Last year I asked Gerald Bray—Research Professor at Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and director of research for the Latimer Trust—a few basic questions about biblical interpretation. I thought the exchange might be helpful to reprint here.

What are the questions we should ask when approaching a passage of Scripture?

The first question we must ask of every biblical text is simply this—what does it tell us about God? What does it say about who he is and about what he does?

The second question is: what does this text say about us human beings? What are we meant to be and what has gone wrong?

The third and final question is: what has God done about this and what does he expect of us in the light of what he has done?

Asking these questions and seeking answers to them will help us interpret the Spirit’s message to Christ’s people and to each of us as individuals.

What about sections of Scripture that seem hard to apply? I’m thinking, for example, of the genealogies of 1 Chronicles.

These genealogies bring us a message from God even if they appear on the surface to be barren and unprofitable. All we have to do in order to understand them is to ask the right questions about them and their meaning will be quickly opened up to us.

Let me ask you, then, to answer the three questions you posed above. What do they teach us about God?

They tell us that he is a faithful God, who keeps his covenant from one generation to another. Whoever we are and however far we may be from the source of our human life in Adam, we are part of his plan. Over the centuries we may have developed in different ways, lost contact with one another and even turned on each other in hostility, but in spite of all that we are still related to one another and interconnected in ways that may go beyond our immediate understanding or experience.

What do they tell us about ourselves?

They say that most of us are nobodies from the world’s point of view. We live and die in a long chain of humanity but there is not much that anyone will remember of us as individuals. At the same time, without us, future generations will not be born and the legacy of the past will not be preserved. We are part of a great cloud of witnesses, a long chain of faithful people who have lived for God in the place where he put them. Even if we know little about them we owe them a great debt of gratitude for their loyalty and perseverance when they had little or nothing to gain from it or to show for it.

What do they tell us about God’s dealings with us?

They tell us that we too are called to be obedient and to keep the faith we have inherited, passing it on undiminished to the next generation. They tell us that there is a purpose in our calling that goes beyond ourselves. Even if we are not glorified and leave little for posterity to remember us by, we shall nevertheless have made an indispensable contribution to the purposes of God in human history.

John Piper explains in this sermon given in London.

Kevin DeYoung reviews Richad Stearns’s The Hole in Our Gospel—the Evangelical Publishing Association’s 2010 Book of the Year.

Kevin prefaces his review in this way:

There are many more positives I could highlight about Stearns and his book than get included in my piece. The nature of the review and the word count meant that I had to dive right into my objections. But this doesn’t mean people can’t be very helped, encouraged, and even inspired by this book. If I were writing the review over again I would do more to celebrate all the good Stearns is calling us to do. My concerns are not with the heart motivation, nor with the ends, but with the thinking and rhetoric that is sometimes used to get from the heart to the ends.

John Starke at TGC Reviews interviews Eric Metaxas about his new biography on Bonhoeffer.

Here’s a very helpful introduction to reading the Fathers from Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III, delivered this past week at Together for the Gospel:

For more from Duncan, see the interview Patristics for Busy Pastors, where he answers questions like:

Why should a busy pastor invest time in reading the patristic authors?

How will a pastor benefit?

Where should he start?

What cautions should he be alerted to?

David:

Michael New, a political scientist specializing in abortion statistics, explains why T.R. Reid’s “analysis is superficial and unconvincing.”

Ramesh Ponnuru calls Reid’s op-ed “absurd,” says that Professor New’s critique is “too kind,” and shows that the only two pieces of evidence offered in support of this view are both “pathetically weak.”

Follow the links to see their counter-arguments.

Here’s a very good message from Russell Moore, author of Adopted for Life, from a conference devoted to the theme:

More audio and video from the conference here.

I’m not sure how many version of the best-selling The Five Love Languages Gary Chapman has written. I went to CBD, and here is at least a sampling (I think I caught most of them):

• The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate
• The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
• The Five Love Languages, Men’s Edition
• The Five Love Languages of Children
• The Five Love Languages of Teenagers
• The Five Love Languages, Singles Edition
• The One-Year Love Language Minute Devotional
• Heart of the Five Love Languages
• God Speaks Your Love Language: How to Feel and Reflect God’s Love
• Love as a Way of Life: The Seven Secrets Behind Every Language of Love

The gist of these books is that we each have a “love language”—affirming words, quality time, gift giving, physical affection, acts of service—and that we must learn to recognize what language or languages our loved ones speak and to act accordingly.

