Category Archives: Bible

Insights from Bible scholars at the 2016 ETS conference

20 Sunday Nov 2016

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This past week was the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in San Antonio, Texas. About 2,500 evangelical scholars from around the world attended this year’s conference. The conference is a time for those who don’t see each other for the rest of the year to interact and share their research. In this post, I will summarize some insights from presentations I attended.

The theme of this year’s conference was the trinity. One of the more interesting presentations on that topic was given by Dr. Imad Shehadeh, the president of Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary. Shehadeh argued that Islam did us a great favor by showing us what a system of theology would look like without the trinity. The main difficulty in such a theological system is that a unitarian “God” can have no essential relational or moral attributes. A one-person God could not have been loving before creation, since there was no one to love. A one-person God could not have been good or just before creation, since there was no one to show goodness or justice toward. This is the great theological problem in Islam. Islamic theologians say that all of God’s attributes arise from his will, not from his nature. God is merciful because he decides to be, not because mercy is part of his nature. And no one knows his will. The central attribute of God in Islam is power/will, not holiness. All of his relational attributes, including love and mercy, are subsets of his power. The result is a capricious and arbitrary god whose will is absolute, and can override even any stated promise or law. Muslim theologians will admit that they cannot be certain who will be in paradise and who will be in eternal torment, since making any such declaration would be placing a restriction on the will of Allah. There is even a question of how language could exist before creation in a unitarian system, since language is a means of communication, and a unitarian God would have no one to communicate with. In summary, any belief that God is good, loving, kind, holy, and so forth necessitates a belief in the trinitarian God of the Bible, for only a trinitarian God could have moral and relational attributes within Himself, as part of His essential nature.

David Falk gave an interesting presentation on Abraham’s 318 “trained men” (חָנִיכִים‎, a hapax legomenon), whom he led out to battle against a coalition of kings (Gen 14:14). These men are said to have been Abraham’s household slaves. While it may seem unusual for an individual such as Abraham (Abram) to have his own in-house military force, in Abraham’s historical context it was not so unusual. As a nomadic herdsman who lived in a land which lacked a central government, Abraham was responsible for his own protection and justice system. Abraham had to provide martial arts training for his slaves for his protection and theirs (they were protecting their own families as well as their master’s). Falk’s presentation focused on evidence from ancient Egypt for a martial arts tradition (qm’). Many reliefs and paintings from Dynasty 5 to Dynasty 22 in Egypt depict forms of wrestling and sport-fighting. Some of these depictions look similar to jujitsu. Some include a referee. Tomb 215 in Beni Hasan portrays 212 different types of martial arts techniques, including some using sticks and knives. The portrayal of similar scenes and techniques over such a long period of time (ca. 1,500 years) shows that this was a martial arts tradition, and not a mere fad. Often it is clear from the way the combatants are portrayed that they are foreign slaves. Since most native Egyptians were low-skilled farmers, ironically it was often foreign slaves who were given training for highly skilled jobs. Abraham had in fact spent time in Egypt and had been given slaves by Pharaoh (Gen 12:16), so he could have received a cadre of slaves with martial arts training, or he could have had his own slaves trained in Egypt. Esau may have inherited this group of slaves military training, as he came to meet Jacob with a 400-man security force, which he evidently used to conquer Seir/Edom (Gen 33:1). A second question Falk addressed was whether 318 men would be sufficient to defeat an army led by four kings. While Falk acknowledged that the army led by these kings could have numbered 10,000 or more based on figures reported in contemporary documents, the army would have been depleted after a long campaign of conquest and some major battles. Falk also cited numerous examples from the Amarna letters in which kings requested relatively small numbers of troops from Egypt in order to turn the tide of warfare against an opposing city-state. Often the requests are for 200-400 men, and in several cases they are for less than 100 men. Falk noted that only 300 highly trained Spartan warriors stopped an entire Persian army numbering in the millions at the pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC. The simple fact that Abraham’s men were highly trained in a martial arts tradition would have made them capable of engaging a much larger force. Abraham also employed astute military strategy, launching a surprise attack in the dead of night from two directions (Gen 14:15). Abraham did not completely wipe out the opposing army or kill the opposing kings, but he did force them to leave their captives and booty behind and flee (Gen 14:16). All in all, Falk’s research puts what has been a largely obscure passage in an interesting light.

On Wednesday morning, Crossway hosted a free breakfast with John Piper in order to promote Piper’s book A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness. Piper argued that even a child can know for certain that the message of the Christian gospel is true because the Bible is self-authenticating and does not need any external proof of its validity. If the Bible is the Word of God, then the glory of God cannot but shine through its pages—similar to the way the glory of God is seen through the created universe (Ps 19:1). In fact, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 teaches that we come to know the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ by perceiving the glory of God in our hearts as we hear the Word of God. The whole Bible authenticates itself by the shining of the glory of God in and through it. The glory of God is self-authenticating to all who genuinely perceive it. I purchased Piper’s book at the conference.

I attended a lunch meeting on Wednesday for scholars who believe in a literal six-day creation. One of the points of interest to come out of this meeting was that the identification of God as Creator is central to the biblical theology of who God is. When Jonah was asked which God he worshiped, he replied that he worships the God of heaven, who created the world (Jonah 1:9). When Paul was explaining God to the pagan philosophers in Athens, he identified Him as the Creator of the world and the Lord of heaven and earth (Acts 17:24).

Dan Wallace gave the presidential address at the banquet on Wednesday evening. He noted that while it is unknown who invented the codex (book), Christians were largely responsible for its popularization. In the first 500 years of the Christian era, 90 percent of Christian books were codices, whereas only 14 percent of non-Christian books were. Scrolls were too unwieldy to hold the large collections of texts in the Christian Bible in a single volume, so Christians used codices instead. Wallace noted three landmarks in the history of bookmaking: [1] the invention of the codex (1st century AD); [2] the invention of the moveable type printing press (1454), one year after Constantinople fell to the Muslims and scribes from the east brought their manuscripts to the west (moved a memorizing society to a reading society); [3] the advent of the digital age (moved a reading society to a reference society; we now read only snippets, not books). Wallace also noted in passing the interesting observation that Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded Joseph Stalin as dictator of the Soviet Union, likely memorized all four Gospels as a child. At the end of his address, Wallace took aim at people who supposedly do not want the Evangelical Theological Society to include the left wing of evangelicalism. In reality, the ETS leadership has been making executive decisions which support the left wing of evangelicalism against the larger right wing (primarily Baptists), especially on the issue of women in Bible teaching and leadership roles. The most conservative members of the ETS have also been given progressively less prominent places at the conferences. This has led to some tension within the ETS in recent years. When leaders were elected at the business meeting on Thursday, the Southern Baptists made nominations from the floor, but none of their preferred candidates won.

At a lunch meeting sponsored by Tuktu Tours, Mark Wilson summarized an article he coauthored with Thomas Davis in the Pharos Journal of Theology. Acts 13:13 does not say why young John Mark left Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey and returned to his home in Jerusalem. Quite possibly Paul and Barnabas were originally intending to sail to Alexandria, and John Mark dropped out after they changed plans and sailed to Perga instead. Ships sailing from Paphos, on the southern coast of Cyprus, typically followed the prevailing winds south to Alexandria; if Paul had originally intended to sail north to Perga, he would have planned to sail from a port on the northern coast of Cyprus. Alexandria had a large Jewish community, and would have been a natural place to go on a missionary journey. Church tradition strongly connects Mark with the church in Alexandria, so he and Barnabas did likely go to Alexandria after parting ways with Paul in Acts 15:39-40. What made Paul change his plans was his providential encounter with the proconsul at Paphos, Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:6-12). Inscriptions discovered in Turkey show that Sergius Paulus had family connections in Antioch of Pisidia. Thus, he probably made a personal plea to Paul and Barnabas to go to Pisidian Antioch and share the gospel with his relatives, which they immediately did (Acts 13:14-50). John Mark was accustomed to living in a large urban center—he had spent his entire life in a mansion in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12)—and he did not feel comfortable traveling through the small towns and rural areas of central Turkey (Acts 15:38). Evidence from the New Testament and church history places Mark’s ministry in four of the largest urban centers in the Roman Empire: Jerusalem, Syrian Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome.

Bryant Wood of Associates for Biblical Research gave a presentation on the location of Bethel. It is often difficult to identify the location of biblical sites (aside from the most prominent ones) because, while the general area of the site may be known, there are usually remains of many ancient towns and villages in that area, with no ancient signposts giving their names. Bethel lies in the vicinity of the modern city of Ramallah in the West Bank. W. F. Albright, Anson Rainey, and Israel Finkelstein are notable proponents of the view that Bethel is to be identified with the Arab village of Beitin. This is currently the consensus view in standard archaeology texts. However, Bryant Wood and his late colleague David Livingstone identify Bethel with the nearby site of El-Bireh. One of their arguments for this identification is that El-Bireh fits with statements made by the fourth century historian Eusebius about the location of Bethel. Eusebius states that Bethel is 12 Roman miles from Jerusalem. Several Roman milestones (mile markers) have been found on the road which leads north from Jerusalem, although a number is only preserved on the marker for Mile 5. Using these milestones and our knowledge of the approximate length of a Roman mile, we know that El-Bireh lies 11.5 miles from Jerusalem, whereas Beitin lies 14 miles from Jerusalem. In addition, Eusebius stated that Gibeon lies 4 Roman miles west of Bethel. While El-Bireh is 4 Roman miles east of Gibeon, Beitin is 6 Roman miles east of Gibeon. Wood also argued that the archaeology of El-Bireh fits much better with Bethel than does the archaeology of Beitin. Bethel became a prominent city during the divided monarchy period in ancient Israel, after Jeroboam made it one of the two main centers of pagan Israelite worship (1 Kgs 12:28-29). He built a great high place of sacrifice in Bethel, complete with a golden calf and a large altar (1 Kgs 12:32-33). The other high place of sacrifice built by Jeroboam was located in Dan; this site has been well-excavated, and its high place is very impressive. The site of Beitin has been well-excavated over a period of decades, but what was found there does not match what one would expect for Bethel. No cultic objects (i.e., idolatrous figurines and other objects used for pagan worship) have been found at Beitin, in comparison to 89 cultic objects from Tel Dan. Even Albright acknowledged that there was no evidence of Jeroboam’s sanctuary at Beitin; and there were few remains from the Iron IIA period, when Bethel reached its greatest prominence. Beitin is a very unimpressive site in comparison to Tel Dan. Wood suggests that the site of Ras et-Tahuna in El-Bireh is the likely location of the high place of Jeroboam. This is a hill with a large platform which lies 12 Roman miles from Jerusalem. While it is unexcavated, much pottery from the Iron IIA period is visible on the surface, including a horse-head cultic figurine which Wood displayed in his presentation. El-Bireh is also an unexcavated site, but surveys have shown that it has many remains from Iron IIA. El-Bireh and Ras et-Tahuna are also more directly east of the site of Khirbet el-Maqatir (biblical Ai) than is Beitin, which fits with the geographical markers given in Genesis 12:8 and Joshua 7:2. While some scholars suggest that the Arabic “Beitin” preserves the ancient name of “Bethel,” Wood argued that it is closer to “Beth-aven” (Josh 7:2). While Wood’s theory is hard to prove in the absence of archaeological excavations at El-Bireh, he certainly was correct when he observed that many conclusions in the field of archaeology are not based on evidence, but rather on the opinions of eminent scholars.

