What does it mean to be a Disciple of Jesus?

Christians—those who believe in Jesus Christ—are called not only to be believers but disciples of Jesus. Jesus commanded:"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19, NIV). We have a responsibility not only to reach out to others, but to be discipled ourselves. The question is: What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

To answer this, the first question is what is a "disciple"? A disciple who follows and lives by the teachings of another, a teacher. A disciple is someone who studies under another, who learns from another, and who seeks to live by the teachings of the one from whom they have learned. It should be emphasised that a disciple is more than a student who gains mental knowledge or insight. There is a practical element to being a disciple or follower. Our word "apprentice" is close to the meaning of disciple. Like an apprentice, the disciple seeks to learn in order to live according to the teacher's insights and wisdom. Yet beyond this, the disciple also has the aim of reaching a position where they can themselves pass on the teacher's knowledge and insights to others.

A Christian disciple, or follower of Jesus Christ, is therefore someone who seeks to get to know Jesus, learn from him, put his teaching into practice, and help spread his message others so that they too will become disciples.

The Bible teaches that this whole process is beyond the ability of human beings by nature. From beginning to end, becoming a Christian, obeying Christ, and spreading the good news about Christ is not something we can do for ourselves. Saving faith itself is a gift from God (Ephesisans 2:8-9) and every part of our lives as Christians depends on the Holy Spirit who comes to reside in us when we come to faith.

Yet the Bible also teaches that there are things God expects us to do as Christians and though we need the Holy Spirit to give us the power to do them, God does not do them for us. The tasks are still for us to do.

Some of the things expected of Christian disciples include the following, though a comprehensive list would require us to read the whole of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments (see Matthew 5:17-20, 2 Timothy 3:16).

1. Learning the truth about Jesus and His Work

We cannot be followers of Jesus Christ without getting to know the truth about who Jesus is and what he has accomplished for us.

2. Getting to Know Jesus

However, being a Christian is more than learning stuff about Jesus. It means getting to know Jesus personally for ourselves. We do this by reading the Bible, prayer, reflection on the Bible and meditation in which we spend time with Jesus.

3. Putting Jesus First—Jesus is Lord

A Christian confesses that Jesus is Lord, which means among other things, that Jesus comes first in life. The direction of our life is set with reference to Jesus Christ and the way he wants us to live.

4. Obeying Christ 

Jesus said to his disciples: "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). A key part of being a Christian disciple therefore consists in obeying Christ's teachings, living the way Jesus taught us to live. These teachings are found not only in the four Gospels of the New Testament, but in the letters of the New Testament where Christ's apostles continue Christ's teachings.

5. Doing Good

Christ calls on his disciples to do good works (see Ephesians 2:10), which he sometimes called "bearing good fruit" (John 15:5-8).

6. Being People of Love

Christ taught that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are, above all, to be people of love.

7. Prayer and Worship

Jesus prayed all the time and expects those who follow him to also be people of prayer. He lived in close communion with God. Christians must therefore be people devoted to the worship of God.

8. Evangelism

As we have already seen, Christ commands us to go and make more disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). Therefore, as well as living as Christ's followers ourselves, we are also called to seek to reach others with Christ's message so that they too can be saved and become disciples themselves. 

Women in Ministry - Prof. Craig Keener

I thought this was a good lecture by Craig Keener explaining why women should be permitted to hold offices in the Church.

The 'All Israel' of Romans 11:26

One of the more controversial texts in the New Testament, at least as far as the range of interpretations it has generated, is Romans 11:26. The verse reads: 'And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come from Zion, and he will remove ungodliness from Jacob".'

The disputed interpretation concerns the meaning of 'all Israel' in the verse.

There are essentially three interpretations as follows:

1. The first and most common interpretation is that 'all Israel' means that ethnic Israel as a whole (or the vast majority of the Jewish people) will be saved at some point in the future. This view envisages a future conversion of the mass of Jewish people. There is a minority view within this position that the Jews as a nation will be saved in the future, irrespective of turning and accepting Jesus as the Messiah. Yet most people who hold to this position believe in a future conversion of the Jewish people to faith in Christ. This view is common among premillennialists and postmillenialists and was the majority view of the Puritans and also of many commentators on Romans such as Charles Hodge, John Murray, and John Stott.

