No, not the comment service I use(d) (Plug: They are great!) but what the Reformers referred to as the “fuller sense” of the scriptures. Sometimes it gets a rough ride from scholars. Especially Biblical scholars (such as NT and OT professors) and I know Dispensationalists are not very keen on it. But this Sunday in Sunday school the issue came to the fore for me. We were discussing Lot in R. Kent Hughes’ book Set Apart. Hughes speaks of Lot as a righteous man who was troubled about the culture he lived in, but he still clung to it. Then in reference to Lot’s daughters, he said, “We see, then, that it is possible for believing people like us who are truly distressed by the course of this world to live lives that are so profoundly influenced by the culture that Sodom is reborn in the lives of those we love the most” (p 15).

So back to the sensus plenior. Some in the class were uncomfortable speaking of Lot in this fashion. They pointed out that the angels didn’t deride him nor did Peter (2Pt 2:7-8) but he was declared a righteous man. So does Hughes have room to criticize Lot in the fashion he is? Well, I would go even one step further and point to Abraham’s exchange with God just before the episode with Sodom and Gomorra in which God promised not to destroy the cities if there were 10 righteous in them. He didn’t find that number and so he extracted the righteous and destroyed the city. So there are three witnesses to Lot being righteousness. May we fairly criticize him? Well, if you read Genesis alone you would be hard pressed to declare him righteous. The temptation, based on some of the events in Lot’s story, would be to say that God was blessing him strictly because of his relationship with Abraham. After all, when Sodom was raided and Lot taken captive, God blessed him with delivery because it was Abraham doing the delivering. The events of Lot’s life were not what we would call righteous. It is only because the Apostle later tells us that he is righteous and distressed that we recognize it. Perhaps there was some OT grist for that mill though.

What about Jephthah? In Judges 11:30-31 he makes a foolish vow to kill whatever walks out of his front door. His daughter walks out and in verse 39 he fulfills his vow. What is our reaction to this? Would we call Jephthah righteous or foolish for making such a vow? In Hebrews 11:32 he is listed amongst the faithful heroes. It seems that according to verse 33 it is because he conquered kingdoms rather than the fact that he made and kept foolish vows. But if we didn’t have Hebrews what would we think of him, how would we remember his time as a judge of Israel? Would the end of his time overshadow the good parts?

In the end, we have to acknowledge that the NT corrects and informs our reading of the OT. That doesn’t mean that it overrules or changes the meaning, but in the examples above it merely amplifies and confirms what our suspicions might be. These people in the OT are a lot like us. They sinned and did stupid things. We sin and do stupid things. Yet, God considered them righteous as he does us. Not because we do enough good so that it outweighs our bad, but because he has fixed his love upon us and justified us so that we are righteous in his sight, sinners though we be. Without the sensus plenior, we are tempted to judge the OT saints the way we may all too often judge the NT saints. Only by their most recent episode, be it good or bad. When it comes to our brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus is the sensus plenior. They are righteous because they are in Christ. That does not mean that we ignore the bad they do. We can agree with Peter that Lot was righteous and yet not ignore the bad things he did. Offering his daughters to the mob to protect the angels, no matter how you slice it, is a bad thing. No hospitality code may compel us to send our daughters into a situation in which we know that they will be raped and abused. The better answer was “no” all the way around. “No you cannot have my guests and no I’m not going to offer anyone in their place just to sate your wicked lusts.”

So yes, I think Hughes was justified in his critique of Lot. He affirmed with Peter that Lot was righteous and yet remained critical of Lot’s actions. This is not odd. We can affirm in our own lives that our justification in Christ does not always match our actions.

Part 2 in a series.

The acronyms clumped together are usually NPP/FV/AA which represent the New Perspective on Paul, Federal Vision and the Auburn Avenue Theology. In truth, only the last two somewhat belong together. Though there is some sympathy between them and some cross-polenization, they really are not the same things. I sort of lumped them together in my previous post and then really only dealt with the NPP. The reason was because I understand NPP better than I do FV. Well, I’ve tried to understand the FV better and decided that it warrants its own post.

The Federal Vision was first articulated under that name in 2001 at the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church’s Pastors’ Conference. It wasn’t really anything blazingly new, it was a trajectory within Reformed Theology that had been brewing for a while. The AA conference was just kind of a harmonic convergence where it all came together. What they didn’t realize was that it actually came together like flint and iron in a gasoline factory. The presbytery Auburn Avenue is part of began investigating, accusations flew and there is still a lot of bitterness going around, though I think it is beginning to settle down. The funny thing is that one of the speakers, Doug Wilson, isn’t even a presbyterian!

What was articulated at the conference was a high view of the covenant. Too high in my opinion, I think FV is essentially hyper-covenantalism.