Many people have been quite helped by this concept—in part, I think, because this book and its iterations contain some common-sense observational insights. But it seems to me that the whole worldview it presupposes has been accepted rather uncritically. That’s why I have long appreciated the thoughtful review of the book by David Powlison, entitled, “Love Speaks Many Languages Fluently.”

Powlison begins by acknowledging that the book contains some constructive advice and accurate descriptions of lived life—it “rings bells when it describes how people typically come wired.”

Powlison summarizes Chapman’s “full working philosophy” as follows:

“I’ll find out where you itch, and I’ll scratch your back, so you feel better. Along the way, I’ll let you know my itches in a non-demanding manner. You’ll feel good about me because your itches are being scratched, so eventually you’ll probably scratch my back, too.”

But therein lies the problem: Chapman takes an “is” and turns it into an “ought”:

Unwittingly [Chapman] exalts the observation that “even tax collectors, gentiles, and sinners love those who love them” (Matt. 5:46f; Luke 6:32ff) into his guiding principle for human relationships. This is the dynamo that makes his entire model go. This is the instinct that he appeals to in his readers. If I scratch your back, you’ll tend to scratch mine. If you’re happy to see me, I’ll tend to be happy to see you, too. So, 5LL teaches you how to become aware of what others want, and then tells you to give that to them. This is the principle behind How to Win Friends and Influence People and The 30-second Manager. It’s the dynamic at work in hundreds of other books on “relational skills,” or “attending skills,” or “salesmanship,” or “how to find the love you want.” Identify the felt need and meet it, and, odds are, your relationships will go pretty well.

Powlison is at pains to show that this is not all bad:

Up to a point, 5LL can be informative, correcting ignorance about how people differ from each other, and making you more aware of patterns of expectation that you and others bring to the table.

But as Packer once said, a half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. Powlison thinks that Chapman’s advice—the point at which he moves beyond description to prescription—can actually be counterproductive to genuine biblical love:

[S]peaking love languages is surely not the whole story. In fact, it is practical, immoral wisdom—manipulation or pandering or both—when it becomes the whole story. Part of considering the interests of others is to do them tangible good. But then to really love them, you usually need to help them see their itch as idolatrous, and to awaken in them a far more serious itch! That’s basic Christianity. 5LL will never teach you to love at this deeper, more life-and-death level. Chapman’s reasons for giving accurate love to others, his explanation of what speaking another’s love language does, his ultimate goal in marriage, and his evaluation of the significance of love languages are deplorable.

Chapman’s model, Powlison argues, fails the class “Human Nature 101.”

Like all secular interpretations of human psychology (even when lightly Christianized), it makes some good observations and offers some half-decent advice (of the sort that self-effort can sometimes follow). But it doesn’t really understand human psychology. That basic misunderstanding has systematic distorting and misleading effects. Fallenness not only brings ignorance about how best to love others; it brings a perverse unwillingness and inability to love. It ingrains the perception that our lusts are in fact needs, empty places inside where others have disappointed us. The empty emotional tank construct is congenial to our fallen instincts, not transformative. It leaves what we instinctively want as an unquestionable good that must somehow be fulfilled. It not only leaves fundamental self-interest unchallenged, it plays to self-interest. . . .

Powlison goes on to contrast this perspective with the foreign “love language” of Christ:

The love of Christ speaks a “love language”—mercy to hellishly self-centered people—that no person can hear or understand unless God gives ears to hear. It is a language we cannot speak to others unless God makes us fluent in an essentially foreign language. We might say that the itch itself (an ear for God’s language) has to be created, because we live in such a stupor of self-centered itchiness. The love language model does not highlight those exquisite forms of love that do not “speak your language.” You and I need to learn a new language if we are to become fit to live with each other and with God. The greatest love ever shown does not speak the instinctively self-centered language of the recipients of such love. In fundamental ways, the love of Christ speaks contrary to your “love language” and “felt needs.” Does anyone naturally say, “I need You to rule me so I’m no longer ruled by what I want”? Does anyone naturally say, “For Your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my iniquity for it is great” (Psalm 25:11)? Does anyone naturally say, “My greatest need is for mercy, and then for the wisdom to give mercy. I long for redemption. May Your kingdom come. Deliver us from evil”?

