Christ the Center on The Regulative Principle of Worship

During the PCA's General Assembly Nick Batzing and myself had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Derek Thomas to discuss the regulative principle of worship. Derek Thomas is the John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Practical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi. He is also the minister of teaching at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi. Dr. Thomas has authored numerous books including: What Is Providence?, Praying the Saviour's Way and Calvin's Teaching On Job. The audio of our interview can be found here. Hope you enjoy.

How Not to Apologize

Our readers will surely know that I am not an advocate of the Federal Vision, but this video is ridiculous. This is a prime example of how not to engage in a theological debate.

The Reformed Comedy Hour Presents Dr. Dan Sweatt

I may be the first - or the three-hundredth - person to react to this sermon by Dr. Dan Sweatt of Berean Baptist Church which was preached back in April of this year. I'm always the last draw at the gunfight, it seems. Either way, please forgive the insensitive title and the excessive polemics. I rarely indulge myself like this. And besides; I'm almost certain Dr. Sweatt will never read this because he doesn't strike me as the kind of man who reads things from the people he rails against.

[Another disclaimer: I am well aware that this is all old hat. I've heard these things all my life. I started saying half of it when I first came out of my mother's womb, before I learned how to read the Bible. I've heard it from family, from teachers at school, and from people who don't understand what Calvinists believe. So why bother giving Sweatt any attention at all? Mainly, because I just want everyone who is interested to see that this sort of error still floats around out there, even after all these years and Time magazine cover stories and such, the people who hate us still refuse to hear us.]

I want to address in broad terms the real issue Sweatt is dealing with in this sermon. He's concerned, because he's just read the book Young, Restless, and Reformed and he thinks all the young fundamentalists are leaving their churches and becoming Piper-ites. He thinks that the colleges are all going to get closed down and the windows are going to be boarded up [13:37; 16:41]. He thinks that everyone's going to abandon inerrancy for a new church order with John Piper at the top as the protestant pope who interprets Scripture for all these poor Calvin-worshippers who don't know how to read the Bible for themselves [32:45] (then why didn't they just stay Arminians!? Ha ha ha!)

But as I was working today and listening to Sweatt's sermon, I was struck by a few horrifying things which I am literally unable to go without commenting on.

[32:00] What is the most familiar New Testament verse that every child in Sunday School learns? John 3:16...For God so loved the cosmos. [In a mimicking tone] 'Well it doesn't really mean that. You know, He only loves the elect. He doesn't love everybody.' That whosoever believeth... 'Well it doesn't really mean whosoever. You gotta understand. It doesn't really mean that.' We tell our people, "Read the Bible. Study the Bible. Trust the Bible." And then we tell them that it doesn't say what it means!

Other than the fact that that last sentence was nonsense... I'm sorry, Dr. Sweatt, but does part of being a fundamentalist mean that you don't actually listen to the people you decide to straw-man? For most of the fundamentalists I know, it does. Is there any Calvinist reading this blog who would interrupt someone reading the direct text of John 3:16 and say, "It doesn't really mean that!"? I mean, come on! John 3:16 literally reads, "God so loved the entire created order that the believing ones would not perish but have everlasting life." In the original text, the word "whosoever" is totally absent. I love this verse, and so do all the Calvinists I know. Not only for its simple truths, but because it teaches specifically Reformed things like particular redemption (notice that according to this verse the benefits of Christ's death accrue only to those who believe). Lets move on to even more outrageous caricatures.

[35:22] Who was Charles Spurgeon's successor at London Tabernacle? [A: Rev. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson] You don't know, do you? Who succeeded Calvin at Geneva? [A: Theodore Beza] Who succeeded John Knox in Scotland? [A: Lawson of Aberdeen]...Now let me show you something. Calvinism has never in the history of the world - the history of Christianity - survived the generation of charismatic leaders. It's never happened. When Spurgeon died...50 years after Spurgeon was dead, the Baptist movement in England was also dead...The point is, who succeeded Martin Luther!? [A: Johann the Constant] ... Every single time in history, these charismatic leaders come to the fore... and when they die, the movement dies. And here's the reason; this is important. The theology will not support church growth and evangelism. It will not do it. If you believe the doctrine, if you believe the theology, you will not win souls!...Find me in history any exception. It never has.