There are different themes and different trajectories within the movement (and which movement is that not true of?) but here are some of the threads that stand out for me:

Baptism actually saves you, unites you with Christ unless and until you apostatize. In a sense anyway. There goes perseverance of the saints, as the “saints” (who are not necessarily elect) are united to Christ and can still be apostate. Next, anyone who is baptized is fully are really a member of the Church. Period. When they become apostate they are then removed from the church. There goes particular redemption (see Acts 20:28). Now of course, the folks who hold to the FV are Reformed with a capital R and they still affirm Calvinist soiterology so they aren’t denying these doctrines. They simply have to do some redefining of terms to make them work properly.

Next, there is a conflation of Christ and Church. They become essentially one entity. There is some biblical support for that. The imagery Paul uses of Head and body. This is where that baptism thing comes in. But there are other metaphors in the Bible that show Christ as different than and over his Church. The Bridegroom and the bride. The wedding feast is in the future, at the eschaton, not yet. There is the imagery of the Shepherd and the sheep. In Revelation Christ walks amongst the lampstands, he isn’t one of them or made of them. Surely the Shepherd is not one of the sheep. The problem is what I heard DA Carson call “parallel-a-mania” in a talk on the NPP (parts 2 & 3 are here). You take a good idea, a biblical concept and then press it in to every place in the Bible, even where it doesn’t belong.

What I find sad about this is that a good, biblical idea, covenant, is taken for a ride across everything. It reshapes how everything is understood. Even things it shouldn’t. Baptism is part of the New Covenant, to be sure. We are baptized into the Body. But I maintain that it is not the sign and seal of the New Covenant, that is only and ever applied to the Holy Spirit (2Co 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:13-14; 4:30). Also, the FV moves salvation from a personal issue to one of the Church. Instead of a person exercising faith and being saved and justified, faith is moved to the sacrament and salvation is moved to the church. This is Romanism as far as I can tell. The “objective” nature of the covenant sounds great but what it really means is that much of the Reformation is lost.

Tony Compolo has become an Open Theist, even if he doesn’t use the term. Here is part of his reaction to the reaction to Katrina:

But when the Bible tells us about the grace of God, it is giving us the good news that our loving God does not give us what we truly deserve. Certainly, God would not create suffering for innocent people, who were–for the most part–Katrina’s victims.

Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed. Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is omnipotent. Kushner points out that omnipotence is a Greek philosophical concept, but it is not in his Bible. Instead, the Hebrew Bible contends that God is mighty. That means that God is a greater force in the universe than all the other forces combined.

Notice the irrationality of it. God is not omnipotent, but he is mighty and greater than all other forces combined. Then there is nothing that can thwart God’s purposes, since he is mightier than all other forces combined. That is the definition of omnipotence! Also, he said “God does not give us what we truly deserve” and in the next sentence says “God would not create suffering for innocent people.” Hey, if they’re innocent AND they suffered, then God truly did not give them what they deserve! They deserve blessings and peace but they got a hurricane.

God is omnipotent whether the word is used in the Old Testament or not. You cannot really read Job 38-41 and not recognize that God is claiming himself to be omnipotent.

Personally, I contend that the best thing for us to do in the aftermath of Katrina is to remain silent, and not try to explain this tragedy. Instead of asking “Why?” we should be asking, “What does God want us to do now?” The loving God calls all believers in the face of Katrina’s devastation to seek ways to express love in concrete ways towards those who have lost friends and family members; and to those who have lost homes along with most of their earthly belongings.

But this is not at odds with confessing with the Bible that God is omnipotent and brings all these things about! If we tell them that God is not powerful over storms how can we assure them? What hope are they given if God could not stop the next storm that comes along? How are they comforted if they feel that we are at the mercy of blind and uncaring nature instead of under the caring protection of God? Yes he judges. But as I’ve said elsewhere, the point of Katrina is not to judge, but to call all of us to repentance. America is no better than any other nation. This isn’t a chance to rail against cultural acceptance of homosexuality or abortion or smutty television, it is a chance to call individuals to repentance and faith.

Tony Campolo has just stuck his finger in the eye of any evangelical attempting to do that. He has sided with the God-belittelers and denied the God of the Bible which is in Hebrew and Greek. Tony Campolo has embraced heresy and has departed from the faith. I hope that those in the Emergent Church who have warmed to him will now reject him as well.

Tony, repent of your sin and confess your error. Recant this scandalous things that you have said against God. Repent or a storm far worse than Katrina will fall upon you at the end when Christ judges the hearts of all. Repent Tony, repent.

For a stark contrast to how to handle this, take a look at John Piper’s response to the same kind of nonsense.

I just received a CD from Monergism Books with over 655 MB of John Piper lecturing on Calvinism. It will take a while to listen to it all and I can’t wait to get started!!

Monergism is offering the CD for free and only $5 shipping. I ordered DA Carson’s The Cross and Christian Ministry and Michael Williams’ Far as the Curse is Found: The Covenant Story of Redemption which were on sale and the shipping covers it all. Why did I buy two more books, this term is reading intensive and I have a backlog from last summer that I didn’t get to??!! I must be addicted, but at least I am addicted to books on sale. :)

Bethlehem Baptist Church is proposing a change to their constitution to admit for membership those who have been baptized as infants and believe that their baptism was valid. This does not mean that BBC will begin baptizing infants or change their position on baptism. It does seek to allow the conscience of an individual dictate whether their baptism was valid or not.