The renowned scholar Edwin Yamauchi, who has studied twenty-two languages, declared that this conference would be his last. He noted that while we often associate worship with music, the Hebrew and Greek words translated “worship” in the Bible actually mean “to bow down,” “to prostrate oneself.” Yamauchi also noted that verses from the Quran are inscribed on the façade of the Dome of the Rock, but they have variations from the current accepted text of the Quran, which leads scholars to conclude that the text of the Quran was still not fixed by the time the Dome of the Rock was constructed (late 7th century). Yamauchi also noted that in New Testament times there were basically no independent farmers in Israel, only tenants for landowners. This is because the tithing requirement in the Mosaic Law was interpreted as essentially a tax on agricultural products, which meant (in the minds of the rabbis) that only farmers had to pay tithes, and profits made through other occupations were exempt. Jews therefore generally avoided the occupation of farming in the first century AD.

Scott Aniol gave a well-researched presentation on the famed hymnwriter Isaac Watts’ views on the trinity. Essentially, Watts always considered himself to be an orthodox trinitarian, and his hymns are replete with sound trinitarian theology. However, Watts walked into a theological minefield later in his career while trying to precisely define biblical trinitarianism against popular forms of unitarianism and Arianism. Some of the things which he wrote in a treatise published in 1724­–25 were controversial, and he retracted them in later works. He still held some idiosyncratic views, but explicitly affirmed the Athanasian Creed. Claims that Watts was unitarian are wholly untrue. In the end, however, Watts’ theological legacy is the theology expressed in his hymns, not the theology expressed in his books. Watts’ hymns have served the church well in teaching correctly about the triune nature of God.

Beyond all the presentations, the ETS meeting was a great opportunity to meet with old friends, as well as to make new ones. The weather in San Antonio was perfect. The conference was held by the beautiful Riverwalk, and the unforgettable Alamo was less than half a mile from the hotel. It is hard to think of a better venue for a conference in November. For those scholars who would like to brave the weather in Rhode Island for next year’s meeting, details should appear on the ETS website within a few months. Hope to see you there!

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Does the Bible allow a woman to be President?

03 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in Bible, Current events

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The upcoming presidential election in the United States is unique in that a female candidate—Hillary Clinton—is featured at the top of a major party’s ticket for the first time. This is reflective of a huge upending of values in American culture, as it was less than 100 years ago when the U.S. Constitution was amended to give women the right to vote. Even thirty or forty years ago, if a woman was nominated for president, many evangelical Christian leaders would have spoken out against her, arguing that it is unbiblical and immoral for a woman to be president of the country. Most evangelical seminaries did not even admit female students before the 1980s or 1990s. Yet I have not heard any Christian leaders so much as even raise the issue of whether the Bible allows a woman to be president during this election cycle. How quickly our values have changed!

Today, either it is taken for granted that it is it is morally acceptable for women to occupy positions of leadership, or else there is so much hostility to the contrary position that no one on any part of the political spectrum dares even to raise the issue, not even on talk radio or on social media. Yet for much of the history of the United States, most people in the country believed it would be morally wrong for a woman to be president. In fact, most leaders of most countries in all the history of the world have been men, so this is not just a viewpoint unique to people who historically lived in the United States.

Since we as Christians are to be guided by God’s Word in all that we believe and do, the answer to the question of whether it is morally permissible for a woman to be president can only be resolved through a study of what the Bible has to say about the issue. One of the clearest statements in the Bible on the role of women is 1 Timothy 2:12—But I do not permit a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness. This verse gives a blanket prohibition against women exercising authority over men. While Paul is speaking of rules for the church, if women are not permitted to exercise authority over men or even to teach in the church, surely it is also morally impermissible for a woman to exercise authority over an entire country. Paul explains the reason for this prohibition in 1 Timothy 2:13-14. First, it is because Adam was created before Eve, which set the man in a position of primacy. Second, the fact that Eve was deceived by the serpent while Adam was not shows that men have a greater capacity for discernment than women and therefore a greater inherent ability to lead. These are principles which would apply just as well to the issue of women occupying positions of leadership in government as they would to the issue of women as leaders in the church.

The New Testament does not comment directly on qualifications for political leaders, since the early church had no role in the governance of the Roman Empire. In the Old Testament, politics and religion were closely linked in the nation of Israel, although here again it was not the responsibility of the people to choose their rulers. The Old Testament does not give a list of principles for choosing a king; it says only to appoint the king chosen by Yahweh, who was to be an Israelite (Deut 17:15). To understand the criteria by which God chose kings, we can examine the choices which God made.

It is striking to the modern reader of the Old Testament that every king of Israel and Judah appointed by God was male. God never appointed a woman to rule over his people! There was only one ruling queen in the whole history of the Israelite monarchy—the wicked Athaliah, who usurped power in a coup and was overthrown by the high priest in a counter-coup. Some point to Deborah as an example of a female leader. Judges 4:4 identifies Deborah as a “prophetess” who was involved in the activity of judging. As a prophetess, she did not speak her own judgment and her own message; when people came to her with disputes, she would inquire of Yahweh and return His answer. In this sense, she was like Huldah (2 Chr 34:22-28). These prophetesses were not set in positions of authority over men; they were simply relaying messages from God to them. It does not seem that Deborah actually preached to a mixed audience, or was teaching the Law to the people. It is significant that Deborah called a man, Barak, to lead the army of Israel into battle (Judg 4:6).

Another means of understanding the criteria by which God chose leaders is to look at criticisms of leaders by the prophets. In Isaiah 3:12, God’s people are said to be pitied when women and children rule over them. However one may interpret this verse, the presence of female rulers is definitely viewed as a bad thing. God is saying that Israel will lack qualified leadership.

Interestingly, one of the qualifications for being a king chosen by God was not to be a true believer or worshiper of Yahweh. God anointed Jehu to be king over Israel because of certain good things he would do, even though Jehu was an idolater who never repented of the worship of Jeroboam’s golden calves (2 Kgs 9–10). God anointed Jehu in order to destroy the dynasty of Ahab and the religion of Ahab, which was something that apparently no believer in Israel could have done so effectively. While God disapproved of Jehu’s idolatry, He promised him a four-generation dynasty for the good that he did (2 Kgs 10:29-31).

Despite the fact that it was possible for a woman to be a prophetess, almost all the prophets were men, and every significant prophet and writer of Scripture was male. All the priests, the temple musicians, and official temple servants were required to be male. All of Israel’s military commanders and warriors were male. The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was a mark that only males could receive. All of the twelve disciples chosen by Jesus were male, and all of the later apostles were male. In the church, women are barred from positions of authority and teaching, not only by 1 Timothy 2:8-15, but also in the qualifications for elders/pastors (“husband of one wife,” 1 Tim 3:2; Tit 1:5-6) and by 1 Corinthians 14:33b-35, which prohibits women from speaking or asking questions during church services and commands them to be in subjection to male authority. The idea that women should be in subjection to the men who are in authority over them is not just something that applies within the church; Paul cites “the Law” as the basis for this command in order to show that it is not something new or culturally-specific (1 Cor 14:34). Scripture presents women as designed to occupy a role in support of men (cf. Gen 2:18).

From a biblical point of view, the answer to the question posed in the title of this post is obvious: “No way!” Why, then, does it seem that most Christians have no problem with women in positions of leadership? The answer is different for different individual Christians. Some Christians just never have heard a different point of view than the one they were taught by the culture around them. But in too many cases professing Christians simply do not care what the Bible says, and they are not serious about doing everything God wants them to do. They have already decided to commit to egalitarianism, and are not open to considering arguments to the contrary. Following this pattern, as our culture continues to move away from God, increasing numbers of Christians are adopting similarly anti-biblical positions on other cultural issues, of which the most flagrant is acceptance of homosexuality.

Finally, a disclaimer: while some people may view this post as “sexist” or “bigoted,” it is intended to be about the Bible’s teaching on women in positions of political leadership, not about my personal opinion per se. Feminists are actually divided on the issue of the Bible’s teaching about the role of women. On the one hand, there are many Christian feminists who attempt to read the Bible as a feminist book. But there are also many non-Christian feminists who would argue that the Bible is a biased, chauvinistic book which was the product of male-dominated societies and cultures. Thus, the view that the Bible prohibits women from positions of political leadership is not inherently a feminist or anti-feminist viewpoint. However, as a Christian believer I do take what the Bible says as the definitive standard for faith and practice, and I encourage other Christians to do the same.

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What does it mean to partake of communion in an unworthy manner?

