows up in several ways. It is evident among the Old Testament prophets when they claimed that they wrote when the “word of the Lord” came to them and spoke (Jer 1:4, 11, 13; 13:3, 8; 24:4; 32:6; Ezek 3:16; 6:1; 11:14; 12:21; 13:1; 14:2; 15:1; 16:1; 17:1, 11; 18:1; 20:45; 21:1, 8, 18; 22:1, 17, 23; 24:1, 15, 20; 26:1; 28:11; 29:1, 17; 30:20; 31:1; 32:1, 17; 33:1, 23: 34:1; 35:1; 36:16; 38:1; Zech 4:8; 6:9). It is also evident in the Old Testament authors’ awareness that the Holy Spirit was controlling them as they wrote (Ezek 3:24–27; 2 Sam 23:1–3). The Old Testament writers knew that God was using them.

The apostle Peter is reflecting the dual authorship of Scripture when he insists that the Holy Spirit spoke about Judas “through the mouth of David” (Acts 1:16, citing Psalm 69:25; 109:8). Furthermore, Peter denies that the Old Testament prophecies were written by any human initiative, instead affirming that the prophets spoke as they were “borne along” by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:21). Similarly, the writer to the Hebrews attributes Old Testament Scriptures to the Holy Spirit (Heb 3:7, cf Psalm 95:7; Heb 10:15, cf Jer 31:33–34).

The apostle Paul does not assign the authorship of Scripture to the Holy Spirit in particular, but he does speak about the Old Testament as if it comes from God. In the introduction to Romans he states that God promised the gospel ahead of time by His prophets in the holy Scriptures (Rom 1:2). Paul also tells the Galatians that the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the heathen through faith and so preached the gospel to Abraham (Gal 3:8). This statement treats what Scripture sees as identical with what God sees. Furthermore, Paul introduces Old Testament texts with an interesting parallel construction, stating that God spoke to Moses and that Scripture spoke to Pharaoh (Rom 9:15, 17). For Paul, Scripture saying something is identical to God saying it.

Paul’s high view of the Old Testament led him to consider it as profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16–17). He believed that it was written for “our sakes,” i.e., for Church saints (1 Cor 9:10). He understood it to provide examples (patterns or analogies—the word is types) for us (1 Cor 10:11). Even though the Old Testament was not written to Church saints, they benefit from it by looking for analogies to their own situation.

Remarkably, the apostle Paul does not limit his endorsement to the Old Testament Scriptures. In 1 Timothy 5:17–18 he makes the argument that preachers ought to be paid. He bases his argument partly on two citations of Scripture. He first quotes Deuteronomy 25:4, which forbids muzzling an ox while it is threshing. Obviously, that is an Old Testament reference. But Paul immediately follows it with the saying that the laborer is worthy of his hire. While the principle behind this saying can be found in the Old Testament, the saying itself is from the teachings of Jesus as found in Luke 10:7. Paul cites both texts side by side, and he makes it clear that they are both Scripture. Paul used Luke’s Gospel with the same level of authority as the books of Moses.

This kind of attribution is not unique. Peter does something similar when he is constructing an argument about God’s longsuffering. For evidence he cites Paul’s authority (2 Pet 3:15–16). Peter notes that Paul’s writings are sometimes hard to understand. He further observes that false teachers (who are unlearned and unstable) attempt to twist Paul’s writings. Then he adds these words: “as they do also the other Scriptures.” In other words, Peter classifies at least some of Paul’s epistles as Scripture, right alongside the Old Testament Scriptures.

If Paul is any indication, the New Testament writers saw their own writings as genuinely authoritative. For example, 2 Corinthians sustains an ongoing, threatening undertone about a projected visit from Paul. He makes it clear that he intends to hold the congregation accountable for obeying his words in the epistle (see especially 2 Cor 10:8–11). In an earlier letter, he had already warned them not to go beyond the things that were written (1 Cor 4:6, though the KJV obscures the translation of this verse).

Given this abundant evidence, the inescapable conclusion is that the writers of Scripture knew what they were doing. They were conscious that their words were more than simply human instruction. They understood that the Holy Spirit was using them to author Scripture and that what they wrote was genuinely authoritative. They held a high view both of each other’s writings and of their own writings. Their understanding of their own written documents is fully consistent with a doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration and robust view of New Testament authority.

God’s Word Alone

Johann Walter (1496–1570); tr. C. Armand Miller

God’s Word alone can e’er afford
Sure ground for faith’s foundation;
It is a treasure from the Lord,
Brings trust for full salvation.
No human wisdom can compare
With that of God’s own giving,
What God’s Word clearly doth declare
Sufficeth for our living.

On God and His pure Word alone,
My heart can rest confiding;
From its bright pages light is thrown,
Our pilgrim footsteps guiding.
O God, let no false doctrine turn
My heart from true devotion;
O fire my soul, that it may burn
For truth, with strong emotion.

In God alone I put my trust,
On His rich care depending;
He will ward off each deadly thrust,
’Gainst Satan’s craft defending.
By Thy dear Word, uphold me, Lord,
And let me keep it purely,
Against the devil’s wrath and sword
And wiles, preserved securely.

A Retrospective

by Kevin Bauder | May 12, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

My employment as a professor at Central Baptist Theological Seminary began in January of 1998, over twenty-five years ago. Charles Hauser was dean of the seminary, and he probably had more to do with recruiting me than anybody else. Doug McLachlan was president and the pastor of Fourth Baptist Church. Tom Zempel occupied the office of assistant to the president and headed up the biblical counseling program. My faculty peers included Ed Glenny, Roy Beacham, Bob Milliman, and Raymond Buck. The registrar at the time was David Capetz, and the advancement officer was Ron Gotzman.

For a month I had an office in the education building of the old Fourth Baptist facility, located in north Minneapolis. It was and is a violent area. Few members of the church lived in that part of Minneapolis. They all drove in for services from the suburbs. When I arrived, Fourth Baptist Church was erecting a new facility in the western suburb of Plymouth while creating a daughter congregation (Family Baptist Church) to continue ministering in north Minneapolis. The seminary moved to the new site at the end of January, and the church followed in April.

From the moment I arrived, both administration and faculty welcomed me with warmth and charity. I was never made to feel that I had to earn my right to be here. I was immediately entrusted with both responsibility and privilege. The three administrators (McLachlan, Zempel, and Hauser) set the tone, treating me as a colleague and partner rather than an employee and underling. When I made mistakes, these men always took a problem-solving approach. I always felt like they had my back.

It was never quite clear to me which of those three was managing what. Theoretically, there must have been specific lines of authority and divisions of responsibility, but these men worked so closely together that every decision appeared to have been made in concert. Furthermore, they actively involved the professors in any decision that was likely to affect the faculty. Working at Central Seminary felt less like taking a job than like becoming part of a family.

Twenty years ago this week I was made president of Central Seminary. I remained in that office for exactly eight years. Doug McLachlan became the chairman of the board, and both Hauser and Zempel found themselves working under my oversight. All three gave me the fullest imaginable support. I had no idea how to be an institutional president. I’d never even had the opportunity to observe the workings of the office. The learning curve was steep, and they helped me at every step. If my service as president brought any successes to Central Seminary, those men (and the faculty who served with me) deserve the credit.

During the final third of my presidency, Matt Morrell became the pastor of Fourth Baptist Church and the chair of the seminary’s board. Then, when I stepped down as president in 2011, Sam Horn was chosen to lead the institution. My plan when I resigned was to leave Central Seminary—not because of any animus toward the school, but because I had seen too many instances in which former leaders made bad followers within the organizations that they had led. I had no wish to cause problems either for Central Seminary or for Sam Horn as its president.

Both Horn and the board, however, asked me to remain. They offered me a very appealing position that made publication a priority. During a two- or three-year period I was able to publish three books and to contribute to a fourth, which is exactly what I had wanted to do. Furthermore, Horn went out of his way to help me learn how to fit into the institution in my new role. He was an insightful leader who placed my interests ahead of his own. For my part, I tried to give him complete support, even when my perspectives differed from his. I still feel that I owe Sam a debt that cannot be repaid.

After Horn left for Bob Jones, I was asked to serve on the committee that selected the new president. The logical choice was Matt Morrell, who agreed to accept the position, subject to our providing a provost who could manage the day-to-day operations of the seminary. Morrell has now occupied the office of president as long as I did, and under his administration the institution has flourished. We have had to adjust the way that we deliver education, but this adjustment has allowed us to grow in a world dominated by technological change, social upheaval, and a worldwide pandemic. It’s a glorious thing when one of your students can become both your pastor and your boss, and you still like and respect him.

One Sunday after Morrell became president, I was preaching for a church in Mason City, Iowa. On my way to church I received a phone call that Tom Zempel had been taken suddenly to be with the Lord. That was a difficult day. As long as he was at Central Seminary, Tom was my strong helper, my counselor, and my friend. He will always have a place in my heart.

Then, a year ago, Charles Hauser slipped into glory after a long physical decline. He had been ready for years, wondering why the Lord left him to linger in a nursing home during the pandemic. Hauser had gone from first being my professor when I was in seminary, to being my boss, to being my adviser and helper. In every stage of our relationship, he was my friend.

Of the three administrators who brought me to Central Seminary, only Doug McLachlan remains. For five years he was my president. For nearly a decade he was my pastor. If you think that nobody can be your boss and your pastor, then you haven’t worked with McLachlan. From the time that I came to Central Seminary and throughout my presidency, I believe that he and his wife Marie prayed for me by name nearly every day.

Administrations come and administrations go. Professors come and professors go. Board members come and board members go. Technologies come and technologies go. The thing that gives a seminary its continuity is the idea that propels it. I believe that the idea behind Central Seminary is the same today as it was when I came here at the beginning of 1998. It is also fully in keeping with the idea that was built into the school by its founder, Richard V. Clearwaters.

In the meanwhile, Central Seminary and its people have been one of God’s magnificent graces in my life. I am grateful to Him for allowing me to serve here, and I am grateful for those people who brought me to this ministry and who have helped me in it. I wish that I had another twenty-five years to give them.

Keep Silence, All Created Things

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Keep silence, all created things!
And wait your Maker’s nod;
My soul stands trembling, while she sings
The honors of her God.

Life, death, and hell, and worlds unknown,
Hang on his firm decree;
He sits on no precarious throne,
Nor borrows leave to be.

His providence unfolds the book,
And makes his counsels shine;
Each opening leaf, and every stroke,
Fulfills some deep design.

My God! I would not long to see
My fate with curious eyes
What gloomy lines are writ for me,
Or what bright scenes may rise.

In thy fair book of life and grace,
Oh, may I find my name
Recorded in some humble place,
Beneath my Lord, the Lamb.