God’s grace aims to destroy the lordship of the five love languages, even while teaching us to speak the countless love languages with greater fluency.

Read the whole thing.

Update: A response from Powlison to some of the commenters after the jump:

(more…)

Tristan Carnahan of Desiring God has directed a nice little video playing off of a famous quote from C.S. Lewis:

“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (The Weight of Glory, 26)

Thirty seven years ago today (January 22) the Supreme Court issued its infamous decision, asserting that women have a Constitutional right to terminate the life of their unborn children for virtually any reason.

Two years ago on my blog I interview Robert P. George about the decision and its aftermath, and I thought it might be helpful to republish it here.

* * *

Robert P. George is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, and is the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton. His most recent book, coauthored with Christopher Tollefsen, is entitled Embryo: A Defense of Human Life—a book I highly recommend. . . .

I know that you greatly object to the conclusions of Roe v. Wade from a moral standpoint, but I wonder if you could summarize some of the legal problems with it?

The legal problem with Roe v. Wade is simple: The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate state laws prohibiting or restricting abortion lacks any basis in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution of the United States. The late John Hart Ely, a famous legal scholar who himself supported legal abortion as a matter of public policy, said that Roe v. Wade “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” The justices who manufactured a right to abortion in Roe violated and dishonored the very Constitution they purported to interpret by substituting their own moral and political judgments for those of the elected representatives of the people. Their ruling was a gross usurpation by the judiciary of the authority vested by the Constitution in the people themselves, acting through the constitutionally prescribed institutions of republican democracy. As dissenting Justice Byron White put it, Roe was nothing more than an exercise of “raw judicial power.” It was not merely an incorrect decision, but an anti-constitutional one.

Is it true that many abortion-choice defenders also think that Roe v. Wade was a poorly reasoned legal opinion?

I would venture to say that most constitutional scholars who support legal abortion basically (if all-too-quietly) agree with Professor Ely. Roe is an embarrassingly poorly reasoned opinion. Of course, some pro-abortion scholars believe that the result in Roe could be justified by a different form of constitutional argument, and there is something of an industry among them in “re-writing Roe.” Justice Harry Blackmun, in his opinion for the Court in Roe itself, claimed that restrictions on abortion for the sake of protecting fetal life violate the provision of the 14th Amendment forbidding any state from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Frankly, that’s ridiculous, and almost all legal scholars know that (even if some won’t say it publicly). The most notable effort to place the holding in Roe on a more plausible constitutional footing involves the claim that abortion restrictions deprive women of “the equal protection of the laws” (another 14th Amendment guarantee). There are various reasons why that approach fails, too, but many of Roe’s supporters at least find it less embarrassing.

What was the upshot of this decision with respect to abortion? Is it true that it functionally abolished any meaningful restrictions on abortion at any time of a pregnancy?

When Roe is taken together with its companion case of Doe v. Bolton, which was handed down on the same day and incorporated by reference into Roe, the result is indeed the severe restriction of the authority of any state to protect the life of the child in the womb at any point in gestation—even during the third trimester. Some people fail to understand this because they don’t know about, or haven’t paid close attention to, the Doe ruling. Roe prohibits restrictions on abortion for the sake of protecting fetal life in the first two trimesters, but says that the states may (not must, mind you, but may) protect fetal life in the third trimester. Doe, however, undercuts this permission. It says that states may not restrict abortion even in the third trimester—all the way up to birth—if an abortion is judged to be necessary to preserve maternal “health.” Then it defines “health” expansively to include mental or psychological health, as well as physical health, and to note that “emotional” and “familial” factors must be taken into account in assessing whether an abortion is required for the sake of “health.”

Do you believe that Roe v. Wade will be overturned someday?

