1) Matthew 5:18-20 - All of the commandments in the Law should be taught for observance in the kingdom as it has been inaugurated (cf. Acts 2:34-36; Heb. 1:3-4; although there are redemptive-historical, covenant-theological adjustments in the precise manner of observance today--see, e.g., 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 9:8-14 for ecclesial applications of civil and ceremonial laws--not to say these particular applications exhaust their usefulness for this age. See also Vern S. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses for very helpful work here.
2) Matt. 7:12; 22:36; 23:34-40 -- Love for God and neighbor summarizes the Law's demands.
3) Matt. 23:23 -- There are lesser and "weightier" matters of the Law. The weightier matters include justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
4) Matt. 19:8 -- At least some of the Law was accomodated to a hard-hearted, fleshly covenant people, and regulated certain realities of sin in a fallen, unregenerate world, rather than directly reflecting the divine created ideal. The divine ideal is being restored now in the era of the Spirit.
5) Matt. 5:21-48 -- The Law implies a demand for, and points forward to a greater enactment of, divine justice in and through the covenant people, such that its commands are obeyed holistically, maturely, from a circumcised heart, unto true life and flourishing.
6) Jn. 7:19; Mk. 7:1-23; Matt. 23 -- The Jewish leadership and hostile crowds did not truly obey the heart of the Law, despite their scrupulous application of extrabiblical traditions in an attempt to "fence" the Law (and at times actually for the purpose of subtly justifying the breaking of important commandments like the 5th Commandment about honoring parents). Kingdom disciples must actually exceed the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness (Matt. 5:20)--this is not a reference to justification, as important as that is.
7) Matt. 5:17; Lk. 24:25-27; Jn. 5:39, 45-46 -- All of the Law (and the Prophets and Writings) pointed forward to, testify of, and are fulfilled by, Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Friday, October 7, 2022
Baptist Faith & Message Ch. 18 "The Family"
"God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.
The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.
Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents."
Over a decade later, I am completing this exercise of relatively light interaction with the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 via blog articles. I am not sure what is next. I have thought about doing a similar exercise with the Augsburg Confession (a Lutheran confessional document), however, I also have other writing projects in mind--a major work on assurance of salvation, some more formal work on physical health, and some highly unorganized blurting out of all my systematic-theological views at this time of my theological development.
In any case, I have enjoyed reading and interacting with each section of the BF&M. It is a faithful expression of key Christian beliefs, as well as a clear articulation of a few extra baptistic distinctives, with some of which I differ today. This last section on family is no exception. These truths have never been more under attack in our (at least my) American context than in these last two decades, so they need to be articulated and defended vigorously. Some of the language towards the end of this section rings a little strangely to my Presbyterian, paedobaptistic ears, but none of it is incorrect.
The BF&M here speaks of the family as a foundational institution, defines family, defines marriage, states marriage's main purposes, defines male and female roles in the home, declares children to be a blessing, and defines responsibilities of parents and children.
The family indeed was the first human "institution" of God, before the state (arguably established, at least in principial form, in Genesis 9), and even before the church (defined as a formal covenant "assembly" (established, in a sense, at Sinai)). Since slavery and indentured servitude are no longer part of our society, it is adequate to define a family or "household" as persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption. Marriage is a covenantal life-commitment between a man and a woman. Leaving aside more controversial debates such as New Testament rules about divorce and exception clauses (which the BF&M does not take sides on explicitly), affirming the biblical, traditional boundaries of marriage is extremely important given the cultural challenges of today.
It is at some level unnecessary to quibble about complex linguistics and archaeological arguments and their bearing on Romans 1:18ff, or 1st Corinthians 6:9-10, given the unchanged Old Testament presuppositions of Jesus and the New Testament writers regarding sexual ethics (see Matt. 5:28; nevermind the explicit, positive teaching of Jesus on marriage in Matthew 19 or Paul's exposition of the Christological meaning of marriage in Ephesians 5, both assuming and reaching back to the narrative of Genesis 1-2). However, the progressive and revisionist abuses of Romans 1 are particularly bad and deserve brief refutation.
