Scribes & Scripture

Scribes & Scripture: The amazing story of how we got the Bible
John D. Meade & Peter J. Gurry
Crossway, 2022

The question of how we got the Bible is one on which many Christians are ignorant, sometimes wilfully so. When this is the case, it exposes believers to having their faith shaken when a sceptic comes along – or even when they simply realise that the Bible didn’t come about they way they assumed it did. As Meade and Gurry say in this book, conservative Christians (which they both are) face the temptation to jump from their theology of Scripture to ‘what must have happened’ to fit with this theology. This book is their attempt to counter such assumptions, as well as the disinformation spread by both textual sceptics and textual absolutists.

The book is divided into 3 main sections: text, canon and translation, and is a fantastic reference – full of interesting tidbits about manuscripts and translations – eg that Wycliffe may not actually have translated the Wycliffe Bible or that the 1971 NASB was the first time that pronouns for God were capitalised. It rightly highlights the theological problems which inadvertently arise from gender neutral translations, such as with the 2011 NIV in Hebrews 2. Although published by Crossway, the section on ‘What’s the best Bible translation’ doesn’t simply answer ‘ESV’!

While I loved the book, it’s probably not the resource you’re looking for to hand out to the average person in your church who asks you where the Bible came from. Having two authors makes sense as Meade is an Old Testament expert and Gurry a New Testament one. However I felt that the New Testament sections were noticeably more accessible than those on the Old Testament. Most of the New Testament-related content probably could be handed to a lay person, whereas a lot of the Old Testament content is more seminary level or even beyond. I haven’t read it, but I imagine that Greg Lanier’s ‘A Christian’s Pocket Guide to How We Got the Bible’ from Christian Focus (which is half the length) might be more suitable for the person in the pew.

But for ministers or lay people who want all the details it’s a brilliant resource.

On a minister’s privilege, perseverance & prayer (Nisbet)

Privilege
“It is neither the credit nor profit of a minister’s calling that should move him to painfulness [diligence], but rather the consideration…that one so unworthy of so honourable an employment, and many times justly deserving to have been thrust out of it, should yet be employed, furnished, and rewarded by Jesus Christ”.

Perseverance
“…As death is the term-day of a minister’s service in his calling, till which time he ought neither to desire to change his calling, nor do it by deputies under him, though he meet with small success and great hardship; So the consideration of his frail, flitting and fighting condition, imported by being in a tabernacle, should make him stir himself busily while time and strength lasteth”

Prayer
“A minister should not content himself barely to propound truths, and [re]mind people of their duty, but by all means should labour with God, and his own heart, to have such power accompanying his pains, that dead, sleeping and lazie souls, may be quickened, wakened, and roused up”

Alexander Nisbet (Covenanter) on 2 Peter 1:13-14

Preaching, what God could do, and what He does do

“When this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is preached, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be feigned nor to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; who, although he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God abides true and good….God could indeed, by his Holy Spirit or by the ministry of an angel, without the ministry of Saint Peter, have taught Cornelius in Acts; but, nevertheless, he refers him to Peter, of whom the angel says, “He will tell you what you must do” (Acts 10:6)”

Second Helvetic Confession: Chapter 1.

(Same for Philip in ch 8 – all the angel does is set up the meeting. If an angel came and spoke to you today, he would probably say ‘Go to church’).

In the Fullness of Time

In the Fullness of Time: An introduction to the theology of Acts and Paul
Richard Gaffin
Crossway, 2022

One of the great losses to the church is when lectures that have blessed generations of students don’t outlive the Professor who gave them. In the RP Church for example, Andrew Symington trained generations of ministers, and all that was published (even posthumously) was a course of lectures given to Sabbath School teachers, with reviewers torn between commending the content and bemoaning who far short it fell of what they remembered from student days. The rise of audio recording has helped the situation somewhat, but the publication of lectures in book form is still the best way to give them permanent form. As such, Crossway are to be commended for their publication the classroom lectures of Joel Beeke (Reformed Preaching and Reformed Systematic Theology) and now Richard Gaffin. Understandably, some of the endorsements come from those who sat through the lectures, for example Dennis Johnson. One endorsement that came after publication, and that bears more weight for me than any of the others is from Matthew Roberts: ‘Richard Gaffin’s course on Acts & Paul was transformative for my understanding of the Bible and of the gospel. I am delighted beyond words to see them published in this way’.

The tricky bit is how something like this fits into the preacher’s toolkit – it’s not a commentary, nor (at 450 pages) is it one of those shortish biblical theology type thematic books that you can read before preaching a book. (And thus, seminary is the ideal place for it!) The book does however have a good Scripture index, so it can be referred to if you’re preaching on anything relevant: The Kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus, Pentecost (and associated questions about baptism in/filling of the Spirit, etc), or Paul’s theology – particularly his eschatological structure (‘this age’ v. ‘the age to come’) and the resurrection.