Yes, I do. Just as Dred Scott v. Sanford, the infamous decision protecting slavery, eventually fell, Roe will someday fall. It will not fall due to a civil war, as Dred Scott did, but rather under the pressure of scientific facts and the conscience of the American people. The development of sonography is already making a huge difference in people’s attitudes toward abortion. Moms and dads, and brothers and sisters, and grandmothers and grandfathers now observe the baby before he or she is born. We view the complex and beautiful life of the child in the womb, as if he or she were on television. Parents typically even name their baby while he or she is still in utero. It is no longer possible to believe that abortion is merely “removing some tissue.” It is plain that abortion is the killing of a human being. The hard work and unceasing prayers of pro-life Americans have already saved many lives. Ultimately, they will result in the overturning of Roe and a regime of law far more protective of human life.

How do you respond to those who say that overturning this decision will have little effect?

I direct them to the brilliant analysis of my former student, Ramesh Ponnuru, in his great book, The Party of Death. It is true that overturning Roe will be only a first step toward the goal of making our society one in which every child is “welcomed in life and protected by law.” But it is a necessary first step. Important work will remain to be done in the cultural as well as the political domain, but I have faith that pro-life Americans are up to the task. Ours is a nation, as Lincoln said, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Our country has never perfectly lived up to its high ideals, but our ideals are the right ideals and they are worth struggling to live up to. Our history shows that we are a people who can live with grave injustices for only so long. Just as we abolished slavery and eventually overthrew segregation and Jim Crow in order to honor the dignity and rights of our brothers and sisters of African descent, we will eventually restore to our tiniest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters the protection they, as members of the human family, deserve.

Some are reasoning that a president has little effect on whether or not abortion is legal, and that electing an abortion-choice candidate would not significantly damage the pro-life cause. How do you respond?

Presidents have a profound role in shaping policy pertaining to abortion and other pro-life issues, such as human embryo-destructive research and cloning. Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn’t thought about the question. Presidents nominate federal judges, including Supreme Court justices. Presidents can propose and fight for pro-life legislation at the federal level. Presidents play an important role in determining whether taxpayer dollars are used to fund abortions overseas and embryo-destructive research here in the United States. Anyone who is serious about the pro-life cause will care a great deal about who is elected president.

This blog has a wide variety of readers—professors, students, pastors, stay-at-home moms, business men, etc. What are some practical things we can do and support to help to create a culture of life in America and to work toward the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade?

First and foremost: Pray. Pray for the unborn victims of abortion and for women who are, so often and in so many ways, truly abortion’s “secondary victims.” Do not judge them, but rather pray for them and love them. Pray for those who have dedicated themselves to working in politics and the culture for the pro-life cause. Pray for our leaders at the state and federal levels—including judges—whose actions will literally determine who lives and dies. Pray for those whose hearts have been hardened against the unborn, and who defend and even promote abortion. And pray for those who perform abortions. God has already turned the hearts of some such people. Bernard Nathanson, a prominent abortionist and one of the founders of the pro-abortion movement in the United States, was converted to the pro-life cause by the loving witness and prayers of pro-life people. Who knows how many other abortionists and defenders of abortion will follow his path? Let’s give up on no one. Let us treat everyone, even our opponents in this profound moral struggle, with respect, civility, and ungrudging love. Loving witness is something all of us can give. And lovingly witnessing in our churches and communities to the sanctity of human life is something all of us are called to do.

And there is more that we can do. Pro-lifers do a wonderful job in pregnancy centers around the country in reaching out in love and compassion to pregnant women in need. These pro-life heroes need our financial and moral support. Moreover, they can always use another pair of hands, so I hope that many people will join those volunteering in these efforts. They save lives, and they bring God’s healing and practical assistance to our sisters in distress. Politically, we need to use our clout as citizens of a democratic republic to influence policy in a pro-life direction. The fight against abortion and embryo-destructive research should be put at the top of the priority list in evaluating candidates for state and federal offices. We should support pro-life candidates with our money as well as our votes. Moreover, I hope that some who read these words will take the very practical step of running for office themselves. We need more people who are dedicated to the defense of human life to step forward as candidates for Congress, the state legislatures, and other public offices.