A Pastor’s Time Away

by Kevin Bauder | May 5, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Many church members do not understand how their pastors work, how their pastors should be paid, or why their pastors might need time away from the ministry. The result is that churches often expect more than pastors can humanly deliver. Both the pastor and the church should discuss their expectations frankly. Well-written policies can be part of the solution.

Granted, some pastors are lazy. They need to learn that ministry is not a forty-hour-a-week job. These pastors should look at the business leaders in their communities. Corporate managers rarely work less than sixty hours per week. That number is even higher for small business owners. Church members have a right to expect their pastors to work as hard as they themselves do.

Ministry, however, is not like working on an assembly line or in an office. A pastor’s job falls into three main activities. One is his study, including but not limited to his sermon preparation. Another is the time that he spends administering the work of the church. The third component is the time that he spends with people, whether at hospitals and care facilities, in their homes, or just over coffee. Each of these activities could easily fill a work week in most churches, and many pastors struggle to hold them in balance.

Compounding this pressure is the fact that every pastor knows about multiple organizational time bombs that are ticking away, any one of which could wreck the ministry. Some of them involve tense relationships, some center on differences of priority, some take the form of severe counseling problems, and at least a few involve genuine moral failures. Usually, a pastor knows more about these threats than anyone else in the church; he alone carries the burden of them all.

As if these pressures weren’t enough, every pastor comes under attack at some point in his ministry. He discovers that his sheep can bite, and some of them do. Some men can shrug off personal attacks, but for others, dealing with personal opposition can become overwhelming.

In short, pastoral ministry is joyful, but it is also stressful. It always has been. Even the apostle Paul felt daily pressures that arise from the “care of the churches” (2 Cor 11:24).

To be effective, then, a pastor needs to learn to handle stress. One of the most important ways to do this is occasionally to take time away from the work. Even Jesus recognized the need to set aside times when He and His disciples would leave the work for the sake of resting (Mark 6:31). Jesus also took time out from active ministry for solitude and prayer (Luke 5:16).

If the Master needed times like that, then why would His servants think that they did not? On the contrary, time away from active ministry is one of the most important tools for keeping one’s ministry fresh and effective. These times are important for physical renewal, for building family relationships, for allowing the mind to refocus, and for addressing personal spiritual needs. They are simply indispensable.

A word of caution needs to be offered. Not all time away from a ministry’s location is time away from that ministry. A pastor’s work will sometimes pull him away from his own neighborhood. He is responsible to attend ordination and recognition councils. If his church is affiliated with some larger association or fellowship, then its annual meetings are not time off for him. His presence is necessary to ensure that his church’s voice is heard. Furthermore, ministers are responsible to continue their education as long as they are active, so some weeks out of every year will be spent on conferences and courses. If he is a respected Christian leader, a pastor may well be asked to conduct conferences and classes. All these activities take the minister out of his own community, but none of them helps him to deal with the stress of ministry. Indeed, they add to that stress.

Furthermore, pastors simply cannot take “staycations” in which they have time off while remaining quietly at home. As long as a pastor stays in his own community, he is working. The only way for him to get the rest he needs is to leave (preferably with his family) for some days or weeks.

Generally, it will be weeks. Pastoral ministry is so intense that most pastors cannot begin to lay its burdens aside, even temporarily, within a few days. Many will only begin to relax during the second week of their vacation. An extended time away is genuinely necessary.

How much vacation should a pastor receive? Even ordinary laborers rarely get less than two weeks. That figure can serve as a minimal starting point for pastors, but it should not be the ending point. Increases in vacation time are just as important as increases in pay—and they cost the church less. After two or three years, a pastor should receive at least three weeks of vacation. If he has been in ministry for ten years or more, he should have a month. More senior ministers should rightly be entitled to even more time away.

Incidentally, a church should calculate its pastor’s seniority according to his time in ministry, not his time in a particular, individual work. If a ministry calls a man who already has experience, then he brings his experience with him into that ministry. The whole ministry benefits. A church should count that experience when it decides what benefits it will offer its pastor. For example, if he has pastored one church for seven years and another for eight, then he has fifteen years of seniority in ministry. His present ministry should reckon upon this total number when calculating his compensation and his vacation time.

Part of a church’s responsibility is to make sure that its pastor has adequate resources to take a decent vacation. Travel and lodging can be expensive, and if his compensation is low, then a pastor may not be able to save much toward his time away. The church itself can help to correct this situation by offering the minister a financial bonus specifically for his vacation. If this bonus is a budgeted item, it can become a part of the church’s regular financial planning.

Spending time away from the ministry is neither laziness nor luxury. To think so is to make oneself more spiritual than Jesus. Pastors should plan time away for the sake of their ministries and of their own spiritual wellbeing. Furthermore, churches should take the initiative by insisting that their pastors take vacation time and by providing adequate resources for it. Doing this is good, not only because it is right, but it is also the best thing for the ministry itself.

Jesus, Thy Wandering Sheep Behold

Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Jesus, Thy wandering sheep behold!
See, Lord, with tender pity see
Poor souls that cannot find the fold,
Till sought and gathered in by Thee.

Lost are they now, and scattered wide,
In pain, and weariness, and want:
With no kind Shepherd near to guide
The sick and spiritless and faint.

Thou, only Thou, the kind and good,
The great redeeming Shepherd art;
Collect Thy flock, and give them food,
And pastors after Thine own heart.

A double portion from above
Of Thine all-quickening grace impart;
Shed forth Thy universal love,
In every faithful pastor’s heart.

A Noted Passing

by Kevin Bauder | Apr 28, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

I first heard of Michael Heiser when I was pastoring in Texas during the mid-1990s. A visiting speaker to our church had recently visited the campus of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minnesota. This speaker commented about the impression that the young Bible professors in Minnesota had made on him. One of those professors was Mike Heiser.

Shortly after that conversation a disruption at Pillsbury resulted in the exodus not only of the young professors but also of the president. This was the event that began the long downward spiral resulting in the college’s closure in 2008. It was also the event that steered Michael Heiser toward a more visible and public career than he would likely have enjoyed as a professor at PBBC.

Heiser had been reached for Christ under the ministry of David Burggraff in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school he enrolled as a student at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College. He became one of the students who transferred to Bob Jones University during a period of conflict between Baptist leaders in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. He later attended Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, and then Dallas Theological Seminary. By the time he returned to teach at Pillsbury, he had completed a master’s degree in ancient history at the University of Pennsylvania. After Heiser left Pillsbury, he completed another master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Semitics at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), writing his dissertation on the so-called “divine council.”

As Heiser understood it, the divine council is an assembly of very powerful spirit beings who act as advisers to the true and living God. These advisers are encountered in Genesis 1 (“let us make man in our image”), in the Sons of God of Genesis 6 and Job 1, and in the “gods” of Psalm 82. They are created spirits, higher than the angels, whom God has placed in exalted positions of rulership in heaven and on earth. They include both fallen and unfallen spirits. While Yahweh is the one true and living God, the divine council are “gods” of a lower, creaturely order.

This putative divine council became a major focus of Heiser’s research and writing. After he was made scholar in residence by Logos Bible Software (2004–2019), Heiser’s books became some of the most popular for the Logos/Faithlife/Lexham network. Heiser almost single-handedly popularized the divine council theory, establishing it as a respectable option within evangelical theology.

The divine council theory had not previously commanded much respect in evangelical circles. It had been developed by liberal scholars in tandem with an evolutionary view of Israel’s religion. This view saw the Israelites beginning as polytheists, then gradually advancing through henotheism and into monotheism as they elevated Yahweh to the position of sole God. In some of his best work, Heiser ably refuted this evolutionary understanding of Israelite religion. In doing so, he managed to uncouple the divine council theory from its liberal and evolutionary context, thus allowing it to be reassessed within an evangelical understanding of Scripture.

These contributions fit well with the peculiar turn of Heiser’s interests. He was a big fan of The X-Files, and he also devoted considerable attention to examining paranormal and “fringe historical” hypotheses from a biblical point of view. He wrote extensively about things like UFOs, ancient alien astronauts, Bible codes, and alien abductions. He was even recognized by Fate magazine as one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Ufology.”

While Heiser wrote many scholarly articles and papers, he will be best remembered for his popular works and his podcast. The Naked Bible Podcast had an eight-year run with a total of 458 episodes, the last of which Heiser recorded only six weeks before he died. He loved to communicate to ordinary people, and he wasn’t afraid to employ a bit of sensationalism in doing it. His eagerness to spread his views at the popular level is much of what built his legacy.

So is his charity, good will, and kindness. Several years ago I interacted with him while writing an article on Psalm 82. Even though my conclusions ended up being almost directly opposite his, Heiser provided truly generous help as I wrote the article (“Who Judges the Judge?” in The Old Testament Yesterday and Today, ed. by Rhett P. Dodson). He was eager to interact—and that is not a uniform trait among scholars.

Most of all, Heiser’s legacy rests upon his single-minded focus. Starting from his advocacy of the divine council theory he developed related theories of biblical angelology and demonology, an understanding of the development and role of nations in the plan of God, and ultimately an overarching storyline for the outworking of God’s plan. The result was an integrated system that reflected a comprehensive biblical theology. By continuously publishing the elements of this theory through a variety of scholarly and popular venues, Heiser was able to advance his views significantly within the evangelical world.

In 2019, Heiser left Logos and moved to Florida to become Executive Director at Awakening School of Theology and Ministry. The following year, while the rest of the world was panicking about COVID, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The cancer took his life in February of this year. Michael Heiser was just sixty years old.

Heiser was a true scholar. He was a true gentleman. He was a true man of God and a faithful witness for Jesus Christ. But he was also unique in his interests and in his passion to communicate them. We shall not look upon his like again.

Psalm 82

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Among th’ assemblies of the great
A greater Ruler takes his seat;
The God of heav’n, as Judge, surveys
Those gods on earth, and all their ways.

Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws?
Or why support th’ unrighteous cause?
When will ye once defend the poor,
That sinners vex the saints no more?

They know not, Lord, nor will they know;
Dark are the ways in which they go;
Their name of earthly gods is vain,
For they shall fall and die like men.

Arise, O Lord, and let thy Son
Possess his universal throne,
And rule the nations with his rod;
He is our Judge, and he our God.

Creation as Foundational

by Kevin Bauder | Apr 21, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

When it comes to the opening chapters of Genesis, many conservative Christians spend their energy defending the text against the counter-narrative of evolution. That is right and proper: the theory of evolution entails in all its forms an utterly anti-biblical and anti-human philosophy. Nevertheless, the point of these chapters is not to contradict theories of evolution, which only became prevalent during the late Nineteenth Century. Instead, these chapters are valuable for the theological underpinning that they provide for virtually the entire system of faith and belief—including some categories that are rarely mentioned within systematic theologies.