Acts, Paul, and the Kingdom of God were among the strongest parts of my own theological training. Having not sat under Gaffin, or made my way through most of the 450 pages here, I can’t say how he compares to those (sadly as-yet unpublished) lectures. However the endorsements from those who heard Gaffin’s lectures in the flesh were enough to bring it this book to my attention in the first place, and will be enough to keep me coming back.

Special Revivals v. Ordinary Means of Grace (1881)

“…It is not necessary to prove that a continuous Divine blessing on the ordinary means of grace is likely to promote a healthy religious condition. The Head of the Church alone has authority to institute ordinances, and He alone can make them effectual. He has appointed the ordinary means of grace, and the Sabbath as the time when public ordinances are to be dispensed, and our attention wholly given to spiritual things.

The Apostles embraced every opportunity of preaching the Gospel on week-days, and we find Paul disputing daily in the school of Tyrannus, and yet it is remarkable how often we read of him addressing the worshippe[rs], in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and then of a whole week intervening before the people again assembled. And when he reached Troas on one of his journeys, though he was hastening to Jerusalem, he tarried seven days that he might join the disciples there in their communion on the Christian Sabbath.

There are several circumstances which seem to render occasional series of continued services less desirable than a faithful plying of the ordinary means of grace. When they are frequently employed as the means of producing an interest in religion, people come to regard them as the only seasons when conversions need be expected, and they do not look and pray for conversions and an abundant blessing at the ordinary services of the sanctuary. They do not value these services as they ought, and neglect to make self-application of the truth preached in them. Ministers get into the habit of being more pointed and searching and earnest at the special services. They cease to expect a blessing at the ordinary services, and do not aim directly at immediate results. Thus the ordinary services are allowed to become perfunctory and uninteresting. They lose their hold on the people, and lukewarmness and deadness spread slowly, but surely, among them.

…If we expect that the world will be converted by great movements, produced by the labours of great evangelists, an injurious result is very likely to follow. It is easier for ministers to cherish the idea that many conversions are only to be looked for under the preaching of such evangelists, and to bring them, and crowd round them, than to put forth constant and strenuous efforts in the cultivation of their own personal piety, in manifesting on all occasions a Christ-like spirit, in prayer and preaching, and thus to constrain success. And it is easier for the people to make spasmodic effort when such evangelists are among them, and loll in spiritual indolence all the rest of the time, than to stir themselves up continuously to earnest prayer and self-denying effort. When occasional revivals occur and come to be regarded as the great means of quickening Christians, and converting sinners, the periods which intervene are generally seasons of great spiritual deadness when the coldness and declension which prevail are often in proportion to the excitement, which has gone before…”

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How Should We Then Live?

How Should We Then Live?
Francis Schaeffer
Crossway, 2021 (originally published 1976)

Having never actually read anything by Schaeffer, I took the opportunity of Crossway’s republication of his 1976 book How Should We Then Live? as an opportunity to do so. Having been familiar with the title beforehand, I had long assumed it was a book largely about ethics – whereas it’s more a history of Western thought which includes some ethical observations and predictions. The subtitle is more of a helpful guide to what the book is about: ‘The Rise and Decline of Western Thought & Culture’.

The book flows chronologically from Ancient Rome to the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment etc. And while you can read it straight through, it also seems like it will be very useful as a reference work to look up key figures: philosophers, artists, etc.

One of the questions with a republication like this is whether the work is really so prophetic that it can speak to someone who wasn’t even born when Schaeffer died – or if those who think it’s worthy of republication are just remembering the impact it had on them at the time.

And yet despite my mild scepticism, Schaeffer’s conclusions are frighteningly up-to-date. ‘Will men stand for their liberties? Will they not give up their liberties step by step, inch by inch, as long as their own personal peace and prosperity is sustained?’ – he asked decades before lockdowns.

Then there are the 5 attributes that Edward Gibbon (1737-94) said marked Rome at its end: ‘first, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence); second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be among countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation); third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased desire to live off the state. It all sounds so familiar. We have come a long road since our first chapter, and we are back in Rome.’

In a world (and a church) where people love conspiracy theories he writes: ‘One may discuss if planned collusion exists at times, but to be looking only for the possibility of a clandestine plot opens the way for failing to see a much greater danger: that many of those who are in the most prominent places of influence and many of those who decide what is news do have the common, modern, humanist worldview we have described at length in this book. It is natural that they act upon this viewpoint, with varying degrees of consciousness of what they are doing, and even varying degrees of consciousness of who is using whom. Their worldview is the grid which determines their presentation’.

Then there’s his observation that ‘Many who talk of civil liberties are also committed to the concept of the state’s responsibility to solve all problems’.

And finally, in words that could have been written this afternoon, he talks about the twin threats of ‘War or the serious threat of war—between the expansionist, imperialistic, communistic countries and the West‘ – and ‘economic breakdown’ as a result of inflation.

Overall, he makes a strong case that only the freedom brought by Christianity brings true hope. All other ‘freedom’ leads to chaos.