CNN has a fascinating article today on the post-Avatar blues by some viewers. Here’s an example of a guy who posted on a film forum:

“Ever since I went to see ‘Avatar’ I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na’vi made me want to be one of them. I can’t stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it,” Mike posted. “I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in ‘Avatar.’ ”

Here’s another commenter:

“When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed … gray. It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning,” Hill wrote on the forum. “It just seems so … meaningless. I still don’t really see any reason to keep … doing things at all. I live in a dying world.”

Reached via e-mail in Sweden where he is studying game design, Hill, 17, explained that his feelings of despair made him desperately want to escape reality.

“One can say my depression was twofold: I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality,” Hill said.

Their intuitions awakened by this work of art correspond with reality: we live in a world that is lost and broken, and something inside us wants more—for beauty to shine and for wrong to be made right.

I pray that God would put people in their lives who would share with them the bad news that things are worse than they seem (it’s not just the world around us that is broken, but we are the cause of it as treasonous rebels against our Holy Creator) and that things can be better than they could ever imagine (not only a beautiful new heavens and earth, but a real relationship with the living God through the sacrifice of his Son and the power of his Spirit).

The NYT today profiles Princeton’s Robert P. George, The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker.

HT: James Grant

Maybe it’s poor form to use this forum to point to one’s own blog, but . . .

At this link you can download eight songs on the incarnation for free, from various new albums.

The multi-campus church hits the front page of USA Today.

HT: Michael Colaneri

“Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”

—2 John 1:12

Doug Wilson responds to Jared’s post.

Jared, I think I can agree with every point and disagree with their application, all at the same time, depending on how the term “culture war” is being defined.

I have serious problems with a certain form of the culture war; at the same time, I don’t think you’re going to find many takers who will raise their hands on this sort of restatement:

• laws or policies can make someone a Christian
• illegalizing sin can create or recapture a people for Christ
• Christians should coerce others toward better behavior

You’ll get a hearty “amen” from me that each of the above ideas is contrary to the gospel. And of course I couldn’t agree more with your closing paragraph.

But what do you make of what Martin Luther King Jr. said here?

Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion.

Well, there’s half-truth involved here.

Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart.

But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated.

It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government. [emphasis added]

I think there’s a way, say, to be an activist on behalf of life without throwing the gospel under the bus or imagining that all Democrats are going to hell.

Marvin Olasky’s attempt:

We are jerks. Nothing works.

Holy land? Not so grand.

Christ’s death pays. God’s love stays.

There is a lot, of course, that could and needs to be said about defining “the gospel.” But here’s one important thing to say: you can’t understand the biblical gospel apart from the biblical storyline.

Don Carson puts it well in his essay, “The Biblical Gospel” (in For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future, ed. Steve Brady and Harold Rowdon [London: Evangelical Alliance, 1996], pp. 75-85). The following excerpt is from pp. 80-81, line breaks mine:

God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who has made the universe, including us, his image-bearers.

Our misery lies in our rebellion, our alienation from God, which, despite his forbearance, attracts his implacable wrath.

But God, precisely because love is of the very essence of his character, takes the initiative and prepared for the coming of his own Son by raising up a people who, by covenantal stipulations, temple worship, systems of sacrifice and of priesthood, by kings and by prophets, are taught something of what God is planning and what he expects. In the fullness of time his Son comes and takes on human nature. He comes not, in the first instance, to judge but to save: he dies the death of his people, rises from the grave and, in returning to his heavenly Father, bequeaths the Holy Spirit as the down payment and guarantee of the ultimate gift he has secured for them—an eternity of bliss in the presence of God himself, in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

The only alternative is to be shut out from the presence of this God forever, in the torments of hell.

What men and women must do, before it is too late, is repent and trust Christ; the alternative is to disobey the gospel (Romans 10:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).

This story-line, and its connection with the gospel, could be fleshed out in a number of ways. But the point is simply this: the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ makes sense in the context of this story-line and in no other. (more…)

It should go without saying that the other two evangelical group blogs aren’t bad either. . . .