Themelios 48, 3 (December 2023)

The latest Themelios is online here (and available here as a single pdf), containing the below articles.

Editorial

Brian J. Tabb

Dealing with Criticism: Lessons from Nehemiah

Strange Times

Daniel Strange

Skin in the Game?

Andreas J. Köstenberger

Geerhardus Vos: His Biblical-Theological Method and a Biblical Theology of Gender

This article seeks to construct a biblical theology of gender based on Geerhardus Vos’s magisterial Biblical Theology. The essay first sets forth five hallmarks of Vos’s method: (1) putting God first; (2) focus on the text; (3) viewing Scripture as progressive divine revelation; (4) displaying a historical orientation; and (5) a belief in the practical utility of biblical theology. The remainder of the essay develops a biblical theology of gender as Vos might have developed it in keeping with the four major scriptural movements of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.

David V. Christensen

The Lamblike Servant: The Function of John’s Use of the OT for Understanding Jesus’s Death

In this article, I argue that John provides a window into the mechanics of how Jesus’s death saves, and this window is his use of the OT. When interpreters look through this window and ask how John understands Jesus’ death, our eyes are caused – by the passages John chose – to see substitutionary atonement as essential to the inner mechanism of how Jesus’s death saves.

G.K. Beale

The Greco-Roman Background to “Fighting the Good Fight” in the Pastoral Epistles and the Spiritual Life of the Christian

What does Paul mean by the expression “fight the fight” in 1 Timothy 1:18 (NASB)? The Greek verb στρατεύω with the noun στρατεία can be also rendered “battle the battle,” or more generally “perform military service” or “serve in a military campaign.” This expression occurs often in Greco-Roman literature as a patriotic warfare idiom for good character revealed by persevering through warfare or military campaigns. It also occurs in legal contexts to affirm someone’s innocence and good reputation before the court. This idiom is applied to Timothy to demonstrate his good Christian character and reputation over against the false teachers’ bad character. Paul similarly exhorts Timothy to “struggle the struggle”… in 1 Tim 6:12, which most commentators recognize to be synonymous with “fight the good fight” in 1:18 (cf. 2 Tim 4:7).

Jeremy Sexton

Postmillennialism: A Biblical Critique

Postmillennialism had been pronounced dead when R.J. Rushdoony and his fellow Reconstructionists resuscitated it in 1977 with stimulating though non-exegetical publications. In the following decades, many in Rushdoony’s train added innovative biblical arguments whose interpretive methods do not withstand scrutiny. This article examines the hermeneutical idiosyncrasies and exegetical fallacies displayed in defenses of postmillennialism by Greg Bahnsen, Kenneth Gentry, David Chilton, Keith Mathison, Douglas Wilson, and others. Postmillennialists routinely keep textual details out of focus or interpret them tendentiously, in service of the belief that the prophecies of worldwide righteousness and shalom will reach fulfillment on earth before rather than at the second coming.

Jason G. Duesing

Beacons from the Spire: Evangelical Theology and History in Oxford’s University Church

Thought to be the most visited church in England, the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford has hosted, from its pulpit, figures of note of English church history. This essay applies the metaphor of a signal beacon to trace the development of evangelical history and theology through the examination of significant sermons preached in St. Mary’s by Thomas Cranmer in the 16th century, John Owen in the 17th century, John Wesley in the 18th century, the evangelical response to the Anglo- Catholics in the 19th century, and C.S. Lewis in the 20th Century.

N. Gray Sutanto

Cultural Mandate and the Image of God: Human Vocation under Creation, Fall, and Redemption

While the term “cultural mandate” is well-recognized as a way of understanding the relationship between Christianity, culture, and human vocation, its origins from within the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition are less known. Drawing from this tradition, then, this essay sketches the logic of a neo-Calvinistic account of the cultural mandate through the states of creation, fall, and redemption.

John Jefferson Davis

Is the One God of the Old Testament and Judaism Exactly the Same God as the Trinitarian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – of the New Testament and Christian Creeds?

This article argues that the One God of the Old Testament and Judaism is exactly the same God as the Trinitarian God of the New Testament and Christian creeds. The standpoint presupposed is that of the orthodox biblical teachings on the Trinity expressed in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds. The paper presents new arguments supporting the unity and coherence of Old and New Testament revelation, employing (1) new analogies from modern physics, and (2) new philosophical insights concerning the properties of objects nested in a larger whole, and how those objects are to be properly counted in relation to the larger whole.

Gary J. Cundill

Do Companies Have Social Responsibilities?

