Growing In Grace

Dr Edmond Clowney was one of the great defenders of the use of biblical theology in preaching. In his book "Preaching Christ In All Of Scripture" he said, "To see the text in relation to Christ is to see it in its larger context, the context of God's purpose in revelation." Today I am advocating that we also use biblical theology in our apologetics! Biblical Theology views and studies the Bible while following the unfolding revelation of God's words and deeds through history. Clowney said about his own personal reading through the Bible, "I started in Genesis chapter 1. When I reached the book of Jonah, I came upon the verse, "Salvation is of the Lord!" I realized then that the Bible did not give a full history of Israel, but a history of God's work of saving His chosen people. It is all about what God did. He who holds the worlds in His hand came down to save us. The Bible is the story of how God came down to be born of the Virgin Mary, t...

After my last post "Are We Biblical Relativists?" I received a few questions and concerns and so I wanted to clarify a few things. One question was that it sounds like I am removing the Holy Spirit's leading us by taking this view of the Bible. If you read the article, you will notice that I was very careful not to address the Holy Spirit's role in this issue (apart from His inspiring the writing of Scripture). My concern was/is how we approach reading our Bibles. What are our presuppositions, or what things are we taking for granted when we read our Bibles? Are we looking at it as a guide book, instruction manual, history book, etc? I wrote, "In my first post I argued that the Bible is primarily a written account of God's plan of redemption. God's chief concern in giving us the Bible was to reveal Himself to us as the Creator come to be our Savior." My point was and is that our view of the purpose of God's Word will shape how we use it . If the...

DISCLAIMER : My intention in writing this post is absolutely not to attack or cause offence or hurt feelings. I realize that many have been taught that we should look for confirmation of our plans from verses in the Bible. I felt compelled to write this because I am worried that we have been led down a dangerous path in how we are reading and applying the Scriptures. I hope that if this is your background you will patiently and prayerfully consider the following. If you see Scriptural support for looking for confirmation from Bible verses that you feel I am missing, I welcome your comments. Many of you probably have heard of Relativism, the philosophy that believes that truth is only true for the beholder. In other words, 'if its true for me, then it is my truth.' Out of Relativism was born Deconstructionism (sounds more complicated than it is). One popular view of Deconstructionism is that when we read a book, each of us view it through our own lenses of personal experience an...

Each and every week a Christian pastor reads his Bible and studies commentaries to prepare for his weekly sermon. During the week he will typically meet with and spend some time with other pastors and some congregants. Now as he does this week in and week out he will be reading his Bible and asking questions that he and the others that he has been spending time with this week would ask. Come Sunday morning he then preaches a message that only he and others like him care about. Whether or not the message was good or bad is not really the point, but instead lets focus on the fact that it is an 'overtly Christian' message. It is a message born out of reading the Bible while only asking questions that Christians would ask, and only answering questions that Christians care about. Now his congregation comes week in and week out and they listen diligently to each message, and they are ministered to because it answers the same questions that they are asking as Christians. They then in ...

In his book "Gospel" J D Greear gives a great illustration of what most of us have come to think of as how our lives as Christians should be lived out. Here is the story: "In graduate school my roommate kept a dog named Max in our house. Because poor Max was crippled in his back legs, his life consisted of lying on our doorstep and staring up as us when we walked by. I remember looking at him one day and thinking, "Based on how most people see Christianity, Max would make a fine Christian: he doesn't drink; he doesn't smoke; he doesn't cuss; he doesn't get angry; we've had him neutered so his thought-life is under control. (BUT) Jesus' disciples are not supposed to be merely compliant, neutered dogs. Jesus' followers are to be alive with a love for God." I couldn't help but shake my head in sad agreement with this illustration. It made me think, "When did this 'safe', and as he put so well, 'neutered' life be...