2. Another view,  held by William Hendriksen, Louis Berkhof, Antony Hoekema, R. C. H. Lenski, O. Palmer Robertson and others, agrees that there is no 'future conversion' of the Jewish nation in view, but rather 'All Israel' means all elect Jews—the sum of all the believing remnants down through history. This view points to the fact that there has always been a believing remnant within ethnic Israel and believes this will continue all through time. 'All Israel' is therefore the sum total of all the believing remnants both in New Testament times and right through to the end of time. This view seems most common among Dutch Reformed theologians and commentators.

3. A third view agrees with the second view in part, in that it agrees the passage does not point to a future mass conversion of the Jewish ethnic nation, but differs from the second view in that it sees in Romans 9-11 a Pauline redefinition of  'Israel' so that 'all Israel' means all the elect, both Jew and Gentile together. The third view therefore sees 'all Israel' as a reference to all of God's elect people, consisting both of Jews and Gentiles, throughout the ages. This view has been held historically by figures such as St Augustine and John Calvin, and in our day by the Pauline scholar, N. T. Wright.

For a number of reasons, my own view is that the third option is the correct interpretation, although it is definitely a minority view.

For a full discussion and argument why 'All Israel' means all the elect, both Jew and Gentile, I thoroughly recommend the commentaries by Calvin and N. T. Wright on this verse and passage. In addition, I recommend an essay by Lee Irons, "Paul’s Theology of Israel’s Future: A Non-Millennial Interpretation of Romans 11" which can be found here.

Calvin's comments on this verse are worth quoting: 

Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that religion would be restored among them as before: but I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, - "When all the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first-born in God's family." This interpretation seems to me the most suitable, because Paul intended here to set forth the completion of the kingdom of Christ, which is by no means to be confined to the Jews, but is to include the whole world. The same manner of speaking we find in Gal. vi. 16. The Israel of God is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles." (John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (translated and edited by John Owen; Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1955), p. 437.

My reasons for accepting Calvin's view (and N. T. Wright's) can be summarised as follows:

1. The verse says all Israel will be saved in this way. It does not say and then all Israel will be saved. The future national conversion view requires the verse to mean "and then" but this is not what the Greek means. There is nothing in this verse that points to this as being a future prophecy. The arguments of those who take the second interpretation such as Hendriksen and Robertson also support this, as do the arguments of Calvin and Wright.

2. If the verse does mean that all Israel will be saved in this way this must refer back to what verse 25 says - that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the full number of the Gentiles comes in. The 'until' here should be viewed as a terminus ad quem and not a terminus a quo. Just as in Psalm 110:1 where we read that Christ must reign 'until' he has put all his enemies under his feet, this does not imply that Christ will cease to reign at that point, so here 'until' does not imply that the hardening will cease when the full number of Gentiles comes in, but rather that the hardening will continue right through to when Christ returns and this world ends.

3. Throughout the Bible, God only has one covenant people. In the Old Testament the covenant people are usually called Israel; in the New Testament the covenant people are usually called the Church, but they are one people - Israel is the Church and the Church is the true Israel. Paul makes this point throughout his writings.

4. Paul's argument in Romans 11 is that believing Jews and believing Gentiles are both branches - natural and grafted - into the ONE olive tree - which is a symbol of Israel or the covenant people. Verse 25 says this process will go on until the full number of Gentiles come into the covenant people and IN THIS WAY all (the true) Israel will be saved. This is entirely in line with Paul's arguments throughout Romans (and similarly in passages such as Ephesians 2:11-20). This view is also in line with Paul's key verse in Romans 9:6 where he begins to flesh out what he has already hinted at in Romans 2, that there is a "true Israel" of which not all ethnic Jews are a part: "For not all those who are descended from Israel truly belong to Israel."

5. One of the main arguments against this view that 'all Israel' means both the Jewish and Gentile elect is that it is hard to believe Paul could use 'Israel' meaning 'ethnic Israel' in verse 25, but in a different way in verse 26. However, this objection does not stand up to scrutiny. Paul clearly uses Israel in two different ways in Romans 9.6 which literally says 'not all Israel are Israel' meaning 'ethnic Israelites' in the first use and 'God's covenant people' in the second use.