Perhaps the most important function of the early chapters of Genesis is to introduce us to God. They show that God is Creator, and no truth of Scripture is more important than the Creator-creature distinction. Besides depicting God in terms of His power, they also show Him in His benevolence. What He makes is good, and the good is contextually understood as what is good for humans. God knows what is good, and when He knows that a good is absent (as when the man was alone), He provides it. He is also a God who blesses and, when humans sin, a God who promises a deliverer.

The early chapters of Genesis also explain both who humans are and why they were made. They are the image of God, and they were made for dominion. Within His universal kingdom, God created a world that He did not intend to govern directly. Instead, He planned for this world to be ruled mediatorially by godlike creatures. He gave them dominion, and He blessed them with authority to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, and to subdue it. They were made to be kings and queens. They were also made to be priests, standing in the presence of God and enjoying His companionship.

These narratives also explain what went wrong with this beautiful vision. God imposed a test upon the first man and the first woman. They were forbidden to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. If they ate the fruit, they would be claiming for themselves the prerogative to determine the good. Instead, God wanted them to trust Him for the good, which He abundantly provided. Rather than trusting the Creator, however, the man and woman chose to declare independence of God, choosing what seemed good to themselves. By declaring independence of God, they necessarily separated themselves from life, for their life came from God. They passed under sentence of death, a sentence that lies heavy upon humanity until this day.

In later Scriptures, the apostle Paul would appeal to these early chapters as fundamental for his doctrine of imputation (Rom 5:12ff). All humans, he claimed, sinned in Adam. That is why all humans die. Paul’s understanding of imputation also gets transferred to Christ, whose sufferings and merits are credited to His people.

The third chapter of Genesis gives the first glimpse of salvation to come. God offers hope through the seed of the woman, who will crush the head of the serpent, though not without pain. Furthermore, while God drove the man and woman out of paradise, He clothed them in skins, replacing the sustainable, plant-based garments they had fashioned for themselves. Covering the results of their sin required the shedding of blood—surely a picture of redemption to come.

According to the text, God made humanity in two sexes, both of which exhibited His image. These two sexes were made for companionship, for union, and for procreation. God chose to protect this marvelous relationship with the institution of marriage, which from the beginning necessitated exactly one man and one woman. God defined marriage in terms of a leaving and a cleaving or faithful devotion, which was subsequently to be cemented in one-flesh sexual union. Jesus and Paul both understood the creation narratives to be definitive for marriage, sex, and gender, including an order between the sexes within marriage and (later) the church.

Since human sin damaged the created world, it also introduced the problem of correctly caring for that world. For the first time, creation became recalcitrant and even dangerous. Human dominion was not entirely lost, but it was profoundly damaged. Furthermore, predatory use of the created world became possible for humans, with the result that they could destroy parts of their environment. A right understanding of both human dominion and human sin are fundamental to any genuinely useful environmentalism.

The Fall also brought scarcity into the world. Along with scarcity arose the necessity of hard labor, of exchanging goods, and of inventing various media of exchange. In other words, the discipline of economics is possible only in a post-lapsarian world, a world of scarcity. Furthermore, a right understanding of economics must take account of the necessity of labor, the reality of scarcity, and the self-seeking bent of human nature as these are communicated in the opening chapters of Genesis. A sound economics must be a biblical economics.

The opening chapters of Genesis also matter for our understanding of last things. Eschatology parallels protology. Whatever God intended to do when He created is exactly what He intends to accomplish in redemption. The end will bring us full circle to the purpose of the beginning. If indeed God intended to rule the world mediatorially through godlike creatures, then that is how things are going to turn out.

Genesis opens with the accounts of creation, the Fall, the flood, and the division of nations. These stories are in the text to make important theological points. They become the basis of doctrinal reasoning throughout the rest of Scripture. Genuine biblicists should plunder these chapters, not merely to refute false theories about origins, but to be able to answer the most important questions that people can ask.

Psalm 148

Francis Hopkinson (1737–1791)

Ye Realms of Joy, your Maker’s Fame,
Exalt above the starry Frame;
Ye Cherubims, your Voices raise,
And Seraphims, to sing his Praise.
Thou Silver Moon, that rul’st the Night,
With all the glitt’ring Stars of Light,
Thou glorious Sun that guid’st the Day,
To him your grateful Homage pay.

Ye Heav’ns above, his Praise declare,
And Clouds that move in liquid Air,
Let all adore their sov’reign LORD,
For all, at his creative Word,
At once from silent Nothing came;
Oh, let them bless his holy name,
Whose firm Decree stands ever fast,
And to Eternity shall last.

Let Earth her grateful Tribute pay:
Praise him, ye Fish that through the Sea
Glide swiftly by, with glitt’ring Scales;
Oh, praise him all, ye dreadful Whales,
Let misty Air, Fire, Hail and Snow,
And Winds that, where he bids them, blow,
To him their constant Praise address,
And his great Name for ever bless.

By lofty Hills, in concert join’d,
Cedars and Trees, for Fruit design’d,
By ev’ry creeping Thing and Beast,
And winged Fowl, GOD’s Name be bless’d.
Let Men of low or royal Birth,
Let all the Judges of the Earth,
Let Youth and Maids his Praise proclaim,
And hoary Heads advance his Fame.

United Zeal by us be shown,
To raise his endless Fame alone,
Whose Pow’r o’er all the Earth extends,
Whose glorious Sway the Sky transcends,
His Saints he doth with Honour grace,
And ever favour Israel’s Race;
Your grateful Voice, O, therefore raise,
Rejoicing still the LORD to praise.

Full Circle

by Kevin Bauder | Apr 14, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

In 1968, when I was thirteen years old, my father moved our family from eastern Michigan to Ankeny, Iowa. He was a manager with United Airlines, but he took a demotion so that he could prepare to become a pastor by studying at Faith Baptist Bible College. We moved into a house literally across the street from the campus. At that time, the college consisted of three buildings in a corn field, erected (as I recall) by the same Christian developer who built our entire neighborhood. We lived across the street from one professor, down the street from another, and around the corner from the president, the retired former president, and a couple more professors. A block in the other direction was a board member who was both a general in the Air Guard and an Iowa senator. I delivered their newspapers. Our new home was just up the street from the offices of the Iowa Association of Regular Baptist Churches, and I attended church with its associational representative.

At the time, none of it meant anything to me. Dad graduated after five years, in May of 1973, the same Spring that he was ordained and that I graduated from high school. That fall—fifty years ago now—I enrolled at FBBC. My reasons were less than virtuous. I had no savings to go away to university. My high school grades were too low for me to qualify for a scholarship (I graduated in the lower half of my class). Most options in higher education were closed to me. Nevertheless, my mother ran the bookstore on the campus at Faith. That meant that I could attend the college tuition-free.

When I matriculated at age seventeen, my heart was far from the Lord. I was not seeking to do His will. I was indifferent to the things of God and, really, to most of life. My indifference was reflected in both poor academic performance (I flunked Greek the first time I took it) and in a sardonic, contemptuous attitude. On top of that I was certainly less mature than the average seventeen-year-old. Taken together, these factors resulted in a year and a half of abysmal behavior.

The whole time, however, God was there, and He was not silent. He was working in my heart, showing me the end of the path that I was on. He was convincing me of my own self-centeredness. He was working from outside, administering chastening. He was determined that I should persevere even when I did not care. He broke both my heart and my will, and He showed me the emptiness of the things that I thought I loved. He convinced me that the more I chose to remain the captain of my own soul, the more certainly a shipwreck loomed. I began to fear that calamity, and He brought me to the point at which I consciously and deliberately submitted myself to Him, fully prepared to do whatever He wanted me to do.

None of these struggles took place in public, but this new submission to Jesus Christ made all the difference in my world. Along with the stormy hand of His discipline, I began to experience the warm blessings of His kindness. The relationships that grew up during these days have remained the most important of my life. Not the least of them is the relationship that God granted me with the woman who eventually consented to marry me. It was during these days that I first felt a sense of vocation for ministry. They were the days when I discovered the joy of studying God’s Word. They were gracious days, and they remain gracious days. It is truly God who works in us both the willing and the doing of His good pleasure, and His good pleasure is always good.

This week I find myself back on the campus of Faith Baptist Bible College. The student population is smaller. The buildings have multiplied on campus. The mission, however, is the same: “With the Word to the World.” I am here to deliver the Arthur Walton Lectures, named in honor of the professor who gave me my well-merited “F” in Greek. The atmosphere is a bit more relaxed than it used to be. The dress is a bit more casual. The people seem more outgoing, probably a result of the influence of the current president, but possibly because against all odds I have become a grey eminence.

It’s good to be here this week, to visit with professors and administrators, but especially to chat with students. It’s a joy to discover on this campus a combination of grace and grit, of biblical conviction and Christian compassion. I’m grateful for another generation of leadership, both in the offices and in the classroom, who are willingly investing themselves in their students, just as that generation fifty years ago invested themselves in me.

Most of the old, familiar faces can only be seen in photographs here and there around the campus. The people themselves are either with the Lord or in some advanced stage of retirement. But the investment they made, and the work they did, still pays spiritual dividends to the hundreds of students who are being discipled and trained for Christian service in this place.

I’ve been back to this campus before, but this week is different. I feel as if I’ve come full circle. I can only express gratitude for what I received here, although the people to whom I am most indebted are almost all gone now. I’m also grateful for the people I’ve seen who were students when I was, and who are still serving Christ. Furthermore, I am greatly encouraged by younger men and women who have taken up the work, and who are training new generations of Christians at both the baccalaureate and graduate levels.

I have never been employed by Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary, but much of my life is wrapped up in this place. One way or another it has affected me for over half a century. Its influence has been overwhelmingly positive. I thank God for the work that it has done and that it is still doing.

Th’ Abyss of Many a Former Sin

Joseph of the Stadium (762–832); tr. John Mason Neale (1818–1866)

Th’ abyss of many a former sin
Encloses me and bears me in:
Like billows my transgressions roll:
Be Thou the Pilot of my soul;
And to salvation’s harbor bring,
Thou Savior and Thou glorious King!

My Father’s heritage abused,
Wasted by lust, by sin misused;
To shame and want and mis’ry brought,
The slave to many a godless thought,
I cry to Thee, who lovest men,
O pity and receive again!

In hunger now and dispossessed
Of that my portion bright and blessed,
The exile and the alien see,
Who yet would fain return to Thee.
Accept me Lord, I seek Thy grace,
And let me see a Father’s face.

With that saved thief my prayer I make,
Remember for Thy mercy’s sake!
With that poor publican I cry,
Be Merciful, O God most high!
With that lost Prodigal I fain
Back to my home would turn again!