To try and defend the idea that Paul was not in his writings condemning committed same-sex relationships of the sort we are mostly concerned with today, many revisionists argue that the passage in Romans 1 that seems on the surface to describe homosexuality as a negative result of divine judgment (which invites further judgment)--specifically, Romans 1:26-27--is describing either pederasty (abusive adult-child sexual relationships), homosexual practices only in the context of pagan temple worship, or homosexual practices contrary to certain individuals' "natural" heterosexual inclinations (i.e. the sin is "going against their own natural orientation"; in other words, it would be equally sinful for someone of homosexual orientation to go against their natural orientation by participating in heterosexual practices, on this view).
In Paul's, mind, however, "natural" is not a reference to subjective psychological experience but to the objective created order, founded on God's activity in Genesis 1 and 2. Moreover, the text explicitly states that the sinful "exchange" was of the "natural function", not of a natural "desire" or orientation or anything like that. Further, there is nothing known of female-female pederasty in ancient Rome, and the passage begins discussion of homosexuality with the female case. Finally, the twistedness of the men's actions is explicitly named as the fact that they abandoned the "natural function" of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another. The issue is not pagan idolatry, nor is it woman-to-girl nor man-to-boy pederasty, but it is exchange of man-to-woman relations for woman-to-woman and man-to-man relations. It couldn't be clearer, but progressives are desperate for biblical vindication. By the way, which party would be analogous to Christ and which would be analogous to the Church, in a homosexual so-called "marriage" (cf. Eph. 5)?
Repentant and even confused individuals need patient instruction, charitable encouragement, and compassionate ministry from the church, but flagrant distorters of God's Word call for derision and sharp rebuke at this point.
The BF&M succinctly lays out both the equality and the distinct roles of men and women in the home, according to a traditional complementarian perspective (and I think, a biblical one). While there are reasonable questions of exegesis and application about this or that particular passage, strong forms of egalitarianism seem to me to be engaged in mostly special pleading. The rotten fruits of evangelical feminism are evident in many of our homes and churches today, and it is a consistent observation that women thrive when men take responsibility and leadership in the home and church--not because of any inherent superiority or generally enhanced capability on the part of men, but because of God's design for distinct authority structures and roles.
Echoing the biblical perspective, children are regarded here as a blessing from conception, and parents are reminded to "teach children moral and spiritual values" and to teach them to "make choices based on biblical truth." As an evangelical, I wish the language in this section on parenting were more explicitly "evangelistic" (in the broad sense of gospel-centered), and as a paedobaptist who holds to some shade of the doctrine of "covenant succession," I wish the language in this section were more explicit about training children to live up to their baptismal heritage in the Christian faith--to "live up to their name of Christian" since the name of the Triune God has been placed upon them. But it's a credobaptistic document, after all, and it's still a biblical exhortation. I'm also glad it mentions life example as well as direct instruction.
Finally, the BF&M ends with the statement that children are to honor and obey their parents, in accord with the 5th Commandment. As sons and daughters of the Most High (by adoption and incorporation into Christ), we ought to obey our heavenly Father's instructions concerning the structure, roles, and regulations for family given in His Word. If we do, we will flourish spiritually, and--all else being equal--we will flourish in our families in every way.
Thanks for reading this series for over a decade (if anyone actually has), and I'll see you on "the other side" where I will continue here with either some further dogmatic theological reflection (on Lutheran confessional theology(?)), miniature articles leading up to the assurance book, covenant theology/continuity and discontinuity explorations, Lord's-Day-Sabbath and/or cessationism "debating with myself" type of posts, or systematic-theological word-vomiting through the various traditional loci. We shall see!
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.
The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.
Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents."
Over a decade later, I am completing this exercise of relatively light interaction with the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 via blog articles. I am not sure what is next. I have thought about doing a similar exercise with the Augsburg Confession (a Lutheran confessional document), however, I also have other writing projects in mind--a major work on assurance of salvation, some more formal work on physical health, and some highly unorganized blurting out of all my systematic-theological views at this time of my theological development.
In any case, I have enjoyed reading and interacting with each section of the BF&M. It is a faithful expression of key Christian beliefs, as well as a clear articulation of a few extra baptistic distinctives, with some of which I differ today. This last section on family is no exception. These truths have never been more under attack in our (at least my) American context than in these last two decades, so they need to be articulated and defended vigorously. Some of the language towards the end of this section rings a little strangely to my Presbyterian, paedobaptistic ears, but none of it is incorrect.
The BF&M here speaks of the family as a foundational institution, defines family, defines marriage, states marriage's main purposes, defines male and female roles in the home, declares children to be a blessing, and defines responsibilities of parents and children.