These points are made more fully for those who want to probe deeper into these issues in the writings of Hendriksen, Robertson, Hoekema, Calvin, Wright and Irons' essay. Although not all of these scholars agree that 'all Israel' means all elect Jews and Gentiles, they do give reasons to reject the first view that the verse means 'and then [at some future point] all [ethnic] Israel will be saved'. Of the two remaining views, I think it makes most sense in Paul's argument - particularly since he describes this as a mystery - that he is not merely describing the salvation of all elect Jews throughout time - but that in God's purpose both Jews and Gentiles are brought together into God's covenant people (Israel) to bring about the salvation of both.

Modified Supralapsarianism

I have recently been thinking about the order of God's decrees and after much thought, I have decided that the correct view is probably what I would term a modified form of supralapsarianism. Though infralapsarianism is certainly the view taught in the Reformed confessions, such as the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession, it is also true that these confessions, particularly the Westminster Confession, certainly leave room for supralapsarianism as well, particularly as I will outline it in this post.  

As we will consider, there are significant problems with aspects of both the standard infralapsarian presentation and the standard supralapsarian view. As a result, I propose a modified view, which we will now discuss as a modified form of supralapsarianism which builds on the best points of both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism.

It was only after forming this view independently that I came to understand that something very like the view presented here was held historically by some who identify as supralapsarians such as the Dutch theologian, Peter van Mastricht (as explained here by Geerhardus Vos).

The differences between the two views should not be overemphasised anyway. Both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism agree that the creation, fall, election and reprobation are all included within God's all-encompassing decree. The only differences concern the logical order of the elements within the eternal decree, not a chronology as such. In both views, all the parts of the decree—creation, fall, election and reprobation—are eternal.

The view advocated here suggests a pre- or supralapsarian aspect to God's decree, a discrimination in the mind of God, so to speak, between one group who would ultimately be saved and another who would ultimately be lost, prior to the logical decision to create or permit the fall, but this is combined with a post- or infralapsarian view of the election of individuals into the two groups, the elect for salvation in Christ and the preterition or rejection of individuals and the decision to punish them for their sins.

The standard infralapsarian order of the decrees (or of the logical moments with a all-encompassing decree) is as follows:

• Decree to create humanity 
• Decree to permit the fall 
• Decree to elect some of the fallen mass of humanity to salvation and decree to reprobate the remainder of humanity to condemnation 
• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.
  

This order tracks the same order as the events play out in time and history beginning with creation then fall then election then salvation.

Though this is by far the most common presentation among Calvinists, it has significant problems, which we can list as follows:

1. The planning of God appears to follow exactly the same as the historical order plays out in time, but in planning a final goal the end point is decided first and then the steps to reach the end goal. A analogy would be a baker. He first decides to bake a cake and then assembles the ingredients, weighs them out, mixes them before putting the mixture in the oven to achieve the final aim. He does not take out ingredients and begin to mix them up and then finally decide to bake a cake!
   
2. What is the purpose of God in creation and permitting the fall if the decree of salvation only comes in after these two decisions have already been made? The normal infralapsarian order does not account for why God permitted the Fall to take place.
   
3. This order of decrees does not include the overarching purpose of all things being for the glory of the triune God in the display of his attributes of justice and grace.

The most common supralapsarian order of the decrees is as follows, and though this helps answer these questions, it is not without issues of its own difficulties: 

• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.
• Decree to elect some for salvation and reprobate others to condemnation
• Decree to create the elect and the reprobate
• Decree to permit the fall

This answers the problems of infralapsarian. Here creation and fall serve a prior and higher purpose to have elect to save and reprobate to condemn which will bring God glory. Here the order is the reverse of the historical playing out of the decrees. This order ties in better with God’s primary concern to display his own glory and the final state of the elect and the non-elect is foremost in God’s mind. However, the traditional supralapsarian scheme also has its own significant problems.

1. If the decree to create comes after the decree of predestination of individuals, how can there be individuals to elect or reprobate if their creation has not even been contemplated. This would seem to be a significant problem. Yet if the separation of elect and non-elect only happens after contemplation of their creation, then their creation must have been contemplated with another purpose in mind which seems contrary to the spirit of supralapsarianism.
   
2. The supralapsarian view has more difficulty avoiding charges of God creating people and then predestining them to damnation without first regarding them as sinful, indeed without any reference to sin, potentially making the purpose of God unjust, which cannot be.
3. The supralapsarian view tends to see creation merely as a means to an end, rather than having any independent divine purpose for the display of the divine glory in its own right.
   