Either this man is a liar, or he is totally ignorant. Well, or he's bad at logic. Or all of the above. Or this is all one very long, sophisticated, and highly ironic piece of first-rate performance art. First of all, the very first protestant missionaries were Calvinists from Geneva! Second of all, Spurgeon left the Baptists due to the downgrade controversy. It was Spurgeon's belief that the compromises leading to the downgrade controversy are what were leading to Baptist declines in England. Thirdly, Calvin is a terrible example, because his successor, Beza was a highly influential theologian and is still read by many today. Simply because Dr. Sweatt doesn't know who Beza is (or doesn't think his audience knows) doesn't prove anything. The same follows with Sweatt's analysis of Knox and Luther. I just wanted to print Sweatt's ignorant and illogical statements so the world (or at least thinking Reformed people) could see the kind of butchered logic and ridiculous truth stretching this man has to use in order to argue against Calvinism.

The only time in this man's entire hour-long self-indulgent diatribe where he even uses the Bible to deal with Calvinism is when he quotes his trusty old friend, John 3:16. He talks about himself and how awesome it is to be him [22:30; 24:15] far more than he even bothers dealing with Calvinists in Scriptural terms.

Some more brilliant nuggets: "[10:45] Today, academic discussion is the reason to be. We gather in great groups to discuss theology. We used to gather in great groups to plan our strategy for reaching the lost." Since he's so obsessed with Piper after reading Hansen's book...click here to see all the resources at Piper's website dealing with evangelism.

"These young men...have run right past a Biblical position... and into the arms of John Piper." Again, the quotes just get better.

More could be said, but it's bedtime. Enjoy the sermon, everyone. You'll howl in pain and laughter; often at the same time.

On Being One of those Young Reformed Guys

Collin Hansen has had an interesting and succinct series he's been running for awhile on The Reformed Resurgence which is both interesting and nostagic. In it, he bit by bit explores in cursory form the rise of Reformed theology (depending on your definition of Reformed) to public enemy #1 for the fundamentalists out there.

I enjoyed reading the series, if nothing more, than because I feel like I was one of those young, restless, and reformed college students who was drawn to people like Edwards and Spurgeon as well as their successors like Piper and Sproul who have now become so popular with young fellows like us. When Josh and I were going to college at GCU, we saw many students who saw the beauty and attractiveness of the doctrines of grace coming to the fuller understanding of the Gospel offered by Reformed theology. Even at the time I think that Josh and I both felt like there was something special going on. Like there was some sort of uprising going on.


How could so many students care about this kind of theology? I think its primary draw (other than being taught in the Bible!) is that it offers a way of thinking of man and of the world which strongly militates against modernity's way of understanding man and the world around him. When fundamentalists scream about how important they think free will is, this new batch of young guys just shake their heads and say, "Sounds like a public-school educated baby-boomer to me!"

It is 2004. I am still going to college at Grand Canyon University. I am working the overnight shift at Target. On my iPod is Doug Wilson's examination before his Presbytery. I think of myself as an odd one, as an outsider. Turns out, I am quite wrong. What a great feeling.

The Possibility of Nonviolent Resistance in the 1st Century

A few years ago, as I recall, Stanley Hauerwas wrote an editorial/letter to First Things complaining that a recent article declared pacifists to be out of the loop in matters of politics because they opposed the use of violence. In response to this, Hauerwas retorted that the Christian has much to say about politics, even if he cannot use violence. He pointed to the same thing Yoder does in this very short (about four pages long) chapter, where he offers two examples from the first century to show that even though Christians may not take up the sword or use force, "effective nonviolent resistance was not at all unknown in recent Jewish experience.

The first example Yoder offers comes from Josephus, who wrote that at one point, Pontius Pilate decided to abolish the Jewish law. He set up idols of Caesar around Jerusalem, and when the Jews found out, they argued with him for days to remove the idols. On the 6th day, Pilate had the soldiers hide, and when the Jews came, the army appeared, surrounding them. Pilate told the people that unless they stopped disturbing him and went home, they would be immediately killed. Rather than acquiesce, they laid on the ground and declared that they would willingly die rather than allow their law to be broken. At this event, Pilate was deeply moved by their desire to uphold their law and he commanded the idols be removed from Jerusalem.