The family indeed was the first human "institution" of God, before the state (arguably established, at least in principial form, in Genesis 9), and even before the church (defined as a formal covenant "assembly" (established, in a sense, at Sinai)). Since slavery and indentured servitude are no longer part of our society, it is adequate to define a family or "household" as persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption. Marriage is a covenantal life-commitment between a man and a woman. Leaving aside more controversial debates such as New Testament rules about divorce and exception clauses (which the BF&M does not take sides on explicitly), affirming the biblical, traditional boundaries of marriage is extremely important given the cultural challenges of today.
It is at some level unnecessary to quibble about complex linguistics and archaeological arguments and their bearing on Romans 1:18ff, or 1st Corinthians 6:9-10, given the unchanged Old Testament presuppositions of Jesus and the New Testament writers regarding sexual ethics (see Matt. 5:28; nevermind the explicit, positive teaching of Jesus on marriage in Matthew 19 or Paul's exposition of the Christological meaning of marriage in Ephesians 5, both assuming and reaching back to the narrative of Genesis 1-2). However, the progressive and revisionist abuses of Romans 1 are particularly bad and deserve brief refutation.
To try and defend the idea that Paul was not in his writings condemning committed same-sex relationships of the sort we are mostly concerned with today, many revisionists argue that the passage in Romans 1 that seems on the surface to describe homosexuality as a negative result of divine judgment (which invites further judgment)--specifically, Romans 1:26-27--is describing either pederasty (abusive adult-child sexual relationships), homosexual practices only in the context of pagan temple worship, or homosexual practices contrary to certain individuals' "natural" heterosexual inclinations (i.e. the sin is "going against their own natural orientation"; in other words, it would be equally sinful for someone of homosexual orientation to go against their natural orientation by participating in heterosexual practices, on this view).
In Paul's, mind, however, "natural" is not a reference to subjective psychological experience but to the objective created order, founded on God's activity in Genesis 1 and 2. Moreover, the text explicitly states that the sinful "exchange" was of the "natural function", not of a natural "desire" or orientation or anything like that. Further, there is nothing known of female-female pederasty in ancient Rome, and the passage begins discussion of homosexuality with the female case. Finally, the twistedness of the men's actions is explicitly named as the fact that they abandoned the "natural function" of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another. The issue is not pagan idolatry, nor is it woman-to-girl nor man-to-boy pederasty, but it is exchange of man-to-woman relations for woman-to-woman and man-to-man relations. It couldn't be clearer, but progressives are desperate for biblical vindication. By the way, which party would be analogous to Christ and which would be analogous to the Church, in a homosexual so-called "marriage" (cf. Eph. 5)?
Repentant and even confused individuals need patient instruction, charitable encouragement, and compassionate ministry from the church, but flagrant distorters of God's Word call for derision and sharp rebuke at this point.
The BF&M succinctly lays out both the equality and the distinct roles of men and women in the home, according to a traditional complementarian perspective (and I think, a biblical one). While there are reasonable questions of exegesis and application about this or that particular passage, strong forms of egalitarianism seem to me to be engaged in mostly special pleading. The rotten fruits of evangelical feminism are evident in many of our homes and churches today, and it is a consistent observation that women thrive when men take responsibility and leadership in the home and church--not because of any inherent superiority or generally enhanced capability on the part of men, but because of God's design for distinct authority structures and roles.
Echoing the biblical perspective, children are regarded here as a blessing from conception, and parents are reminded to "teach children moral and spiritual values" and to teach them to "make choices based on biblical truth." As an evangelical, I wish the language in this section on parenting were more explicitly "evangelistic" (in the broad sense of gospel-centered), and as a paedobaptist who holds to some shade of the doctrine of "covenant succession," I wish the language in this section were more explicit about training children to live up to their baptismal heritage in the Christian faith--to "live up to their name of Christian" since the name of the Triune God has been placed upon them. But it's a credobaptistic document, after all, and it's still a biblical exhortation. I'm also glad it mentions life example as well as direct instruction.
Finally, the BF&M ends with the statement that children are to honor and obey their parents, in accord with the 5th Commandment. As sons and daughters of the Most High (by adoption and incorporation into Christ), we ought to obey our heavenly Father's instructions concerning the structure, roles, and regulations for family given in His Word. If we do, we will flourish spiritually, and--all else being equal--we will flourish in our families in every way.