Mourn, mourn, my soul, with earnest care,
And raise to Christ the contrite prayer:—
O Thou, who freely wast made poor,
My sorrows and my sins to cure,
Me, poor of all good works, embrace,
Enriching with Thy boundless grace!

Preborn Babies? Just Stop!

by Kevin Bauder | Apr 7, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Has anybody else noticed that certain right-to-life organizations have started referring to fetuses as “preborn babies?” This turn of phrase first caught my attention a couple of months ago. Of course, I’m slow on the uptake, so it might have been around for a quite a while, and I might not have caught on. Still, I think I’d remember if I’d seen it earlier because I find the expression so inappropriate as to be jarring.

Not that I object to calling fetuses in the womb babies. That’s exactly what they are. In fact, the Latin word fetus means baby. I don’t believe for a moment that some magical transformation takes place when an infant emerges from the birth canal, as if it could be a non-person while encased in its mother’s body but a human being as soon as it has been exposed to air.

No, between conception and birth nothing is added to the baby except growth. She or he is a human being from conception onward, with all the rights, honors, and privileges pertaining thereto. Anyone who takes Psalm 51:5 seriously understands that humans are fully moral persons from the instant of their conception onwards. Since they are human beings, they are fully entitled to all the protections that every human deserves.

So my objection is not at all to the word baby. No, what I object to is that quirky and abominable neologism, preborn. Exactly what is that word supposed to mean?

The prefix pre- has the idea of doing something in advance or ahead of time. A prepaid card is one that has been purchased ahead of time. A prefabricated house is one on which significant components have been previously assembled. A preowned car is one that has already belonged to someone else. A predestined event is one that has been determined ahead of time. A prearranged meeting is one that has been arranged before the meeting has taken place. A precooked meal is one that has already been in the oven.

By this standard, a “preborn” baby is an infant that has been born ahead of time. But ahead of what time? That is where the neologism becomes murky. Does it mean that the baby was born ahead of the expected time? Does it mean that the baby was born before the present time? We are not sure. The only thing we are reasonably sure of is that a preborn baby cannot still be waiting to be born, any more than a preowned car is still waiting for its first purchaser or a precooked meal still sits raw in the freezer.

The New Testament has a word that comes close to the meaning of preborn. The word is ektrōma, and it means “a birth that violates the normal period of gestation (whether induced as abortion, or natural premature birth or miscarriage)” [BDAG, s.v.]. Paul uses this term to refer to himself when he talks about Christ appearing to him out of sequence when compared with the other apostles. In this sense, Paul sees himself metaphorically as an apostolic miscarriage resulting in a live birth.

And maybe that is how we could use the term preborn. By following the regular pattern, a preborn baby could possibly be a fetus that miscarried, whether or not it survives the event. At least that use of the term would be recognizable and defensible, even if still inelegant.

Someone might try to defend the word preborn by comparing it to a different set of English pre– words. These are words in which a thing is said to occur before a different thing, designating the earlier thing as pre- the latter. So prehistoric events are happenings from before history began to be recorded. Prepubescent children are those who have not yet arrived at adolescence. Pregame jitters must be endured before the competition begins. Pre-Columbian America is the Americas before Columbus stumbled into them.

It is difficult to imagine, however, that the term preborn could reasonably fit this pattern, and we should be, well, predisposed against taking it that way. Even if the neologism could somehow be stuffed, kicking and screaming, into this usage, its meaning would still be unclear. The best thing to do is to stick with an expression that everybody already understands, namely unborn babies.

I have no idea what the appeal of preborn is supposed to be. Does it sound more stylish? More modern and streamlined? Is it somehow more socially acceptable to the kind of public that can no longer recognize distinctions between men from women? Whatever the purpose of using the word, it represents a verbal clunk, as if the linguistic transmission has dropped out of the drivetrain and is now dragging along the pavement. It does not even save space: it has just as many syllables as unborn, and it adds an additional phoneme. Using preborn is like pushing a shopping cart around the store when one of those little handbaskets would do.

We already have a perfectly good term. The word unborn is clear and widely understood. Unborn has, so to speak, been predigested for us, while preborn is just plain undigestible. It is awkward. It is cloudy. It is sand in the verbal gearbox. Taken on balance, the word preborn is just about as appealing as a pre-eaten dinner.

’Tis Finished! The Messiah Dies

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

’Tis finished! The Messiah dies—
cut off for sins, but not His own;
accomplished is the sacrifice—
the great redeeming work is done.

The veil is rent; in Christ alone
the living way to heav’n is seen;
the middle wall is broken down,
and all mankind may enter in.

’Tis finished! All my guilt and pain,
I want no sacrifice beside;
for me, for me the Lamb is slain,
’tis finished! I am justified.

The reign of sin and death is o’er;
all grace is now to sinners giv’n;
and lo! I plead th’atoning blood,
and in Thy right I claim my heav’n.

On Complaining

by Kevin Bauder | Mar 31, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Complaining, along with gossiping, blaming, and criticizing, is one of the great human pastimes. Until we have been trained otherwise, we all love to complain. A disposition to complain is hardwired into us, and we slip into it without even considering what we are doing.

The problem is that complaining, generally speaking, is considered a vice. It is the very opposite of the virtue of gratitude. Even among non-Christians, the best figures try to foster gratitude and to stultify the spirit of complaining. We who are Christians recognize that habitual complaining is contrary to our sanctification. We do our best to help each other grow out of it. Plenty of biblical texts view complaining in this negative light (e.g., Jude 16).

This view of complaining, however, is a bit too simplistic. I suggest that under certain circumstances and done in certain ways complaining is fully compatible with our sanctification. In fact, it may be a sign of our determination not to reconcile ourselves to the conditions of a fallen world.

One acceptable form of complaining is the appeal made to God out of distress, often when one has been wronged. An example can be found in Hannah (1 Sam 1). She was deeply grieved, and she wept (7), partly because “the Lord had shut up her womb” (5), and partly because “her adversary provoked her sore” with the specific purpose of causing her grief (6). So poignant was Hannah’s sorrow that even her husband lost patience with her (8). Left with no other listening ear, Hannah took her bitterness to God (9–11). Even then the high priest Eli, who lacked the moral courage to correct his sons, felt called upon to rebuke this broken woman (12–14). In her reply she told him that she was speaking to the Lord out of the “abundance of her complaint” (16).

What Hannah was doing was taking her pain to God. She was suffering, genuinely and deeply, and her suffering robbed the joy from her life. Rather than trying to dismiss her bitterness or directing it toward other people, Hannah complained to God, who heard and answered her.

Hannah provides one example of godly complaining. Psalm 55 provides another, and it introduces a new element. When David was betrayed by a close friend, he took his complaint to God. Indeed, he recorded his complaint in his psalm. Verse 2 specifically identifies the psalm as a complaint. Even though Psalm 55 is a complaint to God, it was also written for other people to read and understand. Even if David was not complaining to other people, he was certainly complaining for them.

Asaph does a similar thing in Psalm 77. He was troubled in soul, overwhelmed, fearful that the Lord might cast off forever (7). Like David, he complained to the Lord (3). Like David, he recorded his complaint as a psalm to be studied by God’s people. If he was not complaining to them, he was at least complaining for them.

Biblical complaining is taken to another level in the anonymous Psalm 102. The heading of the psalm (which is part of the inspired text) registers it as a “prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord.” Certainly this psalm was written by a real person passing through real anguish of soul, but the personal element is attenuated. Instead, the psalm is written as a formalized complaint, a kind of prefabricated grievance that any godly person can pray when afflicted and overwhelmed.

These examples help us to draw a distinction. Often, we understand complaining simply as synonymous with grumbling or griping—the kind of complaining in which the children of Israel constantly indulged during the exodus. If we take the foregoing passages seriously, however, then griping is only one species of complaining. It is the sinful kind of complaining. But another kind of complaining is not sinful. In fact, it may well be integral to the life of faith.

How do we identify righteous complaining? I posit that the complaint (1) must be about a real wrong, (2) must be made to a person who is justified in hearing it, (3) must be made to someone who either could and should do something about it, or (4) must be made about someone who must be held accountable. This is the sense in which we intend the word when we say that someone has entered a complaint in a court of law or filed a complaint through the union steward. Such a complaint is either an indictment of wrongs or a petition for redress of grievances.

Understood in this way, the Bible is full of righteous complaints. Nathan complained to David, “Thou art the man” (2 Sam 12:7). The psalmist complained of Babylon, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones” (Ps 137:9). Habakkuk complained against Judah, “The law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth” (Hab 1:4). Jesus complained against the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. Paul complained to Festus, “I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest” (Acts 25:10). Every one of these complaints was justified. Every one of these complaints was godly.

By all means, let us repudiate a complaining, grumbling, griping, fault-finding spirit. But let us also remember that there is a different kind of complaining, a kind of complaining that has been practiced even among the saints. Perhaps if we would learn to do well the kind of complaining that we should do, then we would do less of the kind of complaining that we should not.

Fierce Passions Discompose the Mind

John Newton (1725–1807)

Fierce passions discompose the mind,
As tempests vex the sea;
But calm content and peace we find,
When, Lord, we turn to thee.

In vain by reason and by rule,
We try to bend the will;
For none but in the Savior’s school
Can learn the heavenly skill.

Since at his feet my soul has sat,
His gracious words to hear,
contented with my present state,
I cast on him my care.

’Tis he appoints my daily lot,
And will do all things well;
Soon shall I leave this wretched spot,
And rise with him to dwell.

In life his grace shall strength supply,
Proportioned to my day;
In death I still shall find him nigh,
To bear my soul away.

Thus I, who once my wretched days
In vain repinings spent;
Taught in my Savior’s school of grace,
Have learned to be content.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

by Kevin Bauder | Mar 24, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Which of the following statements is true? (1) The Bible comes from about forty authors, or (2) The Bible comes from a single author.

The answer, of course, is that both statements are true, but in different senses. The Bible was written by over forty human authors. It is genuinely the work of Moses, John, Paul, and others. Yet it was also inspired by a single divine Author through the Holy Spirit. It is all the Word of God.

The dual authorship of Scripture is one of the keys to a correct understanding of the Bible. Dual authorship is not just a doctrinal theory. It is the very thing that the Bible has to say about itself. The Bible teaches its own dual authorship.

Specifically, Jesus assumes the dual authorship of Scripture in His teaching and preaching. These references, though not great in number, are very specific. They lead unavoidably to the conclusion that Jesus saw both human authorship and divine authorship at play in the production of Scripture.