4. The supralapsarian view posits a divide between elect and reprobate individuals that precedes and overrides any other consideration. This can make it difficult for supralapsarians to account for biblical passages that speak of God's love and goodness for all shown in common grace and mercy.
5. The supralapsarian view can sometimes be presented in a way that lacks nuance in presenting the elect as the recipients only of grace and the reprobate the recipients only of wrath and justice, when the reality of the divine decree is that the elect were children of wrath as much as the non-elect prior to their conversion and the non-elect remain recipients of divine benevolence and goodness despite their rejection for salvation.
   

A modfied supralapsarian position, which seeks to take the best of both traditional positions, could be set forth as follows: 

• Decree to glorify the triune God himself in the display of all his attributes and in the works of all persons of the Trinity in creaton, providence, the fall, salvation and condemnation.
• Decree to have two groups of people, one in covenant with him through Christ and the Holy Spirit and receiving salvation and the other outside of covenant with him and receiving condemnation and punishment (but without any individuals in either group). 
• Decree to create the world and humanity in God’s image – displaying God’s greatness, wisdom, glory, imagination, creativity, etc.
• Decree to permit the fall. 
• Decree to elect some individuals of the fallen mass of humanity to salvation and decree to reprobate the remainder of the individuals of humanity to condemnation (this part of the decree does concern individuals viewed as sinners)
• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.

It will be noted that the additional two points helps explain the purpose of the creation and the permission of the fall, while the remaining points follow the traditional infralapsarian order, all to God's primary purpose of glorifying himself and sharing the life of the Godhead with his image bearers in covenant with himself in supralapsarian manner. 

  

The key distinction in this scheme lies between God decreeing to have a saved covenant people and a non-saved group outside the covenant and this distinction and part of the decree is made prior to contemplating the fall and God determining which individuals will be elected for salvation, leaving others to be reprobated and condemned (which occurs only after the individuals are considered as fallen and sinful individuals). We could call this scheme a kind of hybrid with a kind of supralapsarian corporate election and reprobation, but a logically subsequent infralapsarian individual election of individuals and the reprobation only of sinful individuals. For this reason, I believe this remains a modified form on supralapsarianism, though it could equally be viewed as a modified form of infralapsarianism. It is distinct from either traditional presentation of the two views after all.

The fundamental objections to infralapsarianism are answered in this scheme without falling into the harshness of the traditional supralapsarian scheme because at the point individuals are elected or reprobated they are viewed in the divine mind as sinners, undeserving of salvation and deserving damnation:

1. That creation and the fall do serve a prior purpose of God in glorifying himself, displaying certain of his attributes and bringing about individuals to be elected and reprobated.
   
2. The order of events in time occur to bring about prior determined aspects of the decree (to have a covenant people in Christ and a non-covenant remainder of humanity to God's own glory)
3. This view is clear that any individual is only elected to salvation or passed by and condemned when viewed as a sinner, not merely a creature.
4. This view makes it clear that although there is double predestination, there is no equal ultimacy between the choosing of the elect and the reprobation of the non-elect. Election is a positive act; reprobation is a passive passing by and only an active judicial condemnation for sin.
5. Although this view sees a distinction between two groups from the first, there is not reason to reject a universal love and common grace to all humanity under this scheme, nor does it affect the free offer of the gospel being made to all.
   

This view recognises that what the ultimate goal is first in logical order and then the steps to reach the goal follow in the plan in historical order. It recognises that in the planning, the planner must also consider what the correct historical order of events needs to be to reach the goal.

It will be interesting to see what other Reformed theologians have made of this issue where they are infralapsarian but seek to address some of the objections to this view. I know that the great Dutch Reformed theologian, Herman Bavinck, rejected both supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, believing that God's decree is one organic whole. I would agree with this to a point, except that it seems necessary to account within the single decree for the logical decisions God must have made. As with the previous cake analogy, it is difficult to see how God would not first choose the ends he wants and then the means to achieve those ends (this is the essence of the supralapsarian view of course), yet the cake recipe also requires the steps to be ordered in the correct way that leads from assembling and weighting ingredients to the final cake. Most importantly, this view is clear that God elects and rejects actual fallen individual human beings, not just created human beings. 

Therefore, though sovereign, God cannot be regarded as unjust or arbitrary. His grace and mercy to the elect is truly grace and mercy shown to undeserving sinners and His justice and wrath to the reprobabte is truly justice and holy wrath shown to hell-deserving sinners. Thus the harsher aspects of supralapsarianism are avoided, but also the weakness of the traditional infralapsarian view which struggles to explain God's purpose in the creation and the permission of the fall.