The second first-century example which Yoder points to (he calls it Ghandi-like) is when Caligula demanded formal worship of himself and became apoplectic when the Jews refused to do this. He ordered a Roman commander to put one of his statues in the temple at Jerusalem. The response by the Jews was a general strike. Fields were left untilled and tens of thousands of Jews petitioned the Roman commander to remove the statue. The Jews insisted that they didn't want war with Caesar but were prepared to give their lives and those of their wives and children to prevent the threatened sacrilege. The Roman commander finally went back to Caesar Caligula and argued on the Jews' behalf.

Thus collective nonviolent resistance by the Jewry of Palestine was successful against the Roman forces twice within a decade...[this] does suffice nonetheless to negate the sweeping assumption that in rejection the Zealot option Jesus' only other conceivable alternative would have been the end of the world or a retreat to the desert; in other words, to reject the responsible sword is to withdraw from history. (Pg. 92)

The Abiding Presence of Christ

The Ligonier blog has a new post up by R.C. Sproul titled, "The Presence of Christ." This short post is a helpful reminder that Christ is always with his bride even though he is at the right hand of God the father. The articles opening paragraph (below) has a useful way of explain this.

"The Heidelberg Catechism states, in the answer to Question 47, "Christ is true man and true God. With respect to His human nature He is no longer on earth, but with respect to His divinity, majesty, grace, and Spirit He is never absent from us." This statement tried to do justice to Jesus' own teaching before He left this planet. On the one hand, Jesus said, "I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me" (John 7:33). On the other hand, He said, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20b). Jesus announced a real departure and also a real abiding. Therefore, historic Reformed theology says Jesus has departed in His human nature. His human nature is at the right hand of God in heaven, and we won't see that human nature again until He returns or until we go there. But in respect to His divine nature, Christ is still present with us."

Type of Christ Alert! Gran Torino

It may seem pretty obvious to anyone who's seen Gran Torino that Walt (played by Clint Eastwood) is a type of Christ (*spoiler alert*), what with his personal sacrifice and laying down his life so that his neighbors could live. But Josh Walker just pointed out to me the other day something a little more insightful.

According to Josh, not only is Walt a type of Christ, but Walt's prized 1972 Gran Torino Sport is a type of salvation. Consider that early in the film Thao tries to steal the car by his own effort. By his own work, he wants to bypass Walt and take the car for himself. But he can't. The only way for Thao to really receive the car without getting simple charity is for Walt to die. Even then Thao receives the car as a gift; not because he deserved it (indeed, he tried to steal it!), but because Walt was pleased to leave the car to him.

Another point which Walker made me aware of was that Walt left behind a "comforter" of sorts by leaving his dog to remain friends with Thao and remind him of his presence. At the end of the film we see Thao driving off in this car, with his new comforter, Daisy the dog, in the passenger seat.

God Will Fight for Us: Is the Old Testament Pacifist?

In chapter four of his book The Politics of Jesus, John Howard Yoder recognizes that many perceive a great roadblock to his pacifist interpretation of the ethical import of Jesus in the “holy wars” of the Old Testament, particularly in Exodus, Judges, and Joshua, as the Hebrews were occupying and subduing the land which was promised to them. He says:

We ask, "Can a Christian who rejects all war reconcile his position with the Old Testament story?" If the generalization that “war is always contrary to the will of God” can be juxtaposed with the wars of the Old Testament, which are reported as having been according to the will of God, the generalization is destroyed (76).

Yoder says that the approach mentioned above seems to hide the fact that “for the believing Israelite the Scriptures would not have been read with this kind of question in mind.” Yoder apparently desires to maintain the above stated “generalization,” by viewing the Old Testament narrative in the way that the people of Israel (for example, in Jesus’ times) would have viewed that narrative.

By Yoder’s reasoning, one dominant characteristic of the OT story is that Yahweh is seen “as the God who saves his people without their needing to act.” He argues that the modern reader looks in the story for moral judgments of the rightness or wrongness of the “holy wars,” but that the Israelites would not have said, “judging from this text, it was good for us to go to war.” Instead, he says that they would have seen God, their savior, “where Israel was saved by the mighty deeds of God on their behalf” (76). By the rules of hermeneutics, Yoder proposes that we read the narrative as those who received it would have read it.