One example occurs in Mark 7:6–13. Here Jesus accuses the scribes and Pharisees of setting aside the commandment of God in favor of human traditions (7:8). In the next verse He repeats the charge (7:9), preparing to cite an example. This example (7:10) draws upon quotations that Jesus attributes to Moses (Exod 20:12; 21:17). He alleges that Moses’s teachings clearly require care for parents, but the Pharisaic standards permit people to avoid this obligation (7:11–12). By avoiding Moses’s requirements, the Pharisees are “making the word of God of none effect” (7:13, KJV). Jesus calls this Old Testament text the commandment of God (7:8, 9), but He also cites it as a saying of Moses (7:10). He also refers to it as the Word of God (7:13). This is a clear attribution of dual authorship.

Another example comes from Mark 12:35–37, where Jesus is defending His claim to be the Messiah. He has been approached with trick questions by His adversaries. Now He turns the tables and asks them a question: how can the scribes claim that Messiah is the son of David (12:35)? Jesus then quotes Psalm 110:1, which has David speaking to Messiah as his Lord (12:36). Jesus poses a puzzler for His critics: if Messiah is David’s Lord, then how can He also be David’s son? This is an important messianic question, and Jesus’s use of Psalm 110 also has implications for our view of Scripture. When He quotes Psalm 110:1, Jesus introduces it by saying that “David himself said by the Holy Ghost” (12:36, KJV).

That is the point. Psalm 110 is genuinely the words of David. In fact, Jesus’s argument hinges on the fact that they are the words of David. Nevertheless, Jesus insists that David spoke these words by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, Jesus uses the verse as completely authoritative. He is able to use it as the Word of God. Jesus’s use of the text shows that dual authorship is at work.

If Scripture always has the same divine author, whoever its human authors might be, then certain consequences must follow. Some of these consequences are clearly articulated by Jesus. They include at least the following.

First, Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). The verb that Jesus uses is a form of luo, and in this context it has the idea that Scripture can neither be set aside nor pitted against itself. In other words, if God is the author of all Scripture, then the Bible contains no genuine internal contradictions. It is never right to ignore Scripture or to throw one verse against another.

Second, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus states that not even a jot or tittle will pass from the law until it all comes to pass (Matt 5:18; the verb is a form of ginomai). In other words, everything that Scripture declares will happen exactly as God said it would happen. Every promise, whether threat or blessing, will be kept. Scripture is absolutely reliable in all that it says.

Third, when the Sadducees try to trap Jesus with a trick question about marriage in the resurrection (Matt 22:23–33), Jesus retorts with a three-part reply. First, He tells His opponents that they are ignorant of both Scripture and the power of God. Second, He states that no one is married in the resurrection. Third, He appeals to Exodus 3:6, where God tells Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus infers that God is the God of the living, and not the God of the dead. In other words, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive.

What is significant about this reply is that Jesus relies upon an inference from the text and not the direct statement of the text itself. In drawing this inference, He appeals to a single verb, is, which is understood rather than stated by the Hebrew text. Furthermore, the validity of Jesus’s reasoning hinges upon the tense of this verb, which must be present tense for the argument to work. In sum, Jesus bases a significant theological conclusion on the tense of a single verb that is implied by the Hebrew text.

If Jesus treats the text of Scripture this way, then dual authorship must extend to the very words of the Bible. Jesus’s use of the Bible certainly ratifies the notion that the inspiration of Scripture is verbal (the words are inspired) rather than simply dynamic (only the concepts are inspired). For Jesus to use the Bible the way He does, the very words have to matter.

The evidence indicates that Jesus held a very high view of Scripture indeed. He used the Bible in His own temptation. He endorsed the miraculous elements of the Old Testament, including some that are most frequently attacked by critics. He recognized the dual authorship of Scripture as writings that were both human and divine. His teaching even implies the verbal inspiration of Scripture. If we follow the example of Jesus, then we should accept and use the entire Bible as the very Word of God while also recognizing it as the words of its human authors.

Father of Mercies, In Thy Word

Anne Steele (1717–1778)

Father of mercies, in thy word
What endless glory shines!
For ever be thy name ador’d
For these celestial lines.

Here, may the wretched sons of want
Exhaustless riches find:
Riches, above what earth can grant,
And lasting as the mind.

Here the fair tree of knowledge grows
And yields a free repast,
Sublimer sweets than nature knows
Invite the longing taste.

Here, the Redeemer’s welcome voice
Spreads heavenly peace around;
And life, and everlasting joys
Attend the blissful sound.

O may these heavenly pages be
My ever dear delight;
And still new beauties may I see,
And still increasing light!

Divine Instructor, gracious Lord,
Be thou for ever near,
Teach me to love thy sacred word,
And view my Savior there.

One of These Things…

by Kevin Bauder | Mar 17, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Let me introduce Gail. Gail is held in the grip of an idea. Even though Gail was born with male sex organs, Gail identifies as a woman. Gail receives hormone injections and has received some implants, and these have resulted in bodily changes. Gail competes on a women’s basketball team where Gail dominates all other players. Gail’s beliefs have become Gail’s identity, and Gail tries to live them consistently, even in the face of prejudice. Gail has never professed to trust Christ or the gospel, but if Gail visits your church, Gail will wish to use the women’s restroom.

Now let me introduce you to Aelfric. Aelfric is held in the grip of an idea. Aelfric claims to be an Identity Christian and a true Israelite. Aelfric believes that Celts and Anglo-Saxons are the true sons of Israel, while Jews are descendants of a Japethic people called the Khazars. Aelfric’s body has been modified by tattoos that reflect Aelfric’s perspectives, including a prominent Confederate flag. Aelfric’s beliefs have become Aelfric’s identity, and Aelfric tries to live them consistently, even in the face of prejudice. If Aelfric visits your church, Aelfric will not want to sit beside any people of color.

From a biblical perspective, both Gail and Aelfric hold bad understandings of themselves, of the world, and of God. Their perspectives and their conduct are both sinful and both strike directly against God’s creation order. Neither has professed faith in the biblical gospel; both are lost. Both need the Lord, and both need a change of heart.

Aelfric and Gail both lack an objective, publicly available means of substantiating their claims. Both truly rely upon their “lived experience.” Gail claims to feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body and points to stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Aelfric feels superior to peoples of color and points to stereotypes involving vice and crime.

Let us assume that both Aelfric and Gail mean well and that neither would willingly hurt another person. Nevertheless, both Aelfric and Gail are doing real harm. Aelfric’s outspokenness emboldens certain white supremacists who would commit acts of violence against non-whites and Jews if given an opportunity. Gail’s outspokenness emboldens certain biological males who prey upon women, and it gives those males unrestricted access to settings where women could previously feel safe. It also emboldens certain biological male athletes who cannot compete at the top tier against other males, but who can do well by competing against women. It also endangers some teens and preteens who are encouraged toward “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” through social media and social contagion, significantly raising the probability that those children will hurt themselves.

In one way, Gail’s situation is the direct opposite of Aelfric’s. A couple of generations ago, people who held Aelfric’s views on race were generally tolerated (and in some circles, celebrated). Now, however, any expression of Aelfric’s views will make one a social pariah. On the other hand, until very recently people who shared Gail’s perspectives on gender were seen as perverted, and they were pushed to the social margins. Now someone who expresses Gail’s views gains immediate and widespread sympathy and support. In a word, Aelfric’s sins are out of style, while Gail’s are the height of fashion.

What is interesting is to read and listen to recent evangelical attitudes toward people like Aelfric and people like Gail. Many—perhaps most—evangelicals might agree that both are sinning. Beyond that, however, the similarity ends. Faced with somebody like Gail, many evangelicals would opine that one cannot expect an unbeliever to live like a Christian. What we must do is to show great compassion to Gail, to build relationships, to foster sympathy in the face of whatever sufferings must have brought Gail to this point. Even very conservative evangelicals might feel obligated to express their non-rejection of Gail. They might even lament the attitudes that people like Gail would have encountered a couple of generations ago. They insist that our churches must become open and welcoming to people like Gail, and that any failure to do so is a failure to follow the example of Jesus and the teaching of Scripture.

On the other hand, evangelicals do not react at all that way when faced with somebody like Aelfric. They make no attempt to distance themselves from the caustic prejudices that are directed against Aelfric. Far from expressing their non-rejection of Aelfric, they will go out of their way to denounce him in the sharpest possible terms. They will accuse anyone who fails to denounce Aelfric of the very same sins that they accuse Aelfric of. With Aelfric, it seems impossible to distinguish the sin from the sinner. They do not want their churches to be open and welcoming to Aelfric. They do not want to understand whatever sufferings may have brought Aelfric to his particular situation. They do not want to build relationships with Aelfric or to demonstrate compassion toward people like him. They would never excuse Aelfric’s sins by suggesting that unbelievers cannot be expected to live like Christians.

Why do evangelicals speak and write about people like Gail and Aelfric so differently? If evangelicals were genuinely concerned for sinners as Jesus was concerned for sinners, would they not treat all sinners in the same way? Jesus could show compassion to a woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11). He could reach out toward corrupt officials (Luke 19:1–10), and He included an ultranationalist racist among His disciples (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). Jesus did not pick and choose among the kinds of sinners that He befriended.

This attitude is not reflected within the evangelical world. Run an internet search on “evangelical ministry to transgenders.” You will see a lot about understanding, befriending and sympathizing with transgender people. Now run an internet search on “evangelical ministry to white supremacists.” You’ll see a lot about stopping them, and quite a bit about how evangelicals are pretty much all white supremacists to begin with (even though hardly any evangelicals share Aelfric’s perspective). Notice the difference?

Christians make choices about who they will minister to. They also make choices about the kinds of ministry that they find acceptable. In evangelical circles it is presently acceptable to claim friends who are like Gail. It is not acceptable to admit to having friends who are like Aelfric.

The reasonable conclusion is that evangelical attitudes toward evangelism, caring, and confrontation are being regulated by something other than the example of Jesus and the requirements of Scripture. One begins to wonder whether the evangelical world isn’t prepared to denounce any sins except the ones that evangelicals aren’t currently being tempted to commit. One wonders whether social and moral fads rather than the teachings of the Bible have more to do with who evangelicals will befriend and who they are willing to marginalize.

Jesus, Thou Art the Sinner’s Friend

Richard Burnham (ca. 1749–1810)

Jesus, Thou art the sinner’s Friend;
As such I look to Thee;
Now, in the fulness of Thy love,
O Lord, remember me.

Remember Thy pure word of grace,
Remember Calvary’s tree,
Remember all Thy dying groans,
And then remember me.

Thou wondrous Advocate with God,
I yield my soul to Thee;
While Thou art pleading on the throne,
Dear Lord, remember me.

Lord, I am guilty, I am vile,
But Thy salvation’s free;
Then, in Thine all-abounding grace,
Dear Lord, remember me.