The "Suitable Helper" in Genesis 2:18

With God himself speaking, in the creation account in Genesis 2, God says it is not good for Adam to be alone and so he will make "a helper suitable for him" (NASB).

This expression is two words in the Hebrew. The first word is "ezer" which is a noun meaning "a help" or "a helper" and the other word is "neged" which is generally an adverb or a preposition meaning "in front of", "in sight of" or "opposite to". By extension from this last meaning "opposite to", in this context it means "different yet corresponding to", "different yet fitting for", or indeed "opposite yet suitable for".

The English translations of Scripture translate the words in many different ways, but they all have the same flavour. The one God created for Adam was to be a companion or helper who would be different to him yet suitable or fitting for him. Among the translations are the following (taken from English versions available on www.biblegateway.com and versions available to me on e-Sword:

• "an help meet for him" (Geneva, KJV, RV) 
• "an helper to bear him company" (Coverdale)
  
• "a help meet for him" (ASV)
• "a helper corresponding to him" (CSB)
• "a helper that is perfect for him" (CEB)
• "a companion suitable for helping him" (CJB)
• "a helper as his complement" (Concordant Literal Version)
  
• "a suitable partner for him" (CEV)
• "a suitable partner for him" (EHV)
• "a helper fit for him" (RSV, ESV)
• "a helper who is right for him" (GW)
• "a suitable companion to help him" (GNT)
• "a helper as his complement" (HCSB)
• "a helper suited to him" (LITV)
  
• "a helper suitable for him" (LSB, NASB, NIV, MKJV)
• "a helper as his counterpart" (LEB)
• "a helper suited to him" (NABRE)
• "a companion for him who corresponds to him" (NET)
• "a helper comparable to him" (NKJV)
• "a helper who is just right for him" (NLT)
• "a helper as his partner" (NRSV)
• "a partner suited to him" (REB)
• "a helper as his counterpart" (Rotherham's Emphasized Bible) 

The translations differ a little, but the meaning is obviously the same. God created the woman to be a helper, companion or partner who would be suitable for, fitting for or complementary for the man.

In these two words is a wonderful picture of the relationship between the husband and wife as far as God is concerned. 

I am so grateful to God for the blessing and gift he sent me in the form of my own wife, who is truly a helper, companion and partner suitable for me, different but complementary to me and "just right" for me.

Translation of the 'Dikaiosune' Word Group

As I have mentioned before, there is a difficulty in most English translations which tend to use two different word groups ("righteous" and "justify") to translate what is one word group in the original Greek ("dikaiosune"). This issue can lead readers in English to fail to see the connection between rightesouness and justificaiton.

A previous suggestion considered resurrecting an old English word, "rightwise", but that was never likely to be practical, I realise.

Instead, I would suggest we might base all translations around the "righteous" word group rather than the "justification" word group. This would give us the following array of terms, all related to righteousness so that the link with the single dikaiosune group in Koine Greek.

Noun – righteousness
Adjective – righteous
Adverb – righteously
Verb – to declare righteous (participle: to have declared righteous; gerund: declaring righteous) or "to be declared righteous"
Actor – the one who declares righteous
Process/Event – declaration of righteousness or declaring righteous.

This approach would result in translations such as the following (based on the ESV but with amendments as appropriate to remove the "justify" word group terminology):

Romans 3:21–28: 

(21) But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— (22) the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: (23) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (24) and are declared righteous by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (25) whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show the rightesouness of God, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (26) It was to show his rightesouness at the present time, so that he might be righteous and the One who declares righteous the person who has faith in Jesus. (27) Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. (28) For we hold that one is declared righteous by faith apart from works of the law.