Thanks for reading this series for over a decade (if anyone actually has), and I'll see you on "the other side" where I will continue here with either some further dogmatic theological reflection (on Lutheran confessional theology(?)), miniature articles leading up to the assurance book, covenant theology/continuity and discontinuity explorations, Lord's-Day-Sabbath and/or cessationism "debating with myself" type of posts, or systematic-theological word-vomiting through the various traditional loci. We shall see!
Monday, September 26, 2022
What Biblical Genealogies Do
Most of us read the Bible and come to the genealogies in Genesis, in the early
chapters of Chronicles, or in Matthew, in the course of our reading plan, and
wonder how to approach reading them. We ask: will I be able to remember any of
these names? Do I need to remember them? Does it still "count" as reading a
chapter if I skim the genealogical parts?
We ask further: of what value is the information I am gaining from these genealogies, as a modern reader, if I do in fact manage to "learn" some of the names and relationships found there? Should I attempt to memorize them? Or study them in depth as I would a line of argument in a Pauline epistle?
Surely such exercises would have some profit; they certainly would be of no detriment! All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. But are these the right questions to ask? Does every part of Scripture tend to profit us in the same way?
Words, spoken or written, often convey information between persons. However, that is not the only function of words. Arguably, it is not their most important function, perhaps even when they are also transferring information.
As examples of words performing functions other than conveying information, consider the speech-acts of greetings, commanding, or pronouncing a couple to be "husband and wife." Words facilitate relationships, create new ones, provoke others to action, and have dozens of other effects distinct from conveying information.
If this is so with human-to-human communication, how much more so with the Word of God to man, inspired, directed, illuminated, and applied by the omnipotent Holy Spirit? But what might we speculate are the other functions of geneaological portions of Scripture in their being read (whether silently and privately or out loud in family or public worship)? How do these passages affect us?
The following are some thoughts I have had in partial answer to these questions, and I'm sure many of them are not original to me, but unfortunately I cannot remember for sure where I have learned any of this material if some of it was secondary. Credit where credit is due, and I'm sure some is due to Peter Leithart, Vern Poythress, Graeme Goldsworthy, Geerhardus Vos, and others from whom I've learned a lot about the phenomenon of Scripture and language, biblical theology, etc.
1) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the historicity of our faith. We trace the lineage of the Messiah back to David and Abraham in Matthew's gospel, and all the way back to Adam in Luke's. We realize that real people had real families and real lands and real jobs as we read 1 Chronicles 1-9. Our God is a God--the God--of history.
2) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the (to most of us, in many ways) foreignness of the culture of the characters of the Bible, with their symbolic and religiously inspired names, and the fact itself that the genealogies were important enough in that culture to include in holy writ. Occasionally, modern missionaries report that remote peoples to whom they minister respond favorably to biblical geneaological material in surprising ways because the people value recorded heritage and family trees more than modern westerners tend to.
3) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the sovereignty of God over hundreds or thousands of individual lives and the way all of their stories fit into the grand drama of redemption leading up to the coming of Christ, often in surprising ways (like Rahab and Tamar showing up in Matthew's record of Christ's genealogy). This gives us hope for God's work in our own lives, and His ability to use us to build His kingdom, despite our sin.
4) The geneaologies, as we read them, give us a sense of the corporateness of the heritage of the faith. While not all individuals named in the genealogies were true believers, or necessarily even part of the covenant family that came from Jacob, overall we are impressed with the fact that we as modern Christians have spiritual brothers and sisters across generations and generations, from different times and places, who lived at different stages of God's self-revelation to His people and fulfillment of His plan of redemption. We have a rich and vast heritage, and a responsibility to continue passing down that deposit of faith to future generations. We should also be impressed with the fact that so many generations of hope and longing have now been met in the coming of Christ, and we have the privilege of the new covenant experience of the Spirit indwelling us, as we await further completion of redemption at Christ's return.
I am sure that there are many more analogous ways the genealogies give us a "sense" (a word I have used repeatedly), even subconsciously, of different aspects of God and His people and their history, that we would not consider or feel as strongly were it not for these parts of Scripture and our patient reading of them.
