There’s something snide about attempting to rebut a charge of incompatibility between God and evil with, “How do you know what evil is? You have no basis on which to call something evil, if you don’t believe in God.” Of course, the rebuttal is trying to show that a concept of evil and making moral judgments using it make sense only if one has a standard of good to measure up against (i.e., God). True enough, but are people of whatever (non-)religious ilk not permitted to peer into the Christian “system” and bring up an apparent contradiction for discussion? Certainly they should be allowed and even encouraged to do so without expecting to receive snide and shallow rebuttals that amount to little more than question dodging.

photo credit: eskimoblood

Today’s my birthday, my twenty-fourth birthday: April Fool’s Day. I’ve done a few things in my twenty-four years of existence but when I compare myself to others before me, I fall short. Really short. When I pointed this out to my wife, she replied, “But did they know how to DJ?” If it’s either/or, I’ll leave djing behind in a heartbeat. Check these guy out; different times and places, I know, but seriously: check these guys out.

John Calvin

• By the age of twelve he was a bishop’s clerk. I was just a jerk.
• Soon after, he started college and began taking Latin from one of the greatest teachers of the language. I waited until my senior year of high school to take Latin I. I started college at eighteen.
• By age twenty he had been to two or three different universities and knew Greek. OK, so we’re about even on this point though I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say I know Greek.
• At twenty-three his commentary on Seneca was published. Only things I’ve ever published are right here through WordPress.
• At twenty-four some thought him a heretic for being aligned with reformation-esque sentiment. He fled. Though I try to punk people out in a Reformation spirit, nobody listens and I needn’t flee.

John Gill

• By age ten he had read through the entire Greek New Testament and began teaching himself Hebrew.
• Mastered Latin classics by age eleven. At age eleven, I mastered my BB gun.
• Before his teens, local clergy would stop by and find out what little Johnny thought. Sunday School teachers told my parents what a brat I was.
• He was the first Baptist to develop a complete systematic theology and a verse-by-verse commentary on the whole Bible. I was probably the first toddler to poop on a church sidewalk.
• He was called Dr. Voluminous. Me? Not even a doctor.
• There was a saying in his day “As sure as John Gill is in the bookseller’s shop.” A saying based on me might be, “As sure as Drew is on his laptop.”

Jonathan Edwards

• At eleven he wrote a remarkable essay on spiders. By eleven, I had barely even killed one.
• Started at Yale not even thirteen years-old. Me: Marshall University, age eighteen.
• At twenty, he pastored a church in New York. At twenty, I hadn’t even been to New York, let alone a pastor.
• Around the age of twenty-three he wrote his rigorous and convicting Resolutions. I’m a slacker now twenty-four.

I Am What I Am

What do I take solace in on my birthday knowing that these Johns before me have accomplished way more than I by my age? Djing. Playing records on turntables. Nay!

Paul writes in1 Corinthians 15:10,

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Twenty-four down? Twenty-four down. Let’s keep moving, working harder by God’s grace that is with us.

At my seminary aspiring preachers are encouraged to preach through entire books as a series instead of preaching topically every week from different books. I’ve applied the same principle to my personal Bible study and now work through a psalm or two almost daily. (I miss a day here and there.)

What’s great about Psalms is that by reading one a day or something similar one covers more topics than would be covered by doing a topical study. Topics emerge which you might not expect to research or do more reading on or even think about. When we think of topics of Scripture, we think of faith, love, peace, and patience, all virtues that are relatively easily understood, learned, and applied (not always, but usually). For such virtues we hang out in Paul’s letters or in the Gospels with the Old Testament almost entirely forgotten. Psalms brings such oversight to a screeching halt.

Covering lots of topics by reading through Psalms, however, is by no means “a walk in the park.” There are hard sayings which we Christians aren’t quite sure what to do with. David seems always to be crying out to God for him to crush his enemies. He wants God to shut their mouths because they’re mocking him. Let them get caught in their own traps that they laid for him. David appears a guiltless man pursued by bandits unjustly whom he wishes God would smite.

At this point in reading (coming across such things), a two-option tension arises:

1. How should I interpret (tweak?) this Scripture to make it more palatable to my own experience and understanding of God? Or…
2. How should this surprising passage of Scripture change me, my understanding and theology?

You see, it’s either change or be changed. I can say, “David didn’t mean such-and-such, he meant this,” changing the text. Or, I can say, “Woah, I didn’t realize the saints operated in such a way or that God would be like this,” allowing myself to be changed by what I read.

But I must be careful here because a careful reading and interpretation of a hard passage is not “changing” the Scripture. For, what is careful reading and changing of interpretation of a passage but changing what I think a specific word means or refers to? Thus, it is me, the reader, who changes not Scripture. I allow what I think something means to change to be more consistent with Scripture. On the other hand, what we must never allow happen is a changing of the Scripture to suit oneself or one’s personal understanding. I am not the measure of all things nor does the Scripture have to account for what I deem my incontestable experience.

The word of God stands. I change.