The Exodus Era
Yoder quotes as support for his thesis here from each of Israel’s different eras, and he begins with the Exodus, where we read:

Fear not, stand firm,
And see the salvation of the LORD,
Which he will work for you today;
For the Egyptians whom you see today,
You shall never see again.
The LORD will fight for you,
And you have only to be still.
(Ex. 14:13)

In Exodus 17, Yoder is careful to note that Moses and Joshua decide to go to war against the Amalekites without a recorded command of God.

It is a general rule of proper textual interpretation that a text should be read for what its author meant to say and what its first readers or hearers would have heard it say. Whether the taking of human life is morally permissible or forbidden under all circumstances was not a culturally conceivable question in the age of Abraham or that of Joshua. It is therefore illegitimate to read the story of the planned sacrifice of Isaac or of the Joshuanic wars as documents on the issue of the morality of killing. Although the narrative of the conquest of Canaan is full of bloodshed, what the pious reader will have been most struck by in later centuries was the general promise according to which, if Israel would believe and obey, the occupants of the land would be driven out little by little (Exod. 23:29-30) by “the angel” (23:23) or the “terror” (v. 27) or the “hornets” (v. 28) of God, or the most striking victories of Joshua over Jericho (Josh. 6), or Gideon’s defeat of the Midianites (Judg. 7) after most of the volunteers had been sent home and the remaining few armed with torches in order (7:2) not to let israel think military strength or numbers had brought the victory: To “believe” meant, most specifically and concretely in the cultural context of Israel’s birth as a nation, to trust God for their survival as a people.

The Kingdom Era
Other Scripture accounts of God’s salvation:

O LORD, there is none like thee to help
Between the mighty and the weak.
Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on thee,
And in thy name we have come against this multitude.
(2 Chronicles 14:11)

Yoder sees 2 Chronicles 16 as a one chapter commentary on the wrongness of taking things into one’s own hands, rather than relying on the salvation that God will bring. Consider God’s chastisement of Asa for forming an alliance with the Northern Kingdom.

You need not fight in this battle ;
Take your position, stand still,
And see the victory of the LORD on your behalf,
O Judah and Jerusalem.
Fear not, and be not dismayed;
Tomorrow go out against them,
And the LORD will be with you.
(2 Chronicles 20:17)

And the fear of God came on all the kingdoms of the countries, when they heard that the LORD had fought against the enemies of Israel (20:29).

Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him; for there is one greater with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the LORD our god, to help us and to fight our battles (32:8).

Post-Exile Era

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava,
That we might humble ourselves before our God,
To seek from him a straight way…
For I was ashamed to ask the king for men,
Soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way;
Since we had told the king,
“The hand of our God is for good upon all that seek him,
And the power of his wrath is against all that forsake him.”
So we fasted and besought our God for this,
And he listened to our entreaty.
(Ezra 8:21ff)

For Yoder, this text is important, because it supports the thesis of this chapter, namely that those who read the accounts would, looking back, not be making moral judgments upon the texts, but instead would be reflecting upon the salvation that God brings. “It had thus become a part of the standard devotional ritual of Israel to look over the nation’s history as one of miraculous preservation” (83).

The LORD will cause your enemies
Who rise against you
To be defeated before you;
They shall come out against you one way,
And flee before you seven ways.
(Deuteronomy 28:7)

He will guard the feet of his faithful ones;
For not by might does one prevail.
(1 Samuel 2:9)

Not by might, nor by power,
But by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.
(Zechariah 4:6)

Implications
Given this background “legend” which the Israelites would have studied and known extensively, Yoder suggests two serious implications for the meaning of the “Kingdom Inaugural” sermons of Jesus:

(a) The modern reader is struck by the improbability…of any such saving event as a generalized jubilee or an adversary leaving. Since he or she assumes Jesus could hardly have meant this, the reader’s mind is sent to meander down the sidetracks of paradoxical or symbolic interpretations. For Jesus’ listeners, on the other hand, as believing Jews, the question of possibility was not allowed to get in the way of hearing the promise. They therefore did not prejudice their sense of what might happen by knowing ahead of time what Jesus could not mean.

(b) In correlation with our sense of impossibility we tend to think of “apocalyptic” promises as pointing “off the map” of human experience, off the scale of time, in that they announce an end to history….Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom was unacceptable to most of his listeners not because they thought it could not happen but because they feared it might, and that it would bring down judgment on them (85).