Howe’er forsaken or despised,
Howe’er oppressed I be,
Howe’er forgotten here on earth,
Do Thou remember me.

And when I close my eyes in death,
And human help shall flee,
Then, then, my dear redeeming God,
O then remember me.

What Do You Mean, Relevant?

by Kevin Bauder | Mar 10, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

[This essay was originally published on May 12, 2017.]

Many contemporary American Christians obsess over relevance. They seem to feel personally obligated to make Christianity relevant. This wish to make Christianity relevant, however, raises two questions. First, why should Christianity be made relevant? Second, what would a relevant Christianity look like? The answer to these questions will depend partly upon the meaning of the word relevant. It is used in at least four ways.

First, it is used as a synonym for germane or applicable. In this sense, a thing is relevant when it addresses some concern that matters, or ought to. For example, a prescription for penicillin is relevant for a person who has a strep infection.

In this sense, Christianity does not have to be made relevant. It is already relevant. It addresses the most fundamental human need, namely, to find forgiveness of sins and restoration of fellowship with God. Granted, people often do not understand the depth of their sin or the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work. Because they lack these categories, the Christian message seems nonsensical to them. These are the very people of whom Paul writes that the rationale of the cross appears as foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18). Only the Holy Spirit can convince them. All that Christians can do to make Christianity relevant to such people is to explain the message as clearly as possible.

The notion of explaining the message leads to a related but distinct sense of the term relevant. In this sense of the word, to be relevant is to be intelligible. Intelligibility matters. Even an applicable message cannot be received if it cannot be understood.

Concern for this kind of relevance has led Christians to translate the Bible into new languages, and with good reason. People gain no benefit from having the Scriptures in a language that they cannot read. Furthermore, Jesus’ and the apostles’ use of the Septuagint provides a biblical example of using translation to make biblical religion relevant.

Even so, translations almost always obscure some part of the truth, particularly when the receptor language has no words or categories that adequately translate biblical concepts. For example, early missionaries to the Congo reported difficulty in communicating the gospel to people whose language contained no word for love. They eventually had to create a word and invest it with the concept.

Another example: the New Testament teaches that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice. That statement meant one thing in a Jewish culture that had practiced fourteen hundred years of tabernacle and temple sacrifices. In Aztec culture, however, with its long history of human sacrifice to capricious gods, the statement would almost certainly mean a different thing. The culture itself would have to be reshaped—new categories would have to be introduced—before the gospel message of Christ’s sacrifice would make sense. Sometimes making Christianity relevant requires not the accommodation of Christian concepts and practices to a given culture but the conforming of that culture’s categories to Christian concepts and practices.

The third way in which people use the word relevant is to mean familiar. A thing seems relevant to them because they have been exposed to it enough that it is recognizable. A carpenter may have a much-used hammer that feels like an extension of the hand. A bowler may have a favorite ball that feels like it launches itself down the lane. A dad probably has a favorite chair that fits him because it bears the imprint of his personal anatomy.

Some people think that, to be relevant, Christianity has to fit like an old pair of jeans. Consequently, they want to recast it into forms and shapes that resemble whatever people are already comfortable with. They want their Christianity to be as little different from their ordinary habits as possible.

What they overlook is that the carpenter’s hammer was not custom-made for one hand. Rather, the hand that wields the hammer grows accustomed to it over time. The hand eventually conforms to the tool. And, while the metaphor is not quite as apt, the old pair of jeans feels so familiar exactly because body and garment have spent so much time together.

Christianity should fit like old denim, but it won’t feel that way the first time somebody puts it on. The solution is not to reshape Christianity so that it feels like whatever people are comfortable with. The solution is to let people grow into Christianity in all its apparent awkwardness—and that is done by long practice.

The fourth thing that people mean when they talk about Christianity being relevant is that it should be made appealing. With this the Scriptures agree: there are ways of adorning the gospel, and Christians ought to use them. The question is, What are those ways?

Too often people try to make Christianity appealing by transmuting it into something it is not. They offer false inducements for following Jesus. They attempt to draw people to the faith—or to help them grow in it—by attracting them to things that are not Christianity. They put themselves on display as weight lifters, martial arts practitioners, rock stars, or other faux celebrities. Their message appears to be something like, “I can break six boards with my bare hand, so you should follow Jesus.”

Christianity must be made attractive. Sound doctrine must be adorned. But how? Paul answers in Titus 2: old men are to adorn sound teaching by their self-control, dignity, sensibility, soundness, charity, and perseverance. Old women are to adorn it with reverent behavior and good instruction, avoiding gossip and inebriation. Young women are to adorn it by loving their husbands and children, displaying sensibility and purity, and submitting to their husbands. Young men can make sound teaching appealing simply by being sensible.

Christians can never attract people to Christ by making themselves seem impressive. Carnal inducements will never turn people into Christians. To adopt these subterfuges is to morph Christianity into something it is not. It is to sabotage the faith that was once-for-all delivered. Furthermore, it is to wreak incalculable practical damage.

Why? Because twenty-first century Americans live in an anti-culture of despair. They are approaching the end of a turn that began with a lie. They have committed themselves to a metaphysical dream that robs them of morality, then meaning, and eventually identity. They can no longer say what is good, what is beautiful, what matters, or even who they are.

These people have created a popular culture that does two things. It expresses the despair in which they live: the hopelessness, the anxiety, and the rage. It also tries to provide enough distraction or cultural noise—whether through opulence, sensuality, inebriation, or spectacle—to stifle the despair.

If Christians want to be relevant, then the worst thing they can do is to imitate this culture. Every time they do, they are saying, “We’re just like you! We’re desperate, too! Look how anxious, hopeless, and angry we are!”

Relevance? Nothing is less relevant than a trendy church. Nothing is less relevant that popular-culture Christianity. Nothing is less relevant than a contemporized Christian.

Who Trusts In God, A Strong Abode

v 1, Joachim Magdeburg (c 1525–c 1587); vv 2–3, Anonymous; tr. Benjamin H. Kennedy (1804–1889)

Who trusts in God, a strong abode
in heav’n and earth possesses;
who looks in love to Christ above,
no fear his heart oppresses.
In you alone, dear Lord, we own
sweet hope and consolation:
our shield from foes, our balm for woes,
our great and sure salvation.

Though Satan’s wrath beset our path,
and worldly scorn assail us,
while you are near we will not fear,
your strength shall never fail us:
your rod and staff shall keep us safe,
and guide our steps forever;
nor shades of death, nor hell beneath,
our souls from you shall sever.

In all the strife of mortal life
our feet shall stand securely;
temptation’s hour shall lose its pow’r,
for you shall guard us surely.
O God, renew, with heav’nly dew,
our body, soul, and spirit,
until we stand at your right hand,
through Jesus’ saving merit.

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Five

by Kevin Bauder | Mar 3, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

In a recent blog post, Roger Olson discusses the relationship between fundamentalism and secondary separation. In the comment stream that follows the post, Olson includes the following remarks as a critique of secondary separation.

[W]hen the Conservative Baptist Association of Churches split away from the Northern Baptist Convention fundamentalist leader Clearwaters of Fourth Baptist Church in Minneapolis (I don’t recall if he was GARBC or something else) wrote a book I have read called “The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise.” It was a harsh attack on the CBA for not practicing secondary separation and not requiring belief in young earth creationism, etc. The CBA is a truly conservative evangelical denomination and in some cases I would say even “fundamentalish.” Why did Clearwaters feel it necessary to attack fellow evangelical Christians that way?

Here Olson asks a fair question, and it deserves a fair answer. Before I get to that answer, a couple of preliminary comments are in order. One is that the book is less written by Clearwaters than edited by him. To be sure, several of the chapters are his work. But others are reports by other figures. One is an address delivered by W. B. Riley. Second, the chapters of this book represent discrete documents prepared over a process of some decades. Some were written in the heat of conflict; others were written in retrospect. Third, this book was never intended to be read by the general public, including Olson. It was aimed at a particular readership at a particular time within a particular set of circumstances, and it assumes a certain level of background knowledge. Without this knowledge the book is often puzzling and is likely to be construed as a tirade toward innocent bystanders. It was nothing of the kind.

The book is about the Conservative Baptist Movement, and it was written by and for people who went through a conflict within that movement. The purpose of the book was to explain the conflict and to justify the principles of one of the parties to that conduct. The book was not intended as an attack but as a defense. The actions and character of Clearwaters and his co-laborers (people like B. Myron Cedarholm, Bryce Augsburger, and sometimes Chester Tulga) were being undermined by an insidious and unscrupulous attack against their principles, methods, and character. The book was meant to set the record straight.

The Conservative Baptist Movement emerged as an identifiable entity during the early 1940s when the Fundamentalist Fellowship of the Northern Baptist Convention renamed itself the Conservative Baptist Fellowship. Because of the so-called Inclusive Policy that the NBC applied to foreign missions, the CBF led in organizing a Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. In response, the NBC virtually expelled all supporters of the CBFMS. The CBF then led in organizing the Conservative Baptist Association in 1947, and then the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society in 1948.

Since many CBA churches were still fighting their way out of the NBC, the CBA did not immediately require churches to separate from the convention. Nevertheless, in 1953 the boards of all four organizations (CBF, CBA, CBFMS, and CBHMS) authorized a manifesto at Portland, Oregon, stating that the Conservative Baptist Movement was “separatist in spirit and objective.” At that time, the Conservative Baptist movement was also firmly committed to church autonomy, premillennialism, and the direct, divine creation of the historical Adam.

That picture began to change after the organization of Conservative Baptist Seminary in Denver (now the Denver Seminary). For the first few years, the seminary supported the goals and objectives of the movement. That changed after the dean was ousted and a new faculty member became dean and then president of the school. The new dean/president was committed to the neoevangelical rejection of separatism, and he eventually became a firm supporter of cooperative evangelism that partnered with gospel-deniers. He used the seminary’s power to threaten pastors who would not participate in these cooperative evangelistic endeavors. He and others downgraded the importance of premillennialism, and they argued that some version of “progressive creationism” (which amounted to theistic evolution) was compatible with the biblical creation accounts.

These same attitudes also began to surface within the CBFMS and then within the Eastern Regional of the CBA. Those who held the new attitudes were determined to control the whole Conservative Baptist Movement and to bring it into line with their thinking. They intended to force many of the older leaders (such as Clearwaters) to comply or be ruined. On one occasion the Denver Seminary president even conducted a private seminar in Minnesota, instructing sympathetic pastors how to take over the Minnesota Baptist Association. He even had sympathizers in Fourth Baptist Church who worked to oust Clearwaters.