12 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by in Bible, Practical theology

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In all of the churches I have attended, observation of the Lord’s Supper (communion) is preceded by a time of introspection, usually with a solemn warning given by the pastor. In some cultures there is a time of confession, in which people will stand up or come forward and confess to sins they have committed and/or will ask forgiveness from others in the congregation. While certainly it is a good idea for Christians to identify sin in their lives and repent of it, the Bible does not make this a requirement for participation in communion. The Bible passage that is at question on this issue is 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 (ASV):

But in giving you this charge, I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also factions among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you. 20 When therefore ye assemble yourselves together, it is not possible to eat the Lord’s supper: 21 for in your eating each one taketh before [other] his own supper; and one is hungry, and another is drunken. 22 What, have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and put them to shame that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you? In this I praise you not. 23 For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; 24 and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink [it], in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come. 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body. 30 For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep. 31 But if we discerned ourselves, we should not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. 33 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, wait one for another. 34 If any man is hungry, let him eat at home; that your coming together be not unto judgment. And the rest will I set in order whensoever I come.

A bit of historical context is necessary to understand Paul’s instructions. The Corinthian church consisted of many local house churches, each with its own pastor. These small congregations would meet together periodically in a joint assembly. This assembly included a shared meal (probably called the Lord’s Supper, or possibly the “love feast” [ἀγάπη], as in in Jude 12), and the communion ordinance was observed as part of this meal. This practice had a good historical precedent: when the Lord first instituted the communion ordinance with His disciples, the bread was broken as part of a meal, and the cup was drunk after the meal.

While Paul must have personally directed the celebration of the Lord’s Supper when he planted the Corinthian church, the church had badly perverted this ordinance due to their selfishness, to the extent that Paul tells them in v. 17 that they would be better off not holding their joint services at all than doing them as they were. The problem is that some people (likely the rich) were hogging the food and drink during the meal, while others (likely the poor) were going hungry. Presumably a ceremonial bread was eaten during the meal and a cup was drunk after the meal, though Paul felt the need to give specific instructions about this as well. Those who were eating and drinking gluttonously while refusing to share their food with other believers were making a mockery of what was supposed to be a solemn remembrance of Christ’s death and their union with Christ’s body (the church).

Paul’s corrective is, first of all, to eat something at home if someone is ravenously hungry (vv. 26, 34), so that everyone will have enough to eat at the shared meal. Then, when meals are shared by the whole assembly, people are to give deference to others and ensure that everyone gets something to eat (v. 33). The Lord’s Supper is to be celebrated properly, with a formal eating of the bread during the meal and drinking of the cup afterward (vv. 23-28). Finally, Paul gives a solemn warning against observing the communion ordinance improperly, since improper observance had resulted in the deaths and illnesses of many Corinthian Christians. Because God takes abuse of the Lord’s Supper very seriously, Paul commands every individual in the church to examine himself when he takes communion to make sure he is doing it in the right way (vv. 27-32).

One of the interpretive issues in this passage is what it means to “eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner” (v. 27). In the Corinthian assembly, eating and drinking in an unworthy manner meant eating and drinking excessively at the communal meal, with the result that other brothers went hungry. Other forms of partaking unworthily could be imagined, but it is only a sin in the manner of partaking communion that is spoken of. Notice Paul does not say that you are better off not taking communion than partaking with unconfessed sin in your life, nor does he say, “confess your sins before taking communion.” He only warns against sinning in the actual manner in which communion is observed.

It should be emphasized that this is about partaking in an unworthy manner, not in an unworthy state. It is about an unworthy manner, not an unworthy man. That is what is v. 27 states. Verse 29 indicates that this is a sin which fails to treat the body of Christ—the church—properly (cf. 1 Cor 10:17). In spite of all the moral problems in Corinth, Paul never tells the Corinthians that they must repent of their immorality before they can take communion.

Read the passage again if you are not convinced. Paul never says that a genuine Christian should not, in certain circumstances, participate in communion. (Note: I think in that culture, children would not have been allowed to participate in either baptism or communion until coming of age; also, persons under church discipline would be barred from attending church meetings until they repented, and therefore could not participate in communion.) It is therefore unbiblical for a pastor to say that people with “unconfessed sin” should not participate in communion. Communion, like baptism, is an ordinance for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, not just for an elite class of “spiritual” believers. (Many churches and pastors also refuse to baptize new or immature believers, and will only baptize Christians who are deemed to have reached a certain level of spiritual maturity.)

In v. 28, Paul does not say, “Do not eat of the bread or drink of the cup if you have unconfessed sin in your life.” Instead, he says that when you take communion you need to examine yourself to make sure you are doing it in the right way. This examining is not a deep introspection which involves recalling and confessing every sin one can think of. Instead, it is a brief consideration of whether one is indeed treating others right during the communion meal. If there is a problem, the solution is not to “let the elements pass,” but is rather to correct one’s manner of partaking right then and there. Paul never recommends that a believer not participate in communion or that the church should forbid unspiritual believers from participating in communion. It is only unbelievers who are forbidden to participate in communion, since communion signifies participation in the body of Christ (1 Cor 10:16-17).

The Old Testament equivalent to taking communion in an unworthy manner would be a priest who offered incense that was not commanded (Lev 10:1-2), or someone who was not a Levite offering a sacrifice or burning incense (1 Sam 13:7-13; 2 Chr 26:16-21). The issue in such cases is the manner in which a ritual is performed, not general sins in the life of the worshiper.

Misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 has caused much unnecessary anguish for Christians, and has caused many to needlessly refuse to partake of this ordinance when they could have and should have done so. Some people wonder if they are good enough to take communion. Often it is those with the most acute sensitivity to sin and the greatest fear of God who decide they are not worthy to take communion, when in fact these people may be the most spiritual members of the congregation. On the flip side of the coin, there are people who habitually skip communion because they do not want to give up specific sins, and they think by skipping communion they can continue living in these sins without experiencing God’s chastisement. I have heard some pastors name specific sins and declare that those who have committed those sins cannot participate in communion. All of this is wholly unbiblical. There is no sin that effectively bars a genuine Christian from participating in communion, except a sin in the manner of participation itself. Christ commanded His followers to observe the communion ordinance (“this do in remembrance of Me”). Communion is mandatory for all adult Christians (assuming we are speaking of communion properly observed, not, e.g., the Catholic Mass).

At the moment a Christian is saved (justified), all of his sins are forgiven—past, present, and future. The Christian’s status before God is “forgiven” no matter whether individual sins committed recently have been specifically confessed or not. He is part of the body of Christ, forever. There is therefore no reason to bar him from an ordinance which signifies participation in Christ’s body (the church). However, since God takes this ordinance very seriously, those who treat it lightly by mistreating other believers in the way they observe it can expect to experience God’s chastisement. As far as other sins are concerned, God will chasten believers for those sins whether they take communion or not (cf. Heb 12:4-11). Thus, while many Christians who do not want to repent of a sinful lifestyle have been led to believe that they can avoid God’s chastisement by not participating in communion, this is simply not the case. But only those who sin in the actual manner in which they participate in communion will receive God’s chastisement for partaking in an unworthy manner.

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Some insights from the 2016 Midwest ETS conference

14 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in Bible scholarship

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This past Friday and Saturday I had the privilege of attending the Midwest regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I made many new friends at the conference and attended a number of helpful and interesting sessions, several of which are summarized below.

The well-known eighty-three year old theologian Millard Erickson gave a presentation which reflected on the past eighty years of American evangelical theology. He calls the period from 1936 to 1947 “the period of consolidation,” after liberals had finally won out in all the major denominations and institutions, and evangelicals had been forced to start their own churches and institutions. Erickson labels the period from 1947 to 1983 as “the period of construction,” in which evangelical scholars made the case for evangelical theology, in opposition to liberal theology, by means of positive contributions. In spite of denominational differences, evangelicals largely presented a united front in their efforts. Erickson labels the period from 1983 to the present as “the period of controversy,” in which evangelical scholarship has fractured over many theological issues, and evangelicals have debated each other as much or more than the liberals. Erickson lists biblical inerrancy as the foremost debated issue in evangelicalism, followed by the issue of gender roles. With regard to the present day situation, Erickson noted that many major theologians have passed from the scene in recent years, especially on the evangelical left, and that so far there is no clear future leader on either side. He believes the discipline of theology has been weakened by the increasing specialization of academia, so that most scholars can only engage in one specific aspect of the overall discussion, and are not broadly competent across the entire discipline. Also, evangelicalism has become increasingly fractured; according to Erickson, scholars on the evangelical left often are exclusively interested in dialogue and partnership with liberal scholarship, to the exclusion of the evangelical right. Another aspect of the present day situation is the popularization of the discussion. Seminaries are closing or downsizing, resulting in fewer trained theologians, while the great rise in social media has led to much theologizing being done on blogs, Facebook, and other social media. Some popular evangelical blogs are written by people with little or no formal training, and as a result often contain glaring, amateurish errors. Erickson encouraged the scholars in the audience to engage more in social media. Finally, looking forward to the future of evangelical theology, Erickson noted that it appears evangelicals will increasingly have to fight merely to have a platform to communicate—in contrast to past generations, in which evangelical scholars simply argued for evangelical theological viewpoints against liberal theological viewpoints. He specifically flagged political correctness as a major problem for evangelicals, since political correctness attempts to restrict what is even allowed to be said or suggested before the case for it can be made. Erickson called for more unity among evangelicals, even as he described how his own church is likely going to split over the call of a female minister whom he is recommending to the congregation. Erickson’s final exhortation was to prepare to fight the next battle, not the last battle or even the current one. He thinks academia is shifting away from the current postmodernism back to a form of modernism.