16 Christian Principles of Government and Politics

1. Government is a good gift given by God to humanity. (Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13-17)

2. God gives governments authority over people. However, in a democratic form of government this means that the people choose the government, which then has limited authority over the people for a limited period until the next election. This means that both the government and the electorate have authority from God in their roles. (Romans 13:2)

3. Human beings are imperfect sinners by nature. Politics needs to recognise that no one—neither rich nor poor—always acts selflessly or from pure motives. (Romans 3:10-12; Romans 3:23)

4. It follows that the power of human government must be limited because governors themselves are also imperfect sinners. There must be checks and balances to ensure that no person can wield too much power. (Romans 3:23; Isaiah 33:22; Jeremiah 17:9)

5. The primary function of government is to protect the country and the people from evildoers. This means that government has a duty to protect the national territory and people from attack, invasion or other external or internal threats. It includes the authority to punish criminals and to wage war or other military action. The government, and not individuals, has the right and duty to be God’s agent of wrath to wage just war and take retribution against criminals, which is called the 'power of the sword.' (Romans 13:3-4)

6. The secondary function of government is to promote, encourage, and reward what is good, to maintain peace and social harmony, and to promote the common welfare of the people. This specifically includes protecting God-given liberties, peace and justice. (Romans 13:3-4)

7. To fund these activities, government has the right to implement taxation and citizens have a legal and a moral duty to pay their taxes. (Romans 13:6-7; Matthew 22:17-21)

8. Taxation must be clear, proportionate, fair, just, reasonable and as low as possible in accordance with national needs and the proper limits on government power and activity. (Leviticus 27:30-33, Numbers 18:21-28; Amos 5:11; Luke 19:1-10).

9. Government must be organised so that the rich and powerful cannot abuse their position so that the welfare of the weak, the poor, the disadvantaged and the outsider is defended. (Leviticus 19:15; Psalm 82:3; 1 Corinthians 9:9-11)

10. Private property is a legal convention instituted by God and is a good part of human society. Unjust removal of a person's property is theft. (Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:21; Proverbs 10:4)

11. Freedom is a good gift from God and our laws ought to treat us as free citizens. The only justifiable limits on freedom are those which God has instituted, which includes protection of other people's lives, persons and property. (Genesis 2:15-17; 1 Peter 2:16)

12. As we are to love our neighbour and our enemies, all actions must be motivated by wanting what is best for others, not by hatred, malice or envy. This also applies in terms of government policy, even in terms of how criminals are punished or how war is waged. (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 5:43-48; Romans 13:9)

13. Government should support societal relationships which help form a stable and civil society. This includes the family as the key institution in any nation, as well as charities, community groups and other civic bodies dedicated to the general good of the people. (Genesis 2:18-25; Ecclesiates 4:12; Romans 12:1-21)

14. Government should regulate business and commerce to make sure it is honest, fair and responsible. (Leviticus 19:36; Deueronomy 25:15; Proverbs 11:1; Proverbs 6:16-19)

15. As government has power to defend the people from criminal or military attacks, so government can legitimately seek to defend the people from other harmful forms of 'attack' such as disease, destitution and dangerous ignorance. Government is therefore justified in ensuring the provision of healthcare, education and welfare for the poor. This does not mean that a full ‘welfare state’ is mandated; it is certainly possible to ensure provision exists without the state being the direct provider. The defence of the nation can also extend to maintaining the culture and way of life of the people.

16. Although government cannot legislate to change people’s hearts and cannot force love or compassion, it can seek to influence behaviour by encouraging good and discouraging evil, whilst leaving room for people to freely choose to do what is good and right. (Psalm 49:7; Romans 13:3-4).

Note: I cite various Old Testament laws not because I believe that that modern states must live by these same rules in order to be acceptable from a Christian standpoint, but to show that since God gave these rules to the human government of the people of Israel, they demonstrate that, in biblical terms, it must be within the legitimate authority of modern governments to do the same. In other words, the Old Testament laws indicate what governments may do and not what all governments must do.

Our Questions and God's Answers

I am happy to say that I have a new, short, e-book published on Kindle. This one is a basic presentation of the gospel in a series of questions and answers, mainly using the Bible directly to answer the questions

The book was very much inspired by an old tract written for soldiers during World War II by the American Presbyterian minister, Gordon MacLennan. I have re-written, modernised and expanded MacLennan's work in this new e-book. Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have previously written about and shared the original tract because it was what led be to become a Christian when I read it some 35 years ago.

I had hoped to make this book available for free, but Amazon insists on a minimum price being set. 

You can find the e-book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Questions-Gods-Answers-James-Miller-ebook/dp/B0C28RVHBH/

Cleansing the Temple

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the day in the Christian year marking the start of Holy Week and on which Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem as the Messiah is celebrated. The next day, the Monday of Holy Week, Jesus visited the temple complex in Jerusalem and drove out the money changers and merchants who were turning the house of God into a marketplace for trading ordinary money for the special temple currency (at profitable rates of exchange) and selling animals for sacrifice (at inflated prices).