The neoevangelical party talked much about love, but at the very same time they were whispering slanders about the older leaders who still supported the Portland Manifesto. On one occasion, a henchman of the neoevangelical threatened Clearwaters, claiming that he would produce evidence of wrongdoing unless Clearwaters knuckled under. Clearwaters publicly begged him to tell everything he knew in front of everyone, promising that if he had committed sins then he wanted to seek forgiveness for them on the spot. No accusation could be made.

In the long run, neoevangelicals did succeed in controlling the Conservative Baptist Movement. They dismantled older statements favoring separatism, they distanced their institutions from premillennialism and dispensationalism, and they opened the doors to varieties of progressive creationism. They were able to succeed in these things by using the power of their institutions to force pastors to act contrary to their convictions. Finally, the CBF organized another new mission agency, the World Conservative Baptist Mission, to uphold these older commitments. When that happened, the Conservative Baptist Association, influenced by the CBFMS and neoevangelical sympathizers, kicked the new mission out of the movement. This action in turn led the supporters of the new mission to organize a new association, the New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches.

The point of the story is not so much whether separatism, premillennialism, church autonomy, or direct creation are the correct biblical positions. The point is that the movement was originally committed to these positions, and that commitment was subverted by a minority of individuals who saw an opportunity for themselves. Rather than founding institutions that were in sympathy with their beliefs, they took over existing institutions and undermined them from within, leading them to act contrary to their original commitments. In The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise Clearwaters was detailing the original position of the Conservative Baptist Movement, narrating the steps and methods by which that original position was subverted, and defending the older leaders against some of the charges of which they were accused.

Even if The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise was not a perfect book (and only one book is perfect), it is hardly the nadir that Olson seems to think. Reasonable and godly men are allowed to defend themselves. Reasonable and godly men are allowed to object when their life’s work is being twisted and turned against them.

A Sov’reign Protector I Have

Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

A sov’reign Protector I have,
unseen, yet forever at hand,
unchangeably faithful to save,
almighty to rule and command.

He smiles, and my comforts abound;
His grace as the dew shall descend;
and walls of salvation surround
the soul He delights to defend.

Inspirer and hearer of pray’r,
Thou Shepherd and Guardian of Thine,
my all to Thy covenant care
I sleeping and waking resign.

If Thou art my Shield and my Sun,
the night is no darkness to me;
and fast as my moments roll on,
they bring me but nearer to Thee.

Kind Author and Ground of my hope,
Thee, Thee, for my God I avow;
my glad Ebenezer set up,
and own Thou hast helped me till now.

I muse on the years that are past,
wherein my defense Thou hast proved;
nor wilt Thou relinquish at last
a sinner so signally loved!

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Four

by Kevin Bauder | Feb 24, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Fellowship (koinonia) is always a function of something held in common. What Christians hold in common is fundamentally the gospel. Consequently, Christian fellowship must never be extended to individuals who deny the gospel.

Certain teachings and affirmations are essential to the gospel and therefore fundamental to Christianity and Christian fellowship. To deny a fundamental is to deny the gospel itself. Consequently, Christian fellowship must never be extended to individuals who deny any fundamental doctrine.

Some denials of the gospel are explicit. Atheists, infidels, and non-Christian religions such as Islam and Hinduism are explicit denials. Other denials of the gospel are implicit. False teachers may claim to be Christians and to believe the gospel while nevertheless denying teachings that are fundamental to it. Those apostates or heretics must be excluded from Christian fellowship, which at minimum means excluding them from membership and especially leadership in any endeavor carried out in the Lord’s name.

Scripture is clear about the status of those who deny fundamental doctrines. Paul calls down damnation upon anyone who teaches a different gospel (Gal 1:6–9). Jude warns that because these apostates creep in, Christians must put up a fight for the faith (Jude 3–4). Peter says that they secretly introduce destructive heresies (2 Pet 2:1). John repeatedly labels them as antichrist and claims that they do not have God (1 John 2:22; 4:3; 2 John 7).

No Christian commonality exists with teachers who deny the gospel. To include them in Christian fellowship is at best hypocritical. John specifies that we are not to receive apostate teachers into our houses when they come to present their false message. We are not even to give them a civil greeting. The exact meaning of these words may be debated. At minimum, however, they obligate us never to pretend that any level of Christian fellowship, however basic, is possible with heretical teachers. Those teachers must never be viewed as brothers and sisters in Christ. The gospel not only shows us the way of salvation but also forms the hard boundary of Christian fellowship. No Christian fellowship is ever possible with gospel deniers, none at all. This is the idea of separation.

Fundamentalism began when orthodox Christian leaders in America realized that their denominations, missions, and other Christian endeavors were harboring teachers who denied fundamentals of the gospel. Around 1920 these leaders tried to get their organizations to put the gospel deniers out, but they almost never succeeded. Instead, almost every Protestant denomination formally committed itself to including gospel deniers within both its membership and leadership. In time, gospel deniers came to control the councils of those denominations.

Unable to purge the gospel deniers out of their fellowships, fundamentalists took the only step that would preserve the integrity of Christian fellowship. The only way they could eliminate false fellowship was to leave their denominations, missions, and other ministries, and to start all over again. This step carried a high cost, but those who left were able to rebuild their work in ways that respected the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. Either way, whether putting out or coming out, fundamentalists were committed to the practice of separation.

This cost was higher than some others wanted to pay. While still affirming the gospel as the way of salvation, these others nevertheless abandoned it as the boundary of Christian fellowship. They insisted that they could remain in perpetual organizational fellowship with apostate teachers (i.e., teachers who denied fundamentals of the gospel). To this day one finds gospel-affirming preachers who remain in apostate denominations.

Over time this attitude of inclusivity spread to some who had once identified as fundamentalists. They expressed a willingness to tolerate gospel-denying teachers and to cooperate with them in the Lord’s work. In some cases, they even purposed to infiltrate enterprises that had been captured by gospel-denying leadership. They did this in the hope that they could influence gospel-denying teachers toward orthodox Christianity.

Nowhere were these inclusive attitudes more evident than in the practice of cooperative evangelism, which emerged after mid-century. One evangelist in particular pioneered in recruiting apostate teachers to assume leadership in his crusades, sit on his platforms as honored guests, and offer public prayers at his meetings. In exchange for the support of these gospel-denying leaders, he promised to send converts back into their churches. Some Christians who otherwise affirmed the gospel endorsed his behavior. Some imitated it. Others knuckled under to pressure (for pressure was applied) to support his cooperative evangelistic campaigns, even when they personally saw the damage that this practice could inflict.

Advocates of this inclusive position coined the name neoevangelical as a self-designation. They trumpeted the superiority of inclusivism over separatism and attempted to sway the broad evangelical movement into sympathy with their direction. In the long run, they were largely successful, and they displaced fundamentalists as the ecclesiastical leaders of the evangelical world.

From a fundamentalist perspective, these inclusivists were guilty of compromising the gospel and the Christian faith. Neoevangelicals did not at first deny any of the fundamentals, but they did deprive the gospel of its rightful role as a determiner of Christian fellowship. The question for fundamentalists then became what to do about those who affirmed the gospel but compromised its rightful role.

Any choice like this needs to be informed by the Bible, and the biblical text that addresses exactly this situation is 2 John 7–11. Here John directly forbids Christians from extending tokens of fellowship to false teachers. He also states that if they do, then they gain a share in the evil that those false teachers accomplish. In other words, they become responsible for the evil works of the false teachers.

A neoevangelical or other inclusivist who extends Christian fellowship to gospel deniers becomes marked by their evil. Someone who bears such a mark can hardly be considered an insightful or discerning Christian. At minimum, Bible-believing Christians who wish to honor the gospel should avoid jumping on that person’s bandwagon or of treating that person’s ministry as if it were innocent. Rather, discerning leaders should warn others about the destructive effects of compromising the gospel. That is exactly what fundamentalist leaders did from mid-century onwards.

The integrity of the gospel leads separatists to address two issues. The first is non-fellowship with apostate teachers who deny fundamentals of the gospel. The second is non-cooperation with leaders such as neoevangelicals who compromise the gospel’s role as the boundary of Christian fellowship.

The latter is the kind of secondary separation that distinguishes fundamentalism from other forms of evangelicalism. It is the practice for which fundamentalists are often condemned. Rightly understood, this kind of secondary separation does not require Christians to treat other Christians as if they were unbelievers. It simply recognizes that one cannot surrender the role of the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship without doing significant damage to the Christian faith. It need not lead to bitter attitudes or unholy anger. It simply recognizes that differences over the faith do sometimes result in limitations upon Christian fellowship, and that compromising the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship is a serious difference indeed.

Planted in Christ, the Living Vine

Samuel Francis Smith (1808–1895)

Planted in Christ, the living vine,
This day, with one accord,
Ourselves, with humble faith and joy,
We yield to thee, O Lord.

Joined in one body may we be;
One inward life partake;
One be our heart; one heavenly hope
In every bosom wake.

In prayer, in effort, tears, and toils,
One wisdom be our guide;
Taught by one Spirit from above,
In thee may we abide.

Complete in us, whom grace hath called,
Thy glorious work begun,
O thou in whom the church on earth
And church in heaven are one.

Around this feeble, trusting band
Thy sheltering pinions spread,
Nor let the storms of trial beat
Too fiercely on our head.

Then, when, among the saints in light,
Our joyful spirits shine,
Shall anthems of immortal praise,
O Lamb of God, be thine.

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Three

by Kevin Bauder | Feb 17, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

In January, Desiring God posted a brief interview with John Piper discussing the question, “Where Do You Draw Lines for Ministry Partnerships?” Piper’s reply envisions Christian ministry associations as a series of concentric circles. In his thinking, the center circle requires the greatest degree of agreement, while the outermost circle requires the least. The six circles are:

1. Elders and church staff
2. Church planting network
3. His own conferences
4. Others’ conferences
5. Debates and conversations
6. Rallies with common cause

In Piper’s schema, the fifth and sixth circles might involve people who are outside the faith. He might debate some individual over some abridgement of the gospel (as he did with Greg Boyd). He might participate in a political event such as a pro-life rally with people who seriously undermine the gospel (such as Roman Catholics).

To be clear, I do not always draw my lines in the same places that Piper does. Nevertheless, I believe his schema of ministry partnership has value. In fact, it resembles closely the schema that I was taught as a student both in a fundamentalist Bible college and later in a fundamentalist seminary.

Here’s the point: when Piper makes decisions about who he will or won’t work with, he is really making decisions about fellowship (partnership) and separation. In at least some cases, and at some levels, he is separating from fellow believers. This non-cooperation with, or separation from, fellow believers is precisely what fundamentalists mean by secondary separation.