Jacob Prahlow, a Ph.D. student at Saint Louis University, presented an interesting paper on the Christology of the book of Revelation. Whether one studies the Christological controversies of the early church, modern theology books, or even commentaries on Revelation, there is a surprising lack of attention to the Christology of the book of Revelation. In fact, Revelation is replete with strong affirmations of Jesus’ divinity (His humanity is also affirmed in 1:13; 5:9; 11:8; 14:14). Clear references to Jesus as “Lord” are found in 11:8, 17:14, 19:16, and 22:20-21, although John’s preferred term for Jesus is “the Lamb” (in accord with 5:6), and John frequently calls the Father “Lord” (κύριος) as the Greek representation of the Hebrew term “Yahweh.” The title “Alpha and Omega,” used of Jesus in 22:12-13, is given as a title for God alone in 1:8 and 21:6. Jesus’ title “The First and the Last” (1:17; 2:8; 22:13) parallels God’s title “The One who is and who was and who is to come” (1:8; cf. Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12). Revelation 19:13 calls Jesus “the Word of God,” a theologically loaded title which is an affirmation of divinity (cf. John 1:1). Jesus is twice called “King of kings and Lord of lords” (17:14; 19:16), which implies that He is sovereign over everything and everyone in all of creation. Revelation 19:10 and 22:8-9 explicitly prohibit worship of anyone but God alone, yet the book approves of worship of Jesus/the Lamb (5:8-13). Jesus determines which names are in the book of life (3:5; 13:18), which means that He controls the eternal destiny of all men—who enters the lake of fire (20:15), and who enters the New Jerusalem (3:12). In chs. 1–3, Jesus very clearly claims lordship over the churches, calls God His Father (2:27; 3:5, 21), calls Himself (among other titles) “the Son of God” (2:18), and issues extraordinary promises that only God could make. In ch. 5, the Lamb was the only One in all of heaven, earth, or the underworld who was found worthy to take the seven-sealed scroll out of the hand of God and break its seals. In ch. 19, it is Jesus (“The Word of God”) who returns to earth to execute God’s judgment on the beast, the false prophet, and all the wicked in the earth. The very first verse of Revelation affirms that Jesus Christ revealed the whole vision of the book to His servant John. The final scene in the vision shows “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” as the temple and the light source of the New Jerusalem (21:22-23). All in all, the book of Revelation is at least as strong as any other book of the New Testament in its affirmations of the divinity of Jesus.

Marcus Leman, a Ph.D. candidate at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, gave a very helpful presentation on the utility of the Masoretic accents in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of the Old Testament. The accents have three basic functions: to mark stressed syllables, to mark the melody to be sung for each word (when the text is cantillated), and to mark syntactical breaks in the verse. The latter function of the accents is similar to a modern system of punctuation, but is different in that each word is given its own “punctuation mark” (accent) in order to identify precise syntactic, clausal, and semantic units. Understanding the meaning of these accents not only aids reading comprehension, but also allows the exegete to pull ready-made structural outlines out of the Hebrew text by understanding which accents are subordinate to other accents in the verse. One Hebrew professor in attendance at the session said he wonders whether he has been teaching Hebrew wrong for the last forty years. Leman’s work was based on that of his professor Russell Fuller, whose book on Hebrew accents is due out later this year.

Tremper Longman III gave a presentation on Old Testament commentaries, especially the various commentary series that he has edited or otherwise been involved with. I must say that I have some significant theological and practical disagreements with Longman, such as his adherence to theistic evolution and his view that every book of the Bible except Nahum(?!) was redacted after it was originally written. Longman promoted the new Story of God commentary series he is editing for Zondervan, but what he said about it made me not want to buy the series. He bragged about how they had gone out of their way to find women to write commentaries in the series (just under half the commentaries are to be authored by women), and that they had also found a woman to be one of the series editors. He specifically said they wanted to have as few white male Americans as possible writing books in the series, though he evidently made an exception for himself. One positive observation Longman made was that modernist (i.e., post-Reformation) commentaries had the virtue of not accepting premodern interpretations of the text. Many allegorical interpretations of the biblical text that are found in the (generally later) church fathers are repeated over and over again in medieval commentaries. Many post-Reformation Protestant writers, by contrast, saw the text as their sole authority and interpreted it literally, discarding the junk of allegorical exegesis. I will say that I am seeing an increasing amount of allegorical interpretation at ETS meetings and in commentaries, though it is rarely called “allegorical.” Texts are often read in highly symbolic ways so as to convey something other than their face-value, literal meaning.

Michael Wittmer of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary gave an excellent presentation in which he argued (against books by David Platt, John Piper, and Joe Rigney) that Christians can serve Jesus with an ordinary profession, and that it is okay for Christians to enjoy non-sinful pleasures and the good things of this world. Rigney’s ongoing affirmation of panentheism is particularly troubling, but it is the natural theological outgrowth of what his side is recommending on a practical level.

Finally, Abraham Kuruvilla of Dallas Theological Seminary gave a very engaging presentation on the exegetical process by which a sermon should be formed. My main problem with Kuruvilla’s hermeneutical model is that it treats the literal meaning of the text as of secondary importance (as can be seen in his commentary on Genesis). Nevertheless, I expect Kuruvilla’s work to continue to gain recognition in the evangelical world.

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An Interpretive Guide to the Bible

27 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Bible, Books

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I am pleased to announce that I am now making PDF copies of my eight-volume book series, Dr. Anderson’s Interpretive Guide to the Bible, available for free on my website.

With so many commentaries and study Bibles available, what makes Dr. Anderson’s Interpretive Guide to the Bible unique?

  1. These interpretive guides fill a gap in the literature by providing a synthetic overview of every book of the Bible in a way that commentaries and introductions do not.
  2. These interpretive guides are original scholarship, unlike much of what is produced today. They are the product of my own careful study of the Scriptures, and are not simply a slightly revised repetition of what you can read in other resources. I am an independent thinker, and you will find many original insights and ideas throughout these interpretive guides.
  3. My method of biblical interpretation emphasizes the primacy of the biblical text, and seeks to find its literal meaning. Most contemporary literature seeks to read the Bible through the grid of preformed theological ideas or background studies.
  4. Although I use and often recommend recent commentaries and other scholarly literature, I am writing from a traditional point of view that you will not read in other contemporary literature. Contemporary publishers only publish contemporary viewpoints. Those who enjoy reading classic commentaries, such as the ones by Keil & Delitzch or Albert Barnes, might like these interpretive guides.

These interpretive guides are similar enough to a Bible commentary so that some people would classify them as commentaries. However, they do not deal much with issues of translation or textual criticism, and do not deal extensively with interpretive details. This series is intended partly as an aid to reading, and partly as a starting point for more detailed exegesis. It is, essentially, a general guide to biblical interpretation, from which more specific interpretations may be developed.

These interpretive guides are intended for anyone who wants to study the Bible. There are some more advanced or technical discussions in them that only scholars are likely to follow, but there are also many things that virtually any Christian reader of the Bible can understand. These interpretive guides are designed to help but also challenge adult readers at all academic levels.

It is my hope that making these books available for free in PDF form will greatly increase their reach and their usefulness to the church. Please use these books, recommend them to others if you find them helpful, and check back occasionally for updated editions.

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The Urim and the Thummim

28 Thursday Jan 2016

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One of the more mysterious expressions a Bible reader may encounter is “the Urim and the Thummim” (Exod 28:30; Lev 8:8; Deut 33:8 [in reverse order]; Ezra 2:63; Neh 7:65). In fact, “Urim” and “Thummim” are not translations, but are rather transliterations of Hebrew words whose referent is disputed. If you have heard anything at all about the Urim and the Thummim, chances are good that you have heard one of several theories invented by modern scholars, without support from the Bible or ancient Jewish tradition.

Marginal notes in English Bibles translate the word “Urim” (‎אוּרִים) as “Lights,” although the plural of the common Hebrew word for light (אוֹר) is slightly different (אוֹרִים = “Orim”). By its form, Urim is the plural of the Hebrew word for “firelight” (אוּר), which is used in the plural form “Urim” in Isaiah 24:15 to refer to the east as the region of the fiery light of the rising sun. While some suggest that “Urim” and “Thummim” are each to be understood as an intensive plural which refers to a single object, Hebrew grammars question whether the intensive plural can be used of non-living things (IBHS §7.4.3; Joüon §136f), and in any case it is not necessary to interpret “Urim” and “Thummim” as intensives. Thus, “Urim” is best understood to mean “the fire-like lights” or “the ones shining like firelight.”

“Thummim” is, to begin with, an inaccurate transliteration of the Hebrew word תֻּמִּים, in which the תּ is given a hard pronunciation; “Tummim” would be a more accurate transliteration, although convention now demands the spelling “Thummim.” Marginal notes in English Bibles translate the word “Thummim” as “Perfections,” although this translation does not seem like the right one for the Hebrew word that is used. (The translation of “Urim” and “Thummim” in the marginal notes of English Bibles as “lights” and “perfections” is evidently taken from the LXX text of Ezra 2:63.) “Thummim” is the plural form of the Hebrew word תֹּם, which occurs in the singular twenty-three times in the Old Testament. This word is usually translated as “integrity” (e.g., 1 Kgs 9:4; Job 4:6; Pss 26:1; 78:72; Prov 2:7), but also can be translated as “innocence” (Gen 20:5-6; 2 Sam 15:11; 1 Kgs 22:34; 2 Chr 18:33) or “completeness” (Job 21:23; Isa 47:9). Translating “Thummim” as “the blameless ones” seems to fit best with basic meaning of the word.

“Urim” and “Thummim” were names given to physical objects that were part of the high priest’s sacred garments. (Compare Solomon’s naming of the two main pillars of the temple porch as “Jachin” and “Boaz” in 1 Kings 7:21.) The high priest’s vest (called an “ephod”) contained shoulder pieces with two special onyx(?) stones set in sockets of gold (Exod 28:7-14). These stones were engraved with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel—six on one stone, and six on the other. The shoulder pieces were attached to the breastplate, a nine-inch square piece of heavy (double-thick) fabric with four rows of three gemstones set in sockets of gold (Exod 28:15-21). Each gemstone was engraved with the name of one of the twelve tribes (presumably naming Ephraim and Manasseh separately, and excluding Levi, which was represented by the high priest). The breastplate was hung from the shoulder pieces by means of gold chains that were connected to the sockets of the onyx stones on the shoulder pieces (Exod 28:22-25). The Urim and the Thummim are said in Exodus 28:30 to be set into the breastplate (literally, “and you shall set into the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim”; Leviticus 8:8 also reads “he set into the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim”). This evidently refers to the placement of the gemstones in their gold settings. The Urim and the Thummim seem to be identified in Exodus 28:29-30 with the gemstones which were engraved with the names of the tribes of Israel. The high priest’s breastplate is called “the breastplate of judgment” (Exod 28:15), since God revealed His judgments/decisions to the Israelites through the Urim and the Thummim on the breastplate. The Urim and the Thummim are evidently to be identified with the priest’s ephod that David often used to inquire, when he seemed to receive audible responses (1 Sam 23:6-12; 30:7-8). The word “ephod” refers to a linen garment, but can refer specifically to the breastplate on the garment that was used for inquiring of God—or, in some instances, for an object used for pagan divination (as in Judg 8:24-27; 17:5).