Yoder believes that if we as modern readers learn to see Jesus’ statements in light of the Jewish peoples’ background history and “legend” (in the social sense, not the “inaccurate” sense), then we will see that there is much greater political import to what he said. In addition, he says, we will stop scouring the OT texts for moral judgments on the rightness or wrongness of the “holy wars.”

"And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword...in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes" (Deuteronomy 20:13,16). The entire chapter of Deuteronomy 20 leaves me scratching my head. If the entire Old Testament is a testament to the fact that God fights for his people, then why would God command in his law for every single inhabitant to be put to the sword? It might be responded that Deut. 20 is not spoken directly by God, but I wonder what such a response might mean for our understanding of any of the Old Testament texts which do not consist of God's own actual words.

I have combed the Old Testament over quite vigorously (as Yoder says we should not, now, have to do; Oops!), and while I am left with a lot of unanswered exegetical questions, I can find no overt or direct commands from God (but I'm open to some help from others with this, since OT history isn't my strong suit) for the Israelites to go to war which do not, as Yoder points out, also promise that it is God who will do the fighting. In my preparation for a response to Yoder, I believed a case in opposition to Yoder's arguments would be very easy to assemble. What I discovered, however, is that Yoder's reading of the Old Testament (if you grant that he is right that that israelites would not have read the Old Testament like we do, looking for moral judgments and such) is far closer, in my opinion, to the teaching of the text than I ever could have guessed. With the exception of a few challenging verses in the Old Testament, I am half tempted to agree with Yoder that the dominant theme of war in the Old Testament is one where God consistently promises to fight Israel's wars on her behalf, if she will only let him.

I look forward to some outside input on this matter. Maybe someone else can make the case against Yoder's OT reading for me.

Chist the Center on The Importance of the Original Languages

A few weeks back we had the privilege of interviewing my boss Dr. Miles Van Pelt. Dr. Van Pelt is the Associate Professor of Old Testament and the Academic Dean at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS. In this interview we talked about the importance of the original languages of Greek and Hebrew for biblical study.Dr. Van Pelt has helped produce several popular books and resources for original language study including Basics of Biblical Hebrew and Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew. The audio of this interview can be found here. Enjoy the conversation!

You might also consider adding Christ the Center to your podcast feed. You can do this by going here and clicking on the the itunes button or the podcast button (depending on which one you use) under the heading "Subscribe to All Programs" on the right side of the page. This will have all the podcasts that the Reformed Forum does sent directly to you every time a new episode is posted.

Reformed Media Review: Galileo Against the Church & Nichols on Luther

Last night the Reformed Forum recorded a new Reformed Media Review. The audio for this latest episode can be obtained here. In this episode, we responded to part of the video below. A lot more could and should be said about it, but time was running out. Enjoy!

Yoder and the Implications of the Jubilee

The Jubilee year included four prescriptions:

1. Leaving the soil unplanted
2. Cancellation of debts
3. Freeing Slaves
4. Each family gets back its original property.

When I was reading Calvin's commentary on Luke, I was a little surprised to see that he has no problem with the idea that Jesus was reinstituting the Jubilee during his reading of Isaiah 61 where he declared "the good year of our Lord." In this chapter, Yoder does the footwork to show where and how Jesus reinstituted the jubilee and what that meant/means for Christians.

1. The Fallow Soil: Yoder is honest that there is no explicit command to leave the soil unplanted, but he does point to Leviticus 25:20-21 to show that following the Jubilee meant trusting in God.

'If you say: "what will we eat the seventh year, since we will not sow nor harvest?" - I will give you my blessing on the sixth year and it will produce enough for three years.

According to Yoder, this is similar to Jesus' call for the fishermen to leave their boats in Luke 12:29-31:

‘So don’t be upset, always concerned about what you will eat and drink. (For the pagans of this world are always concerned about all these things.) Your Father knows that you need these things. Instead, be concerned with his Kingdom, and he will provide you with these things.’

Personally, I find this to be a bit of a stretch, but we'll continue, nevertheless.