Incidentally, Piper is not alone in implementing some version of secondary separation. Years ago I was conversing with the president of Fuller Theological Seminary. I commented, “I understand that my city has a prominent alumnus of your school who is now persona non grata on your campus.” Without batting an eye, that president replied, “John Piper.” For him, it was just a statement of fact. Fuller Seminary is evidently committed to the practice of secondary separation.

I recognize that somebody from Fuller might say, “That’s not separation, it’s just non-cooperation.” Piper might say the same thing. To be fair, I should point out that some fundamentalists would also wish to distinguish separation from non-cooperation.

The problem is that I have never seen or heard anyone really explain this distinction, let alone defend it adequately. How exactly is separation different from withholding fellowship (non-cooperation)? How does one know when one has stopped non-cooperating and begun separating? Any effort to distinguish these two ends up in special pleading or incoherence. Christian fellowship and separation are correlative terms, and they are inversely proportional to one another. To the degree that we engage in fellowship, we are not separated. To the degree that our fellowship is limited, we are separated.

Fellowship is not all the same. Piper has sketched six circles of ministry partnerships (though I question whether the last two are necessarily ministry partnership at all). He rightly recognizes that each level of partnership or fellowship has its own criteria of agreement and its own permissible latitude for disagreement. He recognizes the possibility of partnering (fellowshipping) at one level while not partnering (separating) at another.

We could fill out Piper’s circles with a long listing of levels of fellowship that are evident in the New Testament. Some of these involve simple, personal communion around the gospel. Some involve discipleship relationships. Some involve ministry collaborations. Some involve the relationships of individuals to churches or to parachurch organizations. Others involve relationships between churches or parachurch endeavors. The New Testament envisions many levels at which Christians might relate to one another in fellowship—or, if necessary, separate from each other in non-cooperation.

Understanding that Christian fellowship or cooperation occurs at various levels implies that separation—at least separation among believers—is not necessarily an all-or-nothing thing. We may discover that we must separate at some levels even while cooperating at others. In fact, this is the pattern than almost all of us apply to real choices in Christian fellowship. Our churches regularly admit some believers into membership whom they should never call to be their pastors. Credobaptists and pedobaptists may appear together on certain platforms, even though they could not rightly be members of each other’s churches. We sometimes enjoy personal fellowship with a brother who we would not hire to work in our institution. In all such cases we are making choices to fellowship at some levels but to separate at others.

It seems that even the most vocal opponents of secondary separation find some point at which they insist upon practicing it, not excluding Roger Olson himself. He narrates one such episode as follows.

Toward the end of my tenure at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, where I taught for 22 years, I learned that an Institute on campus had invited a very well-known, even famous, neo-fundamentalist theologian and ethicist to speak and that his address would happen in the seminary’s chapel. I knew that he had acted unethically toward me, publicly attributing a quote to me that I never said or wrote, one that could damage my reputation and career, and that he refused to retract it or apologize for it. I went to the authorities and requested a private meeting with the “gentleman” and he declined to meet with me (so I was told). I also knew that he was firmly opposed to women’s ordination, women serving as pastors or preachers, etc. He was and is a “complementarian.” Many of our seminary’s students were women called by God to pastor, plant churches, preach, etc. I joined those women in strongly requesting that the man NOT speak in our seminary’s chapel. In the eventuality, he did not. He spoke elsewhere on campus. I did not attend.

My point in reproducing this quotation is not to judge whether Olson’s objections were legitimate. I simply wish to establish that Roger Olson has joined the ranks of those who practice secondary separation.

John Piper practices secondary separation. Fuller Theological Seminary practices secondary separation. Roger Olson practices secondary separation. Could it be that none of us is able to fellowship with every other believer at every possible level? Could it be that we all make choices that result in secondary separation?

If that is the case, then why list secondary separation as a mark of fundamentalism? The answer is that fundamentalists typically practice secondary separation in a particular circumstance where other evangelicals hesitate. Clarifying what that circumstance is and why fundamentalists think it matters will be the goal of my next essay.

Come In, Thou Blessed of the Lord

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

Come in, thou blessed of the Lord,
Stranger nor foe art thou;
We welcome thee with warm accord,
Our Friend, our Brother now.

The hand of fellowship, the heart
Of love, we offer thee;
Leaving the world, thou dost but part
From lies and vanity.

The cup of blessing which we bless,
The heavenly bread we break,
(Our Saviour’s blood and righteousness,)
Freely with us partake.

In weal or woe, in joy or care,
Thy portion shall be ours;
Christians their mutual burden share,
They lend their mutual powers.

Come with us, we will do thee good,
As God to us hath done,
Stand but in Him, as those have stood,
Whose faith the victory won.

And when by turns we pass away,
As star by star grows dim,
May each, translated into day,
Be lost and found in Him.

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Two

by Kevin Bauder | Feb 10, 2023 | In the Nick of Time | 0 Comments

Roger Olson asserts that the difference between fundamentalism and other forms of evangelicalism is secondary separation. I agree. But what does he mean by secondary separation? And does his understanding do justice to the idea of fundamentalism?

Olson summarizes secondary separation in these terms: “There arose ‘secondary separation’ in which many, perhaps most, true fundamentalists decided they could not cooperate with or have Christian fellowship with even fellow conservative Protestants who were not sufficiently separated from liberal theology (and Catholicism!).” In other words, Olson thinks that secondary separation is separation over separation, or more accurately the lack thereof. So fundamentalism has to be defined by, “separation from liberal theology and the organizations and institutions that were considered too lenient in terms of including and/or cooperating with Christians not sufficiently separated from liberal theology.”

Now, I want to make certain allowances in reading Olson. He is writing informally. We should not demand the level of precision in a blog post that we might expect in, say, a chapter in a volume about Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. Having said that, I wish that he had offered a more robust and nuanced understanding of secondary separation. As he describes it, secondary separation is simply separation over the lack of separation, and it precludes all Christian fellowship.

To be fair, many fundamentalists hold an understanding of separation that is not much more articulate than Olson’s. Their one attempt at furthering the discussion is to suggest that secondary separation involves separation from “disobedient brethren.” I find their articulation even less helpful than Olson’s. How many of our Christian brothers obey all of Scripture all the time, affirming all and only the truth that Scripture teaches, performing all and only those duties that Scripture requires, displaying all and only those attitudes that Scripture affirms, thinking all and only those thoughts that Scripture endorses? The answer is that all of our brothers are disobedient, as are we ourselves. If we were simply to separate from disobedient brethren without qualification, we would exclude everyone. But that would not be enough, given that we ourselves are often disobedient. How does one separate from oneself?

Some fundamentalists have tried to solve the problem by denying that any separation could ever be secondary. This attitude characterized Bob Jones University during the 1970s and 1980s, and it came to be embodied in George Dollar’s definition of fundamentalism: “Historic fundamentalism is the literal interpretation of all the affirmations and attitudes of the Bible and the militant exposure of all non-biblical affirmations and attitudes.” This definition was published in bold, block letters on a separate, unnumbered page at the beginning of Dollar’s A History of Fundamentalism in America, which was published by Bob Jones University in 1973. The problem is that no one, not even the most rigorous fundamentalist, separates over “all the affirmations and attitudes of the Bible.” Dollar’s definition does not fit fundamentalism so much as everythingism.

The “disobedient brother” approach won’t work because not all disobedience counts the same. The “all the affirmations and attitudes” approach won’t work because not all affirmations and attitudes bear equal weight. Olson’s “separate over separation” approach won’t work because not all separation is the same.

Olson cites two paradigmatic examples of fundamentalists practicing secondary separation. The first involves Billy Graham.

Graham came to the fore as a leader among “the new evangelicals” and he did not practice separation sufficiently for the fundamentalists among whom he was raised and spiritually nurtured. Fundamentalist Protestants rejected Billy Graham and his ministries, not because they were not Christian, but because they were “tainted” by the inclusion in and cooperation with allegedly liberal Christians.

I shall have more to say about Billy Graham and cooperative evangelism in my next article. For the moment, it is worth noting that refusal to participate in the Graham crusades after 1956 was not secondary separation. It was separation from the apostate churchmen whom Graham recruited to participate in his crusades. Whether Graham should have personally been the object of secondary separation is another question, and one that I intend to address, but one did not have to believe in secondary separation to refuse participation in Graham’s crusades.

Olson’s second exemplar of secondary separation comes up in the comment string appended to his original post. There he discusses the relationship between Richard V. Clearwaters and the Conservative Baptist Association.

[W]hen the Conservative Baptist Association of Churches split away from the Northern Baptist Convention fundamentalist leader Clearwaters of Fourth Baptist Church in Minneapolis (I don’t recall if he was GARBC or something else) wrote a book I have read called “The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise.” It was a harsh attack on the CBA for not practicing secondary separation and not requiring belief in young earth creationism, etc. The CBA is a truly conservative evangelical denomination and in some cases I would say even “fundamentalish.” Why did Clearwaters feel it necessary to attack fellow evangelical Christians that way?

Of course, I ought to know something about R. V. Clearwaters. For the past twenty-five years I have been a member of the same Fourth Baptist Church that Clearwaters pastored. For twenty-five years I have taught in the seminary that he founded. I was president of that seminary for eight years. I have served on the board of the Minnesota Baptist Association, which Clearwaters helped to separate from the Northern Baptist Convention. I believe that I may be able to offer a word of explanation that will set The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise in context. Even if my explanation does not justify Clearwaters’s book (and I think it largely will), it should at least help Olson to understand why the book was written and what it aimed to accomplish.

Clarifying Clearwaters’s position, however, is subsidiary to a much more important concern. That concern is to show how secondary separation, rightly understood, is (1) coherent, (2) necessary and inescapable, and (3) biblical. I intend to pursue that task in the next In the Nick of Time by turning for help to a source that some may find surprising: an essay by John Piper.

Christian Hearts, In Love United

Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760); tr. Frederick W. Foster (1760–1835)

Christian hearts, in love united,
seek alone in Jesus rest;
has He not your love excited?
Then let love inspire each breast.
Members on our Head depending,
lights reflecting Him, our Sun,
Christians, His commands attending,
we in Him, our Lord, are one.

Come, then, come, O flock of Jesus,
covenant with Him anew;
unto Him who conquered for us,
pledge we love and service true;
and should our love’s union holy
firmly linked no more remain,
wait ye at His footstool lowly,
till He draw it close again.

Grant, Lord, that with Thy direction
“Love each other,” we comply.
Aiming with unfeigned affection
Thy love to exemplify,
let our mutual love be glowing,
so that all will plainly see
that we, as on one stem growing,
living branches are in Thee.

O that such may be our union
as Thine with the Father is,
and not one of our communion
e’er forsake the path of bliss;
may our light shine forth with brightness,
from Thy light reflected, shine;
thus the world will bear us witness,
that we, Lord, are truly Thine.

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Christian Hearts, In Love United

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