The most common scholarly interpretation of the Urim and Thummin since the nineteenth century has been to view them as a lot oracle. Scholars have hypothesized various ways in which this might work. One common form of the theory is that the Urim and the Thummim were two stones of similar size and shape that were placed in a pouch behind the breastplate of the high priest. One of these stones (the lighter colored Urim?) signified “Yes” (כֵּן), while the other (the darker colored Thummim?) signified “No” (לֹא). These stones could be used to obtain answers from God to Yes/No questions. When a question was asked, the priest would reach into his breastplate, shake the stones around, and, without looking, pull out one of the two stones. One problem with this theory is that “Urim” and “Thummim” are both plural forms, and so should refer to more than one stone. More importantly, the Bible never describes a pouch behind the high priest’s breastplate with stones in it; the Urim and the Thummim are identified with the stones set in the front of the high priest’s breastplate. This theory also cannot explain how one could fail to receive a response by Urim, as Saul did twice (1 Sam 14:36-37; 28:6). The verses which describe Saul’s failed inquiries only mention Urim, which does not fit with the theory that the Urim and the Thumim were used in conjunction to inquire of God. The Urim and the Thummim were different from the practice of casting lots, and their use should not be assumed in passages where the casting of lots is described (e.g., Josh 18:10; 1 Sam 14:41-42; 1 Chr 24:5). (Working on the assumption that the Urim and the Thummim were a lot oracle, many modern Bible versions, including the ESV, Message, NAB, NET, NIV, NJB, NRSV, and RSV, abandon the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 14:41 in favor of an LXX expansion which explicitly supports the “lot oracle” theory. This LXX expansion is apparently the source of the modern academic theory.)

The earliest ancient extrabiblical sources which describe the Urim and the Thummim describe a supernatural illumination of one or more of the stones in the high priest’s breastplate. Josephus (Ant. 3.8.9 §§214-18, available here; search within the page for “I will now treat”) describes how the sardonyx stone on the right shoulder piece of the high priest’s vestments would shine brilliantly when sacrifices were offered (on the Day of Atonement?), in order to indicate that God had accepted the sacrifice (if indeed He had accepted the sacrifice). Josephus also claims that the twelve gemstones in the high priest’s breastplate would shine brilliantly when the people of Israel marched out to battle, in order to signify that God was present with them and had accepted their prayer for victory (if God indeed had accepted their prayer for victory). Josephus’ claim fits with the meaning of the term “Urim” as “fire-like lights.” Josephus also states that the gemstones in the high priest’s breastplate were to be used to inquire of God, and he seems to imply that the stones would illuminate in response to an inquiry (Ant. 4.8.46 §311, available here; search within the page for “Moses taught”).

The Urim are mentioned in 4Q376 (= 1Q29 = 4Q375?), one of the so-called “Dead Sea Scrolls” from Qumran. The text is very fragmentary, so it may very well have mentioned the Thummim also. After the mention of the Urim, the text describes the alternate shining of the stones on the right and left shoulder pieces of the high priest’s ephod at some national feast (the Day of Atonement?). The stones are said to contain “flashes of fire” and to “shine forth” to all the assembled people “until the priest finishes speaking.” Another portion of 4Q376 commands the people to do all that the priest tells them “in accordance with all this judgment,” which may be a reference to the decisions of God that were rendered through the Urim.

Another one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4QpIsad, mentions the Urim and the Thummim and describes how they give light “like the sun in all its radiance.” This text is unfortunately fragmentary, but appears to identify the twelve gemstones in the high priest’s breastplate with the Urim and/or Thummim. Van Dam (The Urim and Thummim, 232) argues that the ancient traditions which describe the supernatural illumination of the stones are compelling, and suggests that this interpretation of the Urim and the Thummim only fell out of favor in Western scholarship since the seventeenth century due to a rationalistic, anti-supernatural worldview.

The Talmud and other Jewish literature contain multiple traditions regarding the Urim and the Thummim (see this page or this one, and search within the page for “Urim”). According to one tradition, when an inquiry was made, various letters of the names of the twelve tribes which were engraved on the stones would protrude or light up in order to spell out an answer. But since the names of the twelve tribes do not contain all the letters of the alphabet, this theory was expanded by various rabbis to include additional stones with additional words, and to have the illuminated letters pop out from the stones and arrange themselves into words. However, it must be remembered that these traditions come from a period centuries after the Urim and the Thummim were no longer in use. On the whole, the theory of illuminated letters seems like an embellishment based on the known fact that the stones in the breastplate would illuminate when the high priest spoke a message from God in response to an inquiry.

A more believable Jewish tradition (from the same Talmud tractate) taught that the inquirer would face the priest and his breastplate, while the priest turned his head toward the ark of the covenant. The inquirer would ask a question in a soft tone of voice, and the priest would verbally state God’s answer to the question (b. Yoma 73a). This looks like the method by which the process happened in passages which describe people inquiring of God (Judg 1:1-2; 20:27-28; 1 Sam 10:22; 23:9-12; 30:7-8; 2 Sam 2:1; 1 Chr 14:10-15). It is interesting that the Talmud also affirms that the priest who led the army into battle was allowed to wear the Urim and the Thummim when he did so, even if he was not the high priest. This fits with Josephus’ claim that the stones of the breastplate would illuminate at the start of a battle in order to signify God’s presence with the people. The Talmud also claims, believably, that only leaders of the nation could inquire of God through the Urim; the Urim could not be used by ordinary people or for common, everyday matters (b. Yoma 71b).

The suggestion that the high priest would receive a prophetic oracle from God in response to a formal inquiry through the Urim is the only one that that fits with the biblical passages noted above. The Urim and the Thummim are best viewed as separate objects. The Thummim (“perfections”) are never mentioned independently of the Urim (“lights”), but the Urim are twice mentioned in the Bible independently of the Thummim (Num 27:21; 1 Sam 28:6), both times in the context of using the Urim to inquire of God. The Thummim are never said to be used to inquire of God; they are simply mentioned as part of the high priest’s breastplate. Following Josephus’ description, the Thummim (“the blameless ones”) were the two onyx stones on the shoulder pieces of the high priest’s vestments, inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. They would light up brilliantly to signify that God had accepted the sacrifices offered on the Day of Atonement, thereby making the tribes of Israel blameless before Him. The Urim (“the ones shining like firelight”) were the twelve gemstones in the high priest’s breastplate, inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. These stones would light up in brilliant colors to verify that the words spoken by the high priest in response to an inquiry were indeed received from God, as well as to signify that God had heard the people’s prayer for victory when they went out to battle. The shining of these stones showed visibly that God’s glory was manifested through the twelve tribes of Israel. The name of the tribe of Levi was not listed among “the blameless ones” (Thummim) or “the shining ones” (Urim), but is identified with the high priest as “the godly one” in Deuteronomy 33:8—And of Levi he said, “Your blameless ones and your shining ones are with your godly one.” In Old Testament times, the priests functioned as mediators between God and the people, representing both the people to God and God to the people. The Urim and the Thummim, with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel inscribed on them, were an important aspect of the mediatorial role of the priesthood.

The Mishnah states that the Urim and the Thummim ceased to exist “when the former prophets died” (search within this PDF for “Urim”), which the Talmud interprets as a reference to the time when the first temple was destroyed (search within this page for “Urim”). Josephus says the stones in the high priest’s breastplate stopped shining some two hundred years before he wrote (i.e., after the death of John Hyrcanus in 104 BC) due to the sins of the nation (Ant. 3.8.9 §218, available here; search within the page for “Now this breastplate”; compare J.W. 1.2.8 §§68-69, available here; search for within the page for “He it”). Ezra 2:63 and Nehemiah 7:65 indicate that the Urim and the Thummim did not exist when the Israelites initially returned from exile, though there was an expectation that the high priest might have them at a future time. John 11:49-52 records an instance of the high priest receiving prophetic revelation from God as late as a few weeks before Jesus was crucified, though it does not say whether this revelation involved the Urim and the Thummim. Practically speaking, the use of the Urim to inquire of God seems to have ceased when a line of prophets arose (partway through the reign of David), after which time persons desiring a message from God would direct their inquiries to a prophet instead of the high priest. However, it seems likely that the Urim and the Thummim continued to shine miraculously in certain circumstances even after they ceased to be used for inquiring of God. If Josephus is to be believed, they stopped shining about one hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

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Darius the Mede: A solution to his identity

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Archaeology, Bible

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For a summary of views on Darius the Mede, see the following article: The Identifications of Darius the Mede (English) | Español | Français | Português | Norsk | Kiswahili | Русский | العربية | 中文 (繁體) | 中文 (简体) |

The biblical book of Daniel describes a figure called Darius the Mede, the son of Ahasuerus, who is said to have assumed rule over the Neo-Babylonian Empire after the fall of Babylon to a Medo-Persian force (Dan 5:31). Darius the Mede is a major character in Daniel 6, and the vision of Daniel 9 is said to have occurred during his reign. However, a problem arises when trying to identify Darius the Mede in extrabiblical literature. Darius the Mede is generally considered fictional by modern critical scholarship. (There are a few critical writers who accept the historicity of Darius the Mede, but not many.) The conventional view states that Cyrus the Persian conquered Media ca. 553 BC and deposed the last Median king. Cyrus, as king of Persia, reigned over the entire (Medo-)Persian Empire when Babylon fell in 539 BC. Evangelical Bible scholars have proposed various solutions to harmonize the book of Daniel with this version of history, but there remains a measure of dissatisfaction with these solutions.