BBC will continue to teach and preach believers?-only baptism. If a person who was baptized as an infant and believes that baptism was valid is willing to
submit to that preaching and teaching, they are welcome to be members.

From the announcement:

The central issue at stake is: How should we define the membership of the church? That is, what degree of biblical understanding and agreement should a person have in order to belong to a local church? Or to put it another way: Should the door to membership in the local church be roughly the same size as the door to the universal church? If so, what is the basic set of beliefs that a person should be willing to affirm? or at least not deny?in order to give good evidence that he is born again into the family of God and a follower of
Christ?

I support this change. I’m not a Baptist, though I am baptisitic in my view of the sacraments. What they?re saying is that a person must be baptized to be a member of the church. What they are changing is how they decide what a valid baptism is. They are not changing their definition of it but they are allowing for a persons’ convictions about infant baptism.

This makes sense to me. Good people have disagreed on this issue since the early 1600s (at least). I am well versed in both sides of the argument and recognize valid points for each camp. If I could not convince someone that my position is correct, and they are orthodox on every other point of doctrine, must I tell them that they cannot be a member of my church? I would rather err on the side of charity.

Others (here and here) disagree with Bethlehem on this. To my surprise, paedobaptists have been critical too.

This is my favorite coffee in the world. It is a bit expensive but it is so good. Get it while you can, it is a limited edition thingy. The beans come from “special” coffee berries. There are usually two beans in a berry but in about one out of seven there is only one. These are called “peaberry” and have a unique flavor. It is pretty mellow and has hints of chocolate. I used to get this variety with Gevalia when I used to have subscribe to them.

So what the heck do I think I can add to the discussion about the devastation of New Orleans? Am I going to defend God? Am I going to decry the sinfulness of the city? Am I going to whine about my gas prices? What can I say?

First, to gain some Biblical perspective on this, I would strongly recommend listening to John Piper’s NPR interview “God and Tsunamis” (4mb MP3).

Second, and this along the lines of what you’ll hear in Piper’s interview, I want to confess that America is a sinful nation. We are a nation that elevates sex and impossible standards of physical beauty to the pinnacle of existence. Nationally, we are more interested in “Sex in the City” than we are in God and our neighbor. We don’t hate God we ignore him. We’re indifferent about spiritual things and fill the void with voyeuristic television.

Third, we are not more civilized than anyone else. Humanity shares a fallen nature and we’ve seen this come out within four days of the hurricane through the looting, riots, rapes and gunfire in New Orleans. Chicago is no better than New Orleans, nor is Tulsa or Des Moines. All of America is four days away from chaos at the most. God has instituted civil authority to keep society in order and when he removes that civil authority, we get a glimpse of what we’re all capable of.

That is not to say that every single soul in New Orleans is being rotten. I read a story about a man leaving a Rite-Aid and feeling guilty. He showed the reporter that all he was carrying were essentials; pads for post-operative incontinence. “I’m a Christian. I feel bad going in there,” he said. Obviously, you have to do what you can to survive, but there are others who are going far beyond mere survival.

Forth, God was gracious in this act. In case you haven’t heard (unlikely) New Orleans sits largely below sea level. That is why dikes and levies are necessary to keep the city dry. They are also why the city is currently flooded. When the hurricane was headed toward New Orleans, it was a Category 5, the highest category. Also, it was heading straight for New Orleans. Just before landfall, it downgraded from category 5 to category 4 and it made a slight eastward turn. You’ve no doubt seen how bad the damage is regardless of these mitigating circumstances, imagine how bad it would have been if those two things had not happened. The sea would have been driven even harder before the storm and the flooding would have been far worse pouring over the dikes and levies and filling that “bowl” much higher. Once the storm hit the city the damage from those stronger winds would have been greater then it is.

What has happened to New Orleans is horrible, not doubt. It could have been an order of magnitude worse.

So in the end, this like the tsunami earlier is God’s call for us to wake up.

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Luke 13:1-5 (ESV)

Some mentioned that the tsunami struck mainly Muslim and Hindu nations. What are they saying now about Katrina?

Motley Fool thinks Apple (amongst others) would be a good candidate to buy Six Flags. I think that would be really cool, Apple and Pixar (Steve Jobs runs both companies) could team up and give Disney a real challenge. Can you imagine a Monsters, Inc. door ride and renaming Superman to Mr. Incredible? The water park could be reimaged to look like Finding Nemo and the children’s area could be made to look like Andy’s room from Toy Story. Course Steve is a Vegan so who knows what would happen to the food there, but it can only get better. The biggest improvement is that Apple would can Mr. Six and the end of “We Like to Party” being played every half an hour at the park! Man, if nothing else, that would be the greatest thing.