In my own words, an etymological root fallacy is anachronistic retrospective eisegesis. Dunamis (power) is most often the unfortunate victim of such shoddy (mis-)interpretation. What do I mean by this cumbersome phrase “anachronistic retrospective eisegesis”? Well, it is a looking back (retrospective) on a word which predates English (anachronistic) and forcing the meaning of a present day English word back onto that Greek word (eisegesis) from whence the English word came. So, for example, people read dunamis inRomans 1:16 and think that dynamite’s root in this Greek word gives the reader license to read dunamis with this present day concept of dynamite; but bear in mind that Paul had no concept of dynamite when he wrote that the gospel is the power (dunamis) of God for salvation. Therefore, don’t read any concept of dynamite back onto dunamis though the English “dynamite” undoubtedly comes from it.

It may preach, but it’s not correct!

Jonathan Edwards caused quite a hubbub with his congregation around the year 1749 after the death of the previous pastor, his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard who was “so great and eminent a divine” in Northampton. Edwards as the new pastor felt convicted to tweak the qualifications for full membership (i.e., taking the Lord’s Supper). Stoddard had led the church to practice an open communion, believing that the unbeliever could be converted in receiving the elements as had been his conversion experience. Edwards disagreed with such an open view of communion and attempted to lead the congregation back to what he considered a more biblical reception of the elements. But seeing as his grandfather was so well respected in not only the church but also in the community, Edwards was met with staunch opposition. Who do you think you are, Jonathan, to try and change what your sagacious grandfather had taught? He would eventually be relieved of his duties.

Edwards didn’t give up without a theological fight however. In 1749 he penned An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the Word of God, Concerning the Qualifications Requisite to a Complete Standing and Full Communion in the Visible Christian Church. This was meant as a sort of tract for his opponents to read and see if they be not swayed to his understanding. It wasn’t especially well-received. Only about ten copies sold after it had been published and printed. People complained it was too difficult to understand (Edwards? Difficult to understand? Ha!). What was meant to assuage the debate and ill-will toward the humble preacher was largely brushed to the side in favor of siding blindly with his grandfather.

In the preface to An Humble Inquiry, Edwards makes a point concerning the adoption of another’s theological views which I believe should be well-heeded because much wholesale theological adoption takes place today. For example, without a doubt one of John Piper’s main effects on evangelicalism is the resurgence of Calvinism among my generation. Books have been written on this so-called “New Calvinism” (e.g., Young, Restless, Reformed). With such a rise in popularity of a theological persuasion comes the risk of its unexamined wholesale adoption. Do you believe in a limited atonement because the scriptural evidence leads you in that direction or because it’s the view of your favorite preacher and you like everything else he has to offer? If it’s the latter, Edwards has the following words of corrective caution to offer:

“I [Edwards] ought not to look on his [Stoddard's] principles as oracles, as though he could not miss it, as well as Nathan himself in his conjecture about building the house of God; nay, surely that I am, even to be commended, for examining his practice, and judging for myself; that it would ill become me, to do otherwise; that this would be no manifestation of humility, but rather show a baseness of spirit; that if I [be not] capable to judge for myself in these matters, I am by no means fit to open the mysteries of the gospel; that if I should believe his principles, because he advanced them, I should be guilty of making him an idol. Also he tells his and my flock, with all others, that it ill becomes them, so to indulge their ease, as to neglect examining of received principles and practices…”

Edwards in making a case for the reasonableness of differing with his grandfather over the proper recipients of the Lord’s Supper gives a word of caution that should find wider application.

John Piper is not God. His principles are not oracles. He can miss it. The budding theologian is to be commended for judging and examining a man’s theology and searching the Scriptures. Further, it’s not humble to say, “I believe in a limited atonement because that’s what Piper holds to”; it’s base, it’s stupid, Edwards says. (Of course, none would admit that they believe something simply because a favorite theologian believes or teaches it; but, trust me, that temptation is always there and it happens far too often.) The temptation exists because it’s easier to import wholesale someone’s theology whom you respect than to formulate your own based on a careful exegesis of Scripture. Edwards, however, warns against such indulgence of ease and neglect of examination. Moreover, great theologians will almost certainly be against such a wholesale adoption of their theology without prior examination..

Edwards concludes as much when he writes later in the same paragraph:

“Thus, I think, he [Stoddard] sufficiently vindicates my conduct in the present case, and warns all with whom I am concerned, not to be at all displeased with me, or to find the least fault with me, merely because I examine for myself, have a judgment of my own, and am for practicing in some particulars different from him, how positive soever he was that his judgment and practice were right.”

You would be confused if you took away from this post the idea that we needn’t bother with (eminent) theologians. Notice that in this post we are learning from Edwards, examining what he says, and finding that it makes sense. It would be backwards for me to say, “Because Edwards was the greatest theologian born on American soil, we should adopt what he has to say on such and such a subject” and not encourage the comparison of his thought with Scripture. Edwards would not want this, nor, if I may be allowed to speak for Piper, would John Piper. Guard against therefore blind acceptance of any particular minutia of theology because so-and-so believes it. That so-and-so believes it may be a good starting point, but don’t end there.