When I started writing my dissertation on Darius the Mede, the scholarly discussion was essentially at an impasse. Neither evangelical nor critical scholars had any significant new ideas, and neither side found the other side’s arguments compelling. However, most scholars were unaware that the Greek historian Xenophon describes a Median king, whom he calls Cyaxares II, who corresponds very closely to Daniel’s Darius the Mede. The view that Cyaxares II is Darius the Mede was the standard Jewish and Christian interpretation from Josephus and Jerome until Keil in the 1870s, but it was abandoned after cuneiform inscriptions were discovered that seemed to support Herodotus’ account of the accession of Cyrus, which does not allow for the existence of Xenophon’s Cyaxares II.

The thesis that I argue in my 2014 Ph.D. dissertation and published book (both entitled Darius the Mede: A Reappraisal and available in pdf format here and here, or as a print book here) is that Cyrus shared power with a Median king until about two years after the fall of Babylon. This Median king is called Cyaxares (II) by the Greek historian Xenophon, but is known by his throne name Darius in the book of Daniel. Cyrus did not make a hostile conquest of Media, did not dethrone the last Median king, and did not become the highest regent in the Medo-Persian Empire until after the fall of Babylon. Cyrus was Darius’s co-regent, the hereditary king of the realm of Persia, the crown prince of Media, and the commander of the Medo-Persian army—yet it was still Darius who was officially recognized as the highest power in the realm. Darius died naturally within two years after the fall of Babylon, and as he had no male heir and Cyrus had married his daughter, Cyrus inherited his position upon his death and united the Median and Persian kingdoms in a single throne.

My reconstruction of the accession of Cyrus is based largely on the detailed account given by the Greek historian Xenophon, which agrees remarkably well with the book of Daniel and is supported by a surprising variety of other ancient sources. The account of the accession of Cyrus given by the Greek historian Herodotus, which forms the basis for the reconstruction of these events by modern historians, is a legendary recasting of a propagandistic myth promoted by Cyrus as a means of legitimating his conquest in the minds of an unfavorable Babylonian populace. Cuneiform references to Cyrus (and his son Cambyses) as “king” soon after the fall of Babylon are easily explained through a coregency which lasted until the death of Darius the Mede/Cyaxares II.

Major supporting arguments made in the book include the following:

  1. The historical reliability of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia was found to be much higher than scholarly consensus currently holds. (One scholar of Xenophon, Steven W. Hirsch, also argues for a much higher view of the historical reliability of the Cyropaedia.) Xenophon was found to be historically credible, and superior to Herodotus, with regard to his accounts of the royal upbringing of Cyrus, the existence of Belshazzar, the existence of Gobryas, and the marriage of Cyrus to Cyaxares’ daughter.
  2. The Behistun inscription of Darius Hystaspes (“Darius I”) states that two Medians who launched rebellions against Darius at separate times did so on the basis of (allegedly) false claims to be of the family of Cyaxares. The fact that they claimed a relation to Cyaxares, rather than to Astyages, is evidence that Cyaxares II did indeed exist and was the last Median king.
  3. The adoption of “Darius” and “Ahasuerus” (= Xerxes) as throne names of the first two Persian kings in the dynasty which followed that of Cyrus is evidence that they were used as throne names by kings of an earlier dynasty. This is indirect evidence that there indeed was a Median king named “Darius,” and another named “Ahasuerus,” as the book of Daniel presents them (Dan 9:1). The use of throne names by Persian kings also gives plausibility to the suggestion that the given name of Darius the Mede was “Cyaxares.”
  4. There are strong historical evidences that the Medes and the Persians had formed a confederated government, and that Herodotus’ story of Cyrus subjugating the Medes and deposing the last Median king is therefore historically inaccurate. Xenophon and Herodotus agree that the Median king Astyages gave his daughter Mandane in marriage to Cambyses I, who was king of the Persians. In the ancient Near Eastern context, such marriages signified the formation of political alliances, and it seems that Astyages made just such an alliance with Persia with a view toward checking Babylonian hegemony. A passage in the Persae of Aeschylus is noted in chapter 4 which presents Astyages as the founder of the alliance, though without naming him directly. Chapter 3 notes biblical texts which describe the Medes and Persians governing their empire jointly, and also notes abundant archeological evidence which presents the Medes as senior partners and equals with the Persians, rather than their vassals.
  5. The Harran Stele, which is an inscription of Nabonidus, mentions a certain “king of the land of the Medes” alongside the kings of Egypt and Arabia as Babylon’s leading enemies. This inscription was produced well after the supposed conquest of Media by Cyrus, and therefore seems to indicate that Cyrus did not depose the last Median king.
  6. The historian Berossus, whose history of Neo-Babylonia is well respected but poorly preserved, refers to the actions of an unspecified “King Darius” shortly after the fall of Babylon. The conventional version of the history of the period does not recognize any such “King Darius.”
  7. Valerius Harpocration, a professional researcher and lexicographer at the library of Alexandria, affirms in a lexical work that there was a king of the Medo-Persian Empire named “Darius” who reigned sometime before Darius Hystaspes. Once again, the conventional version of the history of the period has no explanation for this “Darius.”
  8. The Greek tragic dramatist Aeschylus, who wrote before Herodotus, describes two Median kings who preceded Cyrus as rulers of Medo-Persia. Although Aeschylus does not name these two kings, he presents the first as the founder of the dynasty, the second as his son and the king who was on the throne when Babylon fell, and the third, Cyrus, as the natural successor of the second king. The conventional history of the period does not recognize this second Median king.

Scholars tend to be skeptical when presented with new theories, and rightly so. My own dissertation committee at Dallas Theological Seminary was quite skeptical when I proposed the topic. However, after exhaustive research on the primary source texts for the period, the evidence supporting Xenophon’s description of a Median king reigning in parallel with Cyrus, and corresponding to Daniel’s Darius the Mede, was compelling. My work has been well received so far by evangelical Bible scholars, a number of whom have communicated to me that they are now advocating my position. Some others have told me that my work has spurred them to start their own research projects on Babylonian contract texts or related topics. Evangelical scholars seem quite happy to have a new solution to the problem of Darius the Mede which fits well with both the book of Daniel and extrabiblical literature. It is my hope that the evidence for identifying Cyaxares II with Darius the Mede will not only reinvigorate scholarly discussion on Darius the Mede, but also will also create a significant change in the way that Cyrus’ rise to power is understood by historians of Neo-Babylonia and Medo-Persia. In conclusion, I present a list of references to my book or dissertation in academic articles and online sources, starting with a few additional works of my own:

  1. After publishing my dissertation, I gave a presentation on Darius the Mede at the 2015 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, “Darius the Mede – The Evidence for Identifying Him with Xenophon’s Cyaxares II.”
  2. I coauthored an article with Rodger Young, “The Remembrance of Daniel’s Darius the Mede in Berossus and Harpocration,” that was published in the July–September 2016 issue of Bibliotheca Sacra (pages 315-23). This article was briefly reviewed by Brian Collins on his Exegesis and Theology site.
  3. I was the primary creator of the Daniel volume of the Photo Companion to the Bible (BiblePlaces.com, 2019). This volume can be consulted for photographs illustrating the archaeology of the book of Daniel. One photograph that is relevant to the issue of Darius the Mede is the one shown at the top of this post, which is a relief carving at Persepolis that depicts Median and Persian nobles as equal in status.
  4. My dissertation was favorably reviewed by Benjamin Noonan in the June 2015 issue of The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (p. 386 of the book reviews).
  5. Kirk MacGregor follows my line of argumentation on pages 51-54 of his April 2016 JISCA article “A Contemporary Defense of the Authenticity of Daniel.”
  6. Paul Tanner favors identifying Darius the Mede with Cyaxares II, and he includes extensive argumentation in his commentary on Daniel in the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series; see also his book review on Amazon.
  7. John Goldingay cites my work on p. 293 of the revised edition of his commentary on Daniel (Logos; Amazon), and his summary of viewpoints on Darius the Mede relies heavily on my dissertation.
  8. Christian Varela has a lengthy article in Spanish, “Un Analisis De La Identidad De Dario El Medo del Libro De Daniel” (pages 324-53 in El Pueblo del Pacto: Hechos Destacadas de la Historia de Israel). Varela cites my book extensively while arguing from an Adventist perspective that Darius the Mede should be identified with Cyaxares II.
  9. James Bejon has an extensive discussion of Darius the Mede in his online commentary on Daniel (Appendix 5, starting on p. 9). Also available as a separate article.
  10. Rodger Young published an article, “Xenophon’s Cyaxares: Uncle of Cyrus, Friend of Daniel,” in the June 2021 (vol. 64, no. 2) issue of JETS, pages 265-85. Young argues for the historicity of Cyaxares II from both biblical and extrabiblical sources.
  11. Rodger Young also published “How Darius the Mede Was Deleted from History and Who Did It,” Bible and Spade 35.3-4 (Summer/Fall 2022): 24-33.
  12. References to my work have also appeared on various Christian websites, such as Thomas Ross’ page about my book on his apologetics website, Peter Goeman’s blog article, Kyle Pope’s article in Focus Online, John Oakes’ reference in his Evidence for Christianity site, and the link on Eddie Van Gent’s Daniel Prophecies site.
  13. A Persian Farsi translation of my book has been published by Qoqnoos Press in Iran (ISBN: 9786220404651). It can be purchased from Agah Bookshop. A preview is available on Academia.edu. This is a highly relevant topic for an Iranian audience.
  14. I did an interview on Darius the Mede for a YouTube channel.

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Some insights from the 2015 ETS conference

27 Friday Nov 2015

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This past week I attended the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the largest annual gathering of evangelical Christian Bible scholars in the world. Here is a summary of highlights from some of the presentations I attended.