The incident is recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels at Matthew 21, Mark 11 and Luke 19. Interestingly John's Gospel records a similar event right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry (some believe this is the same incident with the story told out of chronological order, but I think this was likely a different event as the chronology is completely different). This could mean Jesus had to do the same thing at the beginning and end of his public ministry.

What seemed to anger Jesus was two things. First, people exploiting those who wanted to worship God for financial gain. Secondly, God's house being for purposes it was not intended for.

I was thinking about what would be the equivalent to this in our churches today. 

Are there churches that exploit people financially? I am sure that there are organisations calling themselves churches that are more like businesses run for profit. At the obvious end of the spectrum are those who preach "the prosperity gospel". In crude terms, give money to the church and you will receive even more back from God. What a travesty of the truth! It can be dressed up in more subtle ways, but that's the basic message. I am sure Jesus is angry now with those who would directly pervert the gospel for financial ends.

Maybe there are more subtle ways though in which we can set up barriers to worship for people, even if financial gain is not the motive. If we send out a signal that only those with the right kind of education or job, or those with the right accent, or the right hobbies and interests are welcome, we can be putting up barriers to people who don't fit the expected mould. That's why I think those who welcome people to church on a Sunday are absolutely vital in outreach work. All the effort to invite new people to church can be wasted if the welcome people receive is not genuine, warm and friendly when they actually step inside the church building. I believe the skill of welcoming people is vastly underrated as a talent. Churches should treasure those who do it well.

The second aspect to the cleansing of the temple is using our buildings in ways they were not intended for. The situation in the Jerusalem temple seems to have been that the merchants had set up in the "Court of the Gentiles" - the outer precinct of the temple provided by God for non-Jews to come and pray. There is an important point being made here about the extent of the Messiah's mission to take the gospel to all the nations. But what about our church buildings? Does any of this have anything to say about how we use them?

I think it is important to point out that this is not a criticism of churches who make a wide use of their buildings for various purposes. I know that some churches let out halls or rooms to outside groups. That's not really what I'm criticising, at least it is not automatically covered by Jesus' criticism, depending on the circumstances.

The key question is whether some activity the church should be doing or would like to do is being prevented by the building being used for some other purpose. To give an example, suppose a church would like to run an evening service on a Sunday or a prayer meeting on a Wednesday but they decide they can't because that's when some other group has a let to use the church. I would argue that the priorities of the church should always to be a church and any other activities should come far behind if they take place at all. Never should the church's key tasks of worshipping God, prayer, discipling believers and evangelising non-believers be prevented because the church building is being used for something else. How that plays out in practice is for church leadership to wrestle with and sometimes there will be difficult cases that need prayer and wisdom to sort out. 

 Yet the general principle is clear. The church building exists to let the church better be the church first and foremost in its tasks of worship, nurturing the people of God and reaching out to those outside with the gospel. If something is preventing that, it has to go. When we have it any other way, our "temple" needs to be cleansed.

 

(Image: Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple by Theodoor Rombouts)

Trading Truth for Certainty

P46 - one of the earliest New Testament Manuscripts dating from 175-225AD

I listen fairly regularly to James White's YouTube channel, The Dividing Line. For those who don't know, Dr White is an American Reformed Baptist best known for his apologetics ministry and his many debates with Mormons, Muslims, Roman Catholics and others. One area where White has debated many times is King James Onlyism. This is a spectrum of views prevalent in certain sections of American evangelicalism ranging from the belief that the King James Version is the only translation we should use because it is the best, through to more whacky views such as the KJV was itself inspired by God and therefore takes precedence even over the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. 

James White has argued against these views for many years and his book, The King James Only Controversy is a leading work in refuting such views. I commend that book to you if this is an area you are concerned about. White defends the scholarly eclectic Greek New Testament text that underlies most modern translations since 1881, over the Textus Receptus of the 15th century on which the King James Version was based.

In a discussion on King James Onlyism, James White used a phrase that has stuck with me since I heard it. He said that those who defend the King James Version and the Textus Receptus Greek text underlying its New Testament have traded truth for certainty. 

What an interesting concept! Trading truth for certainty. I think White is correct in pointing his finger right at this spot on KJV Onlyism. The issues are complex, but in essence, a theme emerges in most KJV-only advocates. They believe the text of Scripture is God-breathed and therefore infallible and inerrant. And these beliefs are good and true—and shared with almost all evangelicals including James White and myself. But there's a problem. 