2 & 3. Cancelling Debt & Freeing Slaves: Christians today do not, for the most part, plant fields, but Yoder says that these next two characteristics are quite relevant to understanding Jesus' thinking. He points to the Lord's Prayer where Jesus says we should pray, "remit us our debts as we ourselves have also remitted them to our debtors." He justifies this more monetary-sounding translation by citing the greek word opheilema. Since I don't know much about greek, I have to take Yoder's word for it, but he says that this word "of the Greek text signifies precisely a monetary debt, in the most material sense of the term" (62). Yoder says very plainly, what this means for Christians:

"Jesus is not simply recommending vaguely that we might pardon those who have bothered us or made us trouble, but tells us purely and simply to erase the debts of those who owe us money; that is to say, to practice the jubilee."

Yoder also points to the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:23-25 as another example of Jesus desire for Christians to consistently practice the debt forgiveness called for by the Jubilee.

4. Redistribution of Capital: According to Yoder, Jesus states very clearly that we should redistribute capital. "Sell all your belongings and give the money to the poor" (Luke 12:33). My first immediate thought on this is that this was an individual command to a man whose materialism Jesus wished to challenge, but I will again digress and give the floor to Yoder. Yoder is critical of those who argue as I have suggested, but it could likewise be turned back on Yoder, because even Yoder does not believe that Christians should sell all their belongings as a wooden reading of this verse demands. So even here, Yoder still ends up watering down Jesus' command; something he is critical of when done by others.

Let there be no misunderstanding here; Yoder does not believe that Jesus was commanding Christian communism. When he said "sell what you possess and practice compassion," he wasn’t creating a constitution for a communist (*cough* or socialist *cough*) state. Yoder believes (and I agree with him) that giving to the poor should be voluntary and done from a joyful heart, not begrudgingly. Those who [in supposed obedience to Jesus] wish to take from people by the forceful arm of government (again, at the point of the sword since that's what you face if you disobey the state) and give that money to whom it sees fit (some needy, and some not-so) are robbing Christians of the joy of obeying Jesus' command to love others, to help the poor and the widow, and to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. These things are to be done with a willing heart and not by bureaucrats at the point of the sword (or gun). Most of all, this robs the church of much of its witness to the world.

According to Yoder, the Jubilee is supposed to be a permanent defining trait of the church. According to Yoder in his epilogue to this chapter, a permanent state of jubilee also fits well with what we read about the life of the early church in Acts (2:42-47; 4:32-36; 11:29-30).

DeYoung, Missions, Wright and Flying Monkeys

Kevin DeYoung has two interesting, and unrelated, posts that I wanted to point out.

The first post has "Questions for Your Missions Budget." In this post DeYoung puts forth four helpful questions to think about when giving money for missions.

The second post is DeYoung's concluding post in a series of questions to N.T. Wright titled, "Flying Monkeys and the New Perspective." His third question gets to the heart of the whole New Perspective controversy, "On what basis are we declared to be in the right before God?"

Counting Heads

It is often argued that since so many Christian throughout the history of the Church have disagreed on the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, then five point Calvinism and full Arminianism must both be wrong. This sentiment has recently been set forth by noted New Testament scholar Dr. Craig Blomberg in his article titled "Why I'm a 'Calminian'," on the Zondervan Blog, in these following words.

"If either pure five-point Calvinism or its consistent repudiation in pure Arminianism were completely faithful to Scripture, it is doubtful that so many Bible-believing, godly evangelical Christians would have wound up on each side. The former wants to preserve the Scriptural emphasis on divine sovereignty; the latter, on human freedom and responsibility. Both are right in what they want and correct to observe in Scripture the theme that they stress."

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it fails to take into account that Christians can be and often are wrong about their theology. A notable example of this is the controversy over the deity of Christ in the early part of the Church. Athanasius stood for the biblical teaching of the deity of Christ, even in the face of great resistance. Athanasius Contra Mundum, Athanasius against the world was his take on his situation. If Athanasius used the above line of reasoning he would have said, "Well, so many godly men believe that Christ is not divine, so I must be wrong." But he did not use this reasoning and neither do we on the issue of the deity of Christ.

Even in our own day there are many who are far more pious than I who believe that Jesus is a created being or who hold that Jesus was adopted as the son of God. But we do not do theology by counting heads. Rather, we do theology by rigorous and thorough exegesis. I am sure that Dr. Blomberg would agree with this point even though he begins his article with this less than persuasive line of reasoning. The issue over Calvinism and Arminianism is fought on the pages of the sacred Bible and not in the halls of higher thinking.