Ben Montoya gave a presentation on the Southern Baptist scholar A. T. Robertson, who published in 1915 a massive reference grammar for New Testament Greek that is still in print and in use today. It is interesting that this famous Greek scholar lost a Greek competition when he was in college. Montoya was unable to find the name of the guy who beat Robertson in the contest, which I suppose shows that such contests are not the ultimate test of competence. Some other interesting points from Montoya’s presentation:

  • Robertson handwrote the manuscript for his grammar. When he was finished, the stack of paper measured from the floor to the height of his desk.
  • The Lutheran theologian Oscar Cullmann told of a meeting he had with Pope John XXIII (reigned 1958-1963), during which he noticed a copy of Robertson’s grammar next to the pope’s Greek New Testament. Cullman asked the pope why he was using an English language grammar. He replied, “It is the best one available.”
  • Montoya said one of the things that makes Robertson’s grammar different from more recent grammars is that Robertson viewed language as reality. Modern grammars view language as a portrayal of reality.
  • According to Montoya, Robertson’s greatest mistake was the anachronistic application of grammatical categories from Latin to Greek, since Robertson had learned Latin before learning Greek. An example Montoya gave was Robertson’s category of deponancy, where modern linguists would see a middle-only verb. This criticism is, of course, debatable.

My friend Rodger Young presented on discrepancies between Carbon-14 (14C) dates and dates derived by conventional archaeological methods from about 2200 BC to 1400 BC. He said that, at present, there is an unresolved conflict between these two systems of dating. One problem with the 14C dates is that the data used to calibrate them has been kept secret. (One does not simply feed a piece of wood into a machine and receive an objective date; the scientists must “calibrate” the machine by inputting dates for various concentrations of radiocarbon in a material.) Three major universities analyzed the 14C dates in question—one in the U. S., one in the U. K., and one in Germany. All three universities have refused to release the dendrochronological (tree ring) data that they used to calibrate the 14C dates. The University of Belfast released a limited amount of data after a three year lawsuit under the British Freedom of Information Act, but this data was insufficient to understand the radiocarbon calibration curves. Hence, archaeologists suspect there is some sort of problem with the German oak data used to calibrate the 14C dates, but so far lawsuits have been unsuccessful in obtaining this data. Young’s handout is posted on his website. I personally am deeply mistrustful of radioisotope dating in general, as well as of archaeological dates that are not rooted in a biblical foundation.

Todd Chipman of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary gave a presentation on the Greek perfect tense in Hebrews. There has been a revolution in the study of biblical Greek and biblical Hebrew in recent years, as the product of a battle between traditional grammatical analysis of language versus an analysis based on modern linguistic theories. Part of this battle involves the study of ancient Greek verb tenses, which traditionally were seen as primarily temporal in reference, but which linguistic approaches say have more to do with aspect than with time. Three different linguistic approaches to understanding New Testament Greek verb tenses have been propounded by leading scholars in recent decades. Stanley Porter’s work, which applies the theory of a leading linguist to the Greek of the New Testament, is the basis of the modern discussion. Porter argues that that Greek verb tenses do not have temporal reference, just stative (perfect), perfective (aorist), or imperfective (present). Buist Fanning’s work Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek is not based on linguistic studies, but it presents a theory of verbal aspect that is similar in some ways to Porter’s yet also differs in certain respects. A third linguist, Constantine Campbell, argues that the Greek verb tenses of the NT only have perfective and imperfective aspects, with spatial values of greater importance than temporal values. Ironically, he views the perfect and pluperfect tenses as imperfective in aspect. In his presentation, Chipman analyzed examples of the use of perfect tense verbs in the contexts in the book of Hebrews in which present tense verbs were nearby, and tested the passages according to these three linguistic models. He found that, in every test passage, the models of Porter and Fanning made better sense of the context in Hebrews than Campbell’s model. Yet Chipman seemed to think that aspect is not as important in discussions of Greek verb tenses as Porter and Fanning make it out to be.

Phil Silvia presented, in association with Steve Collins, on the event which destroyed Tall el-Hammam. Tall el-Hammam is the site of a very large ancient city just to the northeast of the Dead Sea, on the plain opposite the Jordan River from Jericho. Silvia, Collins, and some other scholars believe that Tall el-Hammam is the site of the biblical city of Sodom. The evidence in support of this conclusion is impressive—there are major cities in the area which can be identified with Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, along with many smaller suburbs. In addition, there is strong biblical evidence for locating Sodom in the geographical area of Tall el-Hammam. According to Collins and Silvia, Tall el-Hammam and the surrounding cities were not destroyed in the usual manner; they appear to have been virtually incinerated, with everything above the level of the ground gone without a trace. In addition, there are high levels of salt in the layer of soil from the time of the destruction, which explains why the cities were not reoccupied for a very long period of time (cf. Gen 19:26). Silvia’s presentation focused on a piece of pottery and a rock from the area with a type of surface melting that scientific experts say could only have been produced through exposure to a temperature of 12,000° C for a few milliseconds. The one aspect of Collins’ and Silvia’s theory that I cannot agree with is the date they propose for the destruction of Sodom—1700 BC. From a biblical point of view, Sodom must have been destroyed around 2067 BC; however, Collins claims that the archaeological evidence points to the major destruction of Tall el-Hammam occurring around 1700 BC. But because the methods used by archaeologists to date ancient sites are often very tenuous (e.g., pieces of pottery), and they often disagree with biblical dates, I am skeptical of the grounds for Collins’ date for the destruction of Tall el-Hammam. On the whole, I favor identifying biblical Sodom with Tall el-Hammam on the basis of biblical statements regarding the geographical location of Sodom (Gen 13:3, 10-12); one can expect this theory to be subjected to further scholarly review in the coming years.

On Wednesday night, filmmaker Timothy Mahoney showed Patterns of Evidence: Exodus. This is a very professionally-produced documentary which searches for archaeological evidence of Israel’s exodus from Egypt in response to challenges from archaeologists who deny that the exodus event ever happened. This film shows that there is in fact abundant archaeological evidence for the biblical account of the Israelites journeying to Egypt, becoming a great nation there, being enslaved, and leaving in a dramatic exodus. However, this evidence is not recognized by scholars who are committed to interpreting archaeological data within the conventional chronological framework, since the evidence is not from the right time period. Nevertheless, the methods used to date these early archaeological periods are very tenuous and generally conflict with the Bible’s chronology. Thus, Mahoney argues (correctly) that the archaeological chronology should be compressed, resulting in the evidence for the Israelites living in Egypt lining up with the biblical chronology. I suggested to Mahoney that some of the specific arguments he makes regarding the identity of the Semitic population in and around Avaris could be objectively tested by obtaining samples of the DNA in the bones of those buried there, and using these samples to determine whether the Jews are their modern relatives.

My former professor Todd Beall presented a paper on principles of marriage from the book of Genesis. While Beall argued for a traditional view of marriage, an increasing number of evangelical writers are supporting contemporary, non-traditional views. Surely one reason for this is the widespread denial of the historicity of Genesis 2, in which God created Adam and Eve and ordained the marriage relationship between a man and a woman. In general, the abandonment of the literal hermeneutic has opened the door for evangelical acceptance of the non-biblical views of marriage and sexuality that dominate popular culture.

Randall Buth, director of the Biblical Language Center, presented a review of a new Greek-Greek dictionary by Emiliano Caruso (Monolingual Dictionary of Ancient  Greek). Buth was enthusiastic about the dictionary as a good first step toward thinking about the meaning of Greek words within the context of the Greek world, rather than within the context of the English world. The dictionary does not include the complete vocabulary of the New Testament, but it does include many words that are used outside of the New Testament. Buth would like the next edition of this dictionary to be more complete, but he likes the idea of including words that are not in the New Testament, since there are words that were common in ancient Greek that do not appear in the New Testament for reasons of subject matter. Knowing extrabiblical vocabulary therefore enhances one’s understanding of the ancient Greek language. One problem with this dictionary is that it mostly defines words by synonyms and antonyms, some of which do not appear elsewhere in the dictionary. Entries need to be expanded, with descriptive definitions, more examples, and multiple meanings. Also, it would be ideal for a dictionary like this one to be compiled by a team of scholars, rather than by one individual. I noted that a Greek-Greek dictionary of ancient Greek was composed by Valerius Harpocration in the second century AD (Lexeis of the Ten Orators), and suggested that this work might still be useful for a project such as Caruso’s. After the presentation, I asked Buth if he knows of anyone who is fluent in both the ancient and modern forms of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. He said he knows a lot of people who are fluent in the ancient and modern forms of one of the three, but he does not think there is anyone in the world who is fluent in the ancient and modern forms of all three. Knowing the ancient forms of these languages is something different than knowing the modern forms.

Richard Oster of the Harding School of Theology gave a presentation which noted some archaeological finds relevant to New Testament studies. At the end of his presentation, he commented on the state of New Testament programs in evangelical seminaries. He said that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, evangelical seminaries included classical studies in their New Testament programs, especially at the Ph.D. level. Today, many New Testament Ph.D. programs do not even offer Latin—the language of the Empire—let alone require it. Classical studies and language studies in general have fallen on hard times in New Testament programs, which now tend to emphasize Jewish studies and theology. This is in contrast to Old Testament studies programs, which are much more engaged with the languages and histories of the peoples in the world around the Old Testament. Oster believes there is a greater need for New Testament scholars to know what was happening in the world in which the events of the New Testament took place.

Wayne Grudem gave a presentation which reflected on the scholarly discussion over the thirty years since his publication of a seminal article on the meaning of the Greek word κεφαλή (head). This has become a controversial issue because some egalitarian feminists argue that κεφαλή means “source” in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:23, in which the husband is said to be the “head” of the wife. Grudem said that no one has yet been able to present an example where κεφαλή means something other than “ruler” or “leader” when it is used of a person. He also discussed an article written in the standard reference work Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, published by InterVarsity Press (IVP) in 1993. The IVP editors selected a feminist named Catherine Kroeger to write the article on “Head” for this dictionary. In it, Kroeger literally invented multiple citations and quotations in order to argue that κεφαλή means “source,” not “ruler,” when affirming that the man is the head of the wife. Although Grudem has published multiple articles pointing out Kroeger’s dishonesty, the editors at IVP have never removed this article or corrected it! Grudem’s conclusion was that after all of the scholarly discussion of the passages related to male headship in the New Testament, it is as clear as ever that the Bible commands wives to be in submission to their husbands; there are no serious exegetical challenges to the traditional view.