By the way, I love Piper and am very grateful to God for his introducing me to Calvinism (and Edwards!) through his sermons and books. I often here Piper bashing; that is, bashing of John Piper. I trust this post will not come across as such. It just so happens that he, however so unfortunate, immediately comes to mind as one from whom one may liberally adopt theology blindly, as has been my personal temptation. Other examples would be Paige Patterson (especially at SEBTS), Oprah (ha!), and Rob Bell.

The above quotations of An Humble Inquiry are from A Jonathan Edwards Reader (Yale University Press) page 180.

It could just be that the most important Greek word for the Christian man is found only three times in the New Testament. Paul Coughlin in his forthcoming book Unleashing Courageous Faith: The Hidden Power of a Man’s Soul claims that the average, emasculated Christian man needs to tap into what the Greeks called thumos, or courage. (Interestingly enough, English versions translate thumos in its three occurrences as “wrath.” Cf.Romans 2:8, Ephesians and 4:31 andRevelation 15:1.)

This book may have worked better (though it is still forthcoming and too early to tell for sure) on the heels of John Eldredge’s similarly-themed books, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, etc. (Note the similarity of subtitles even!) Having therefore read Eldredge, Coughlin’s message strikes me as a bit outmoded. I feel like I have read this before and learned more about the author’s dog than biblical masculinity (the first chapter “When a Dog is More Manly”). It’s a been there, done that kind of feeling.

Although, to quickly contradict myself, its message does seem consonant with a recent trend in evangelicalism toward encouraging boys to grow up and to be men. The Harris brothers’ Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations is representative and immediately comes to mind. Also, the social justice telos of Coughlin’s thumos contemporizes what is otherwise Eldredge recycled. This push towards real, meaningful action (rather than fishing or climbing a mountain) may be wherein lies the book’s contribution to masculinity.

The critique of Unleashing Courageous Faith I have to offer is much of the same offered concerning Eldredge’s work: a lack of biblical exegesis while drawing deeply from the well of cultural media (movies [in this case Wizard of Oz], songs, etc.). Coughlin’s observations and questions are on target while his response repeatedly returns to a need for thumos. He asks good questions but gives no timely answer based on Scripture, favoring instead the Greeks’ notion of raw man-courage. His proposed solution to the lack of masculinity which is based on Greeks, movies, Nobel prize laureates, and songs in the end proves burdensome when the solution that seems apparent to me is Jesus.

Yes, many have an effeminate Jesus in mind when they consider our Lord, but the solution is not to tap into a Greek notion of man-courage, but to study the ways of our Lord in the Scriptures. While tapping into thumos feels burdensome, there is one who says,

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:25-30).

This is a gender-inclusive mandate from Christ to examine his ways and learn from him. Would that the time spent meditating on the latent kernel of man-courage thumos be better employed studying the ways of Christ.

Now in my senior year in seminary, I’ve witnessed it many times. A professor has expounded key Scriptures on a subject but very carefully avoided devoting himself to a specific system of thought or theology. His seemingly skirting around the issue is not unintentional, however, I’ve learned. This drives students crazy.

“Show us your cards!” “Ally yourself with a known school with which we’re familiar!” Some professors aren’t afraid to rail against a known school using precise, loaded language in the process, but I submit to you that this is the far less thoughtful option. The clever student can often deduce the professor’s position on a subject. But, if this position is stated directly and using well-known terminology, this takes the fun out of the mental gymnastics and exegetical heavy-lifting that should be encouraged and instilled in the classroom. A novice poker player (if I dare use a card game analogy) should learn to play, not knowing the poker master’s hand every round. This is part of the learning process, though it undoubtedly drives the student mad.

Words of Advice

So, professor, you’ve said less and taught less when you’ve flat out (lazily) revealed your party compared with the professor who creates a heurestic atmosphere. Student, don’t ask; it’s a seminary faux pas. It’s all about the tertium quid anyways (not in the Christological to be sure, if anyone was wondering). Watch out for the false binary!

I’d like to issue a call for responsible domain name purchase and usage. Many domain names (e.g., theoffice.com) purchased and employed should rather be subdomains (e.g., theoffice.nbc.com) or subfolders of the root domain (e.g., nbc.com/theoffice). What’s happening is domain name clutter and disassociation. Nearly every new movie and book grabs its own domain name when the same site could exist under the greater umbrella of the author, the publisher, or, in the case of movies, the distributor. Their reasoning might be that if they don’t snatch up their eponymous domain name, someone else will and thereby steal their traffic. Shame.

“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”

“I disagree, but that’s just my opinion.”

I don’t really disagree, but isn’t the person who says “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” asserting that this maxim is true for everyone, when based on their thinking, only they should be entitled to their own opinion because that’s their opinion.

How much easier it is to admit truth.

Google should cut off both sides’ access to all its services until they work it out.