Only One Book

Dr. Derek Thomas has a great article posted here. In this article he maintains the importance and centrality of the Bible, while showing that the Bible itself teaches that we need teachers. He begins his article with these words:

"Only one book is absolutely essential to save us, to equip us to obey God’s will, and to glorify Him in whatever we do. Only one book gives us undiluted truth — the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Only one book serves as our ultimate and final authority in all that it affirms. That book, of course, is the Bible, God’s Holy Word. No wonder John Wesley once exclaimed, “Let me be homo unius libri” — a man of one book!"

He then goes on to state:

"And yet the irony is that if we use only this book [the Bible], we may in fact be in disobedience to it. We should count good teaching about the Bible — whether through commentaries, books, sermons, study Bibles, and so on — to be a gift from God for the good of His church (see Eph. 4:11; James 1:17). So what may look pious on the outside (“Just me and my Bible!”) can actually mask pride on the inside."

The Politics of Jesus Chapter 2: The Kingdom Coming (Part 2)

The Platform: Luke 4:14ff
Yoder is careful to note that both John the Baptist and Jesus use the phrase, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news.” There is no getting around that fact that the average reader sees “gospel” and “kingdom” and that they understand the meaning of “kingdom” even more than they do “the gospel.” The idea of a kingdom of God is decidedly a political concept (35).

He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor;
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives;
And recovering of sight to the blind;
To set at liberty those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the acceptable year of Yahweh.

This passage from Isaiah 61 was read by Jesus in the synagogue and then turned upon himself. Yoder argues that this verse (particularly the last sentence) is a proclamation of the start of a new Jubilee year by Jesus. This is a reading of the text which I certainly have no issues with.

If anyone does not hate father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters,
Yea, and even his own life,
He cannot be my disciple.

The Christian is called to a lifestyle, whereby the cross is the culmination.

The kings of this earth lord it over their subjects;
But it shall not be so among you…
For I am among you as one who serves.

Yoder notes that, “In none of the accounts where this word is reported does Jesus reprimand his disciples for expecting him to establish some new social order, as he would have had to do if the thesis of the only-spiritual kingdom were to prevail. He rather reprimands them for having misunderstood the character of that new social order which does intend to set up (46).

Characteristics of the disciples conducive to social change (46-7):
-A visible structured fellowship
-Sober decision guaranteeing that the costs of commitment to the fellowship have been consciously accepted
-A clearly defined lifestyle distinct from that of the crowd
-Commitment to an exceptionally normal quality of humanness. This distinctness is not a cultic or ritual separation, but rather a nonconformed quality of (“secular”) involvement in the life of the world.

Other evidence of the political import of what Jesus was doing:
1. The formation of the inner-team comprising former Zealots and former publicans
2. The symbolic number twelve
3. The first mission of the twelve (which was Herod’s first perplexity about Jesus (47).

Basically, Jesus wasn't just a moralist whose teachings were of some political import. Nor was he mainly a spiritual teacher whose teachings were unfortunately seen in a political light. He was not simply a sacrificial lamb biding time to his sacrifice.

Could this be Yoder's greatest weakness? It seems that the Bible is more than a book about just being saved, but likewise it seems that those who follow Yoder fall into the opposite tendency of being primarily political and known for what they hate (war, injustice, poverty, etc.) than for what they love. In other words, those who spiritualize everything are wrong, but those who politicize everything are mistaken, as well.

Kingdom life is lived out by people who are dual citizens - citizens of heaven and citizens of earth. This means that we must find a way of living as Christians, but it doesn't necessarily mean changing the world around us through legislative means (and by implication through the sword, since those who are disobedient are threatened by the sword of the state), but rather by persuasion. This, as I understand it, is a sentiment shared both by Yoder and those who are of the two kingdoms persuasion.

Yoder accuses those of the two-kingdom persuasion of having an under-realized eschatology (of course, as an amillenialist I think it's important to remember that we are not yet in the "age to come," so in a sense, my eschatology cannot be realized until Christ comes in judgment on this world). But one might likewise accuse Yoder of the opposite error.