Finally, I gave a presentation in which I summarized the arguments made in my Ph.D. dissertation and published book for identifying Daniel’s Darius the Mede with Xenophon’s Cyaxares II. The session was well attended, and included several scholars who had already read the book and given me feedback via email. I presented a bold theory which argues for the historical reliability of Xenophon’s account of the rise of Cyrus to power (which includes a Median king who corresponds to Darius the Mede) over the historical reliability of Herodotus’ account. Although modern scholarship favors Herodotus, the evidence supporting Xenophon is diverse and compelling. The questions and comments following the presentation were overwhelmingly favorable. Other scholars are beginning to argue for and reference the theory I have presented (which is not completely original with me), and it is my hope that these references in academic literature will eventually have an effect on the view of Darius the Mede in scholarship as a whole.

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Principles of evangelism from the book of Acts

12 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in Bible, Evangelism

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The book of Acts tells the story of the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ. Acts begins with Jesus teaching the apostles about the kingdom of God outside Jerusalem, and ends, about thirty years later, with Paul teaching Gentile Christians about the kingdom of God in Rome. The entire book shows an increasing expansion of the church from its starting point in Jerusalem, and a shift from an exclusively Jewish and provincial religion to a predominantly Gentile and universal church.

The first century church did not have many of the things we consider necessary for success: buildings, wealth, influence, status, legal protection, and so forth. But it began with 120 people, and within a generation Christianity had spread throughout the known world. Within a few hundred years, Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman Empire. It is striking that church history has not left us the name of one great missionary from the death of the apostles until the legalization of Christianity in 313, and yet there were tens of millions of converts in the face of persecution that was often intense. Evangelism was done by regular people who shared the gospel with those they came in contact with. The early church did not use gimmicks to attract interest to the gospel, such as sports, the circus, the coliseum, Roman feasts, the Grecian play, popular music, or any of the other popular entertainments of the Roman world. Yet the church enjoyed great success, and converts to Christianity proved themselves genuine in the face of persecution and heresy. In our day, we tend to focus on the missionaries and evangelists who claim thousands of converts, and yet most Christians are saved through the work of those who never get such accolades.

What were the secrets behind the evangelistic success of the early church? Here is a list of twenty-four lessons about evangelism taken from the book of Acts:

  1. Speak from the Word (8:35; 17:2; 28:23)
    • The gospel presentations in Acts are explanations of Scripture, and quote directly from Scripture.
    • Memorize Scripture and be able to quote it, as the apostles did in their gospel presentations.
    • Stay focused on the gospel message.
    • The basic message never changes, only the presentation.
    • The apostles did not use gimmicks to attract interest.
  2. Find a cultural entry point (13:16-41; 17:22-31)
    • Use the Old Testament with Jews
    • Be sensitive to others’ religious convictions and culture
  3. Use different ways of presenting the gospel with different audiences (17:22-31)
    • “Start communication at the widest point of mutual understanding, and narrow the conversation down to a specific point or message” (Edward Jones).
  4. Evangelize in teams (Paul & Barnabas, Barnabas & Mark, Paul & Silas, Paul & Timothy)
    • Shared workload
    • Accountability
    • Increased boldness
    • Physical protection
    • Complementing strengths and weaknesses
    • Two witnesses to the truth of the gospel (cf. Deut 19:15)
    • Jesus sent out both the twelve (Mark 6:7) and the seventy-two (Luke 10:1) in teams of two.
  5. To impact the most people, focus on major metropolitan areas and important cities (Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, Rome)
    • If cities are targeted, the gospel will naturally filter out to the countryside, as city folks take it there, or as country folks visit the city.
    • In the majority of the twentieth century, most missionaries were from America, and nearly all from rural areas. When they went overseas, they naturally went to the countryside, since that is what they were familiar with. Many were disdainful of big cities in America, and were not comfortable living in them. Consequently, the big cities remained largely unreached by the great historic missionary efforts of our time.
    • Seek to address large audiences to gain more converts (Acts 13:44; 28:17, 23).
  6. Evangelism requires boldness (28:31)
    • Many people do not have as confrontational a personality as the apostle Paul, but it still requires courage to tell an unbeliever about Jesus Christ.
  7. Evangelism may take time (14:3; 19:10)
    • Many people receive the gospel the second or third time they hear it.
  8. Expect persecution (13:50)
    • Paul faced persecution virtually wherever he went. The persecution he faced was a direct result of his evangelistic work.
    • Be surprised if persecution does not come, for it was the norm in Acts (cf. 2 Tim 3:12).
    • Be prepared for Satanic opposition (16:16-18).
    • Joyfully persist through trials (5:41).
  9. Obstacles in ministry should not be seen as failure, but as an opportunity for a new direction (28:28)
    • Paul’s eviction from one city was the vehicle for the city down the road to hear the gospel (17:1, 10, 15).
    • The split between Paul and Barnabas resulted in two missionary teams instead of one (15:39-40).
    • The rejection of the gospel by Israel opened up the door for its reception by the Gentiles (28:28).
  10. Follow up with the churches you have planted (14:21-26)
    • It was not Paul’s practice to evangelize one week and leave the next; if possible, he spent time discipling the new converts (14:3). Paul continued to revisit the churches he planted throughout his life. He also wrote to them, prayed for them, and sent workers to them. He was concerned with discipleship, not just evangelism. If it were not for this concern, Christianity would not have lasted long in the cities where Paul preached the gospel.
  11. We must go out to evangelize (8:5, 26; 13:3)
    • Evangelism in Acts happened when people went out from the church and into the world.
  12. Baptize new believers (2:38, 41; 8:12, 36-38; 9:18; 10:47-48; 16:14-15, 33; 18:8; 19:5; 22:16)
    • Throughout the book of Acts, new converts are always baptized immediately. There was no such thing as an unbaptized Christian in the early church.
    • According to Matthew 28:19-20, baptism marks an individual as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
  13. Minister to physical needs as an avenue for sharing the gospel (3:1-10; 19:10-12)
  14. Church planting is at the core of missionary work (14:23)
    • Paul started churches in all the towns he evangelized, and he appointed pastors for those churches.
  15. Recognize sincere seekers (8:27-31; 10:17-23; 17:19-20)
    • There are people in the world who are genuinely looking for truth, and who are open to receiving the gospel if someone would present it to them.
  16. Avoid unnecessary offense (16:3; 17:22-23)
  17. Be prepared to share your testimony (chap. 26)
  18. Maximize every opportunity (16:25-34; 17:16-17; 24:24-25; 28:30-31)
    • Paul shared the gospel wherever he was, to whomever he happened to be with.
  19. Mentor potential missionaries (15:37; 16:1-4)
  20. Evangelize all ethnic and racial groups (10:34-35)
  21. Bring the gospel to all geographical areas (1:8)
  22. Missionaries should be commissioned by a local church (13:2-3; 15:40)
  23. Give God the glory, not man (14:8-18)
    • Be careful not to pump yourself up when you succeed.
    • The Holy Spirit was the power behind the extraordinary growth of the early church.
  24. Prepare to evangelize (1:14)

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A visualization of Daniel 11

24 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in Bible, Bible prophecy

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It can be difficult for the reader of Daniel 11 to follow what is happening in the text. I have posted on my website a chart which visually depicts the actions described in the text (download it here). This chart is intended as a supplement to my Interpretive Guide to the Major Prophets (available here).

What this chart depicts is a conflict which begins as a conflict between Gentile kings and kingdoms, but which ends as a great spiritual battle between satanically-energized rulers and the people of God (Israel). Daniel 11:2-5 gives the historical background to the conflict, describing how the Persian Empire (which was ascendant at the time of the vision) would be conquered by a great Greek king (Alexander the Great), and how the Greek Empire would be divided into four parts immediately after the completion of its conquest of the Persian Empire. The text then begins to describe kings from a northern realm (the Seleucids) and kings from a southern realm (the Ptolemies). “North” and “south” are in relation to the land of Israel, which lay directly between these two realms and acted like a buffer zone. At first, Israel is completely in the background of the conflict—it is merely a land bridge which the armies of the two sides crossed in order to fight against each other. The southern kingdom initially held control of the land of Israel, and was relatively lenient in its treatment of the Jews. But Daniel 11:14 indicates that, over time, Israel began to be caught in the crossfire of the Seleucid-Ptolemy conflict.

Israel finally comes into the foreground of the conflict in Daniel 11:16, when the king of the north takes possession of the land. Increasingly, the king of the north begins to attack Israel, and not just the king of the south. In Daniel 11:30-35, the conflict between the king of the south and the king of the north finally becomes a conflict between the king of the north and Israel. The vision then skips ahead to the final consummation of the conflict between Satan’s people and God’s people in the eschaton (Dan 11:36–12:3). Once again, this begins as a conflict between Gentile kings and kingdoms, but becomes a conflict between an eschatological king (the antichrist) and Israel. In the end, this conflict becomes an overtly spiritual battle, with God’s people completely triumphant: the wicked king is destroyed, Michael the archangel defends Israel, and God’s saints are raised from the dead.

While Daniel 11 may seem like a catalogue of arcane details to some, it is these very details that make this chapter extremely problematic for critics of the Bible. Critical biblical scholarship cannot deny that Daniel 11 accurately describes world history from the time of Xerxes (ca. 480 BC) until the time of Antiochus IV (ca. 165 BC). The critics also acknowledge that it would be absolutely impossible for a human mind to foresee these events hundreds of years in advance. Thus, if it is acknowledged that the book of Daniel was actually written by the prophet Daniel in the sixth century BC, as its first person narratives imply, the book would have to have a divine origin—something which no critic wishes to acknowledge. Unbelieving or theologically liberal scholars therefore postdate the book of Daniel to the time when they think the vision of Daniel 11 ends: 165 BC. However, there is much compelling evidence (besides the book’s self-claim) that the book of Daniel was written much earlier than this. It is for this reason that liberals have identified the book of Daniel as the greatest threat to their anti-supernaturalist worldview, and the book of Daniel has become the greatest battleground between critics and believers. The mind-boggling detail of the prophecy of Daniel 11 demonstrates clearly that the Bible is God’s Word, not man’s word, and the fulfillment of the historical portion of this prophecy reassures us that the eschatological portion of the prophecy will also be precisely fulfilled. The course and outcome of history has already been set, and God’s plan will unfold in the future as it has in the past.

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