The fact that for the first 1500 years of its existence, the text of the New Testament was copied by hand, first from the original autographs (the actual manuscripts written by the apostles) and then onwards, copies from copies, to produce thousands of copies of the New Testament used all over the churches of Africa, Asia and Europe. Indeed, it wasn't till the invention of the photocopier in 1949 that human beings had the capacity to reproduce exactly a written text from one copy to another. Each time a document, particularly a lengthy document like a book, is hand copied, even when done with great care, mistakes are made. It is unavoidable.

At the present time we have over 5000 of these ancient manuscripts still in existence and no two copies are identical. This means that the Greek text of the New Testament has many textual variants or readings in certain verses. Far from being a source of disappointment or doubt, this is actually a wonderful example of God's providential care of the text of the Bible. These 5000 Greek manuscripts, as well as thousands of manuscripts in Latin and other ancient languages, some of almost all the New Testament, some fragments of just a few verses are a tremendous witness to the true text of the New Testament. The New Testament is by far the best attested work of antiquity, but there are still textual variants that exist.

I don't want to overemphasise these differences. Most variants do not affect the meaning, especially in English translation, because most variants are things like word order, spellings, and omissions or additions of words that don't affect or even show up in translation. We can be certain of around 98-99% of the text of the New Testament. But that leaves 1-2% where the variants do reflect differences in meanings that would affect translations.

The King James Version, translated in 1611, was based on the Textus Receptus - the form of the Greek text published in the 16th century. That Greek text reflected the Greek manuscripts Erasus, Stephanus and Beza had to work with at that time. And it is in the main a Greek text reflected in the majority of Greek manuscripts in existence, but most are late in date, from around 1000-1400 AD.

In centuries after the KJV was published, many earlier manuscripts have been discovered. Though there are fewer of them, we now have manuscripts that go back to the 3rd or 4th century AD, some as early as maybe a hundred years after the apostles wrote the originals.

The questions for textual scholars is always "What did the apostles actually write?" Although I'm simplifying a bit, in general the issue is whether the correct reading in a textual variant is to be found in a smaller number of early manuscripts, written closer to the time of the apostles, or in the larger number of later manuscripts, written nearly a thousand years or more later. The scholarly decision on these issues can be difficult and complex, involving careful detective work both on external evidence—the age and quality of the manuscripts themselves—and internal evidence regarding the language itself, to decide what was the most likely original text based on many different factors.

Now, here is where the issue of trading truth for certainty comes in. The KJV-only advocates want to be absolutely certain of the content of their God-breathed, infallible text, and so they basically say that textual questions were settled in the Textus Receptus. They tend to argue that God providentially arranged that text to be the basis of the translations produced at the Reformation (including the KJV though it was a bit later) and regard other variants as deviant.

So they can have a text with certainty. But in doing so they having traded off against truth. For the truth is that the textual variants do exist, and the fact is that the earlier manuscripts though clearly bearing witness to largely the same New Testament text, does tend to be slightly shorter and contain perhaps more "difficult" readings.

Perhaps a few examples might be helpful at this point to show the kind of differences that exist. In these examples "TR/MT" means the Textus Receptus or Majority Text and "CT" means the eclectic Critical Text with the key words in bold.

Matthew 6:13 (The last part of the Lord's Prayer):

TR/MT: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen."

CT: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." (Omits the rest of the verse)

John 1.18

TR/MT: "No one has seen God at any time. The one and only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known."

CT: "No one has seen God at any time. The one and only [who is] God, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known."

John 3:13

TR/MT: "No one has ascended to heaven except him who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in heaven."

CT: "No one has ascended to heaven except him who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man." (omits the last phrase)

1 Timothy 3:16

TR/MT: "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was revealed in the flesh..."

CT: "Great is the mystery of godliness: [He] who was revealed in the flesh..."

There are hundreds of similar textual variants throughout the New Testament. Most modern translations include one reading in the main text and one or more variants in footnotes, allowing the reader to see the main variants and decide which they think was the original reading. We can be reasonably certain that the original is either in the main text or the footnotes. This option essentially trades certainty for truth. The alternative, as advocated by many in the KJV-only side of the debate, is to just have the KJV text with no textual variants in footnotes, choosing an apparent certainty over the truth.

As I believe I will have made clear, I think we should favour truth over a false or apparent certainty.