Even if we are not fully conscious of how our minds and hearts are being subtly shaped by engaging with these passages, and even if we do not regularly engage with them by deep name studies or timelining or memorization or intertextual studies or other highly discursive intellectual processes, we should rest assured that even reading them is indeed having deep effects upon us. We are being changed and re-wired to approach Scripture and the history of redemption it presents with a new posture, one of humility, appreciation, and confidence in the inscrutable wisdom and sovereignty of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So, don't always only quickly skim the genealogies in your personal devotional or Bible reading activities. It's ok if you can't pronounce each name. But read patiently. And read aloud in family worship or in church. Don't skip these sections in expositional preaching.
We ask further: of what value is the information I am gaining from these genealogies, as a modern reader, if I do in fact manage to "learn" some of the names and relationships found there? Should I attempt to memorize them? Or study them in depth as I would a line of argument in a Pauline epistle?
Surely such exercises would have some profit; they certainly would be of no detriment! All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. But are these the right questions to ask? Does every part of Scripture tend to profit us in the same way?
Words, spoken or written, often convey information between persons. However, that is not the only function of words. Arguably, it is not their most important function, perhaps even when they are also transferring information.
As examples of words performing functions other than conveying information, consider the speech-acts of greetings, commanding, or pronouncing a couple to be "husband and wife." Words facilitate relationships, create new ones, provoke others to action, and have dozens of other effects distinct from conveying information.
If this is so with human-to-human communication, how much more so with the Word of God to man, inspired, directed, illuminated, and applied by the omnipotent Holy Spirit? But what might we speculate are the other functions of geneaological portions of Scripture in their being read (whether silently and privately or out loud in family or public worship)? How do these passages affect us?
The following are some thoughts I have had in partial answer to these questions, and I'm sure many of them are not original to me, but unfortunately I cannot remember for sure where I have learned any of this material if some of it was secondary. Credit where credit is due, and I'm sure some is due to Peter Leithart, Vern Poythress, Graeme Goldsworthy, Geerhardus Vos, and others from whom I've learned a lot about the phenomenon of Scripture and language, biblical theology, etc.
1) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the historicity of our faith. We trace the lineage of the Messiah back to David and Abraham in Matthew's gospel, and all the way back to Adam in Luke's. We realize that real people had real families and real lands and real jobs as we read 1 Chronicles 1-9. Our God is a God--the God--of history.
2) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the (to most of us, in many ways) foreignness of the culture of the characters of the Bible, with their symbolic and religiously inspired names, and the fact itself that the genealogies were important enough in that culture to include in holy writ. Occasionally, modern missionaries report that remote peoples to whom they minister respond favorably to biblical geneaological material in surprising ways because the people value recorded heritage and family trees more than modern westerners tend to.
3) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the sovereignty of God over hundreds or thousands of individual lives and the way all of their stories fit into the grand drama of redemption leading up to the coming of Christ, often in surprising ways (like Rahab and Tamar showing up in Matthew's record of Christ's genealogy). This gives us hope for God's work in our own lives, and His ability to use us to build His kingdom, despite our sin.
4) The geneaologies, as we read them, give us a sense of the corporateness of the heritage of the faith. While not all individuals named in the genealogies were true believers, or necessarily even part of the covenant family that came from Jacob, overall we are impressed with the fact that we as modern Christians have spiritual brothers and sisters across generations and generations, from different times and places, who lived at different stages of God's self-revelation to His people and fulfillment of His plan of redemption. We have a rich and vast heritage, and a responsibility to continue passing down that deposit of faith to future generations. We should also be impressed with the fact that so many generations of hope and longing have now been met in the coming of Christ, and we have the privilege of the new covenant experience of the Spirit indwelling us, as we await further completion of redemption at Christ's return.
I am sure that there are many more analogous ways the genealogies give us a "sense" (a word I have used repeatedly), even subconsciously, of different aspects of God and His people and their history, that we would not consider or feel as strongly were it not for these parts of Scripture and our patient reading of them.
Even if we are not fully conscious of how our minds and hearts are being subtly shaped by engaging with these passages, and even if we do not regularly engage with them by deep name studies or timelining or memorization or intertextual studies or other highly discursive intellectual processes, we should rest assured that even reading them is indeed having deep effects upon us. We are being changed and re-wired to approach Scripture and the history of redemption it presents with a new posture, one of humility, appreciation, and confidence in the inscrutable wisdom and sovereignty of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So, don't always only quickly skim the genealogies in your personal devotional or Bible reading activities. It's ok if you can't pronounce each name. But read patiently. And read aloud in family worship or in church. Don't skip these sections in expositional preaching.
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