Business and Christianity do not always enjoy the most comfortable of relationships. One approach Christians have taken when considering business’s place in the world is to describe it in terms of corporate responsibility, i.e., that business has a responsibility not merely to deliver financial returns but to offer broader societal benefits. This article surveys the biblical evidence for such a view and finds it unconvincing. Rather, it is evident that Christians, not businesses, have social responsibilities and can and should discharge these in the world of business. Practical suggestions are offered in conclusion.

Jonathan D. Christman

A Biblical Framework for Deciding Workplace Moments of Conscience

A well-known Christian intellectual and cultural commentator, John Stonestreet, has often publicly spoken of the need for Christians to develop a theology of “getting fired.” This call is not one for mass exodus of Christians from the workplace. Rather, this call recognizes that more and more Christians are facing moments of conscience in their workplace, when the obligations of a job – one’s current calling or vocation – come into conflict with one’s beliefs or convictions. Grounding both calling and convictions in Scripture, this article proposes an overarching framework and practical guide for analyzing, assessing, navigating, and deciding those workplace moments of conscience. Doing so entails both individual and corporate dimensions that are grounded in wisdom, humility, the means of grace, and life-giving community in the body of Christ.

Robert P. Menzies

Pentecost: Not Really Our Story Afterall? A Reply to Ekaputra Tupamahu

Menzies responds to Tupamahu’s post-colonial critique of the Pentecostal reading of Acts and the missionary enterprise. According to Tupamahu, the disciples are marginalized Galileans who move from the periphery to the center of the Roman world. Thus, white American Pentecostals need to rethink their vision of the expansionist mission. Menzies argues Tupamahu’s racially colored, post-colonial reading of Acts distorts Luke’s intended meaning, reflects a diminished view of the gospel, and betrays the legacy of Pentecostal leaders like William Seymour. In Acts the disciples are commissioned by Jesus (Luke 24:46–49; Acts 1:4–8). Their mission centers on the Spirit-inspired proclamation of the gospel. Luke emphasizes that their mission is our mission (Luke 10:1–16; Acts 2:17–18). Thus, to reject our mission is to repudiate the significance of our message and to resist the leading of the Spirit.

Book Reviews

William Edgar on a Biblical Theology of Culture

William Edgar, Created and Creating: A Biblical Theology of Culture (Downers Grove: IVP, forthcoming 2017).

I’m looking forward to seeing the above book come out some time early in the new year. Meanwhile, to whet the appetite, there is a downloadable page of Q&A on ‘Culture, Christianity, Calling’ with William Edgar here.

‘Culture plays an undeniable role in the Christian’s vocational calling in the world. How might we engage our culture with discernment and faithfulness? Exploring Scripture and gleaning insights from a variety of theologians, William Edgar offers a biblical defense of the cultural mandate, arguing that we are most faithful to our calling when we participate in creating culture.’

Foundations 70 (Spring 2016)

Issue 70 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available (here in its entirety as a pdf), with the following contributions. The essays by Ted Turnau and Andrew Latimer will be particularly significant for those interested in cultural engagement and the role of Christians in the contemporary world.

Ralph Cunnington

Editorial

Benedict Bird

The Covenant of Redemption According to John Owen and Patrick Gillespie

John Owen and Patrick Gillespie made profound contributions to the Reformed understanding of the “Covenant of Redemption”, or pactum salutis. Owen discusses it in at least sixteen of his works  from  1645  onwards.  Gillespie’s work, The Ark of the Covenant Opened, 1677, has  been described as “the most elaborate work in the English language” on the subject. The importance of the doctrine, in Owen’s view, is apparent in the Preface that he wrote to Gillespie’s work. He says “the truth herein is the very centre wherein all the lines concerning the grace of God and our own  duty do meet, wherein the whole  of  religion  doth  consist.” Both  authors  regard  the doctrine as the intra-Trinitarian foundation of the Covenant of Grace apart from which no man is  saved.  Both  explain  that  God’s  salvation  plan was  the  result  of the  eternal  counsels  of  the persons of  the  Trinity,  such  counsels having  the features of  a  covenant  and  including Christ’s distinct personal concurrence. Other theologians have rejected the notion of an intra-Trinitarian covenant, on the basis that it contradicts the undisputed truth that God has one indivisible will, and have sought  instead  to explain  the plan  of  salvation  simply  in  terms  of  divine decree. Yet Owen  and  Gillespie  regard  the  “pure  decree”  explanation  as  an  inadequate account  of  the Scriptural data – and hence an inadequate account of the whole foundation of God’s covenantal dealings with his people which underpin the whole of theology. In their view, the Covenant of Redemption provides a more compelling and faithful account, and does so without dividing the indivisible Trinity. This essay explores the alignment of their thinking on this vital issue. 

Ted Turnau

Dialogues Concerning Cultural Engagement (Part One)

In  this two-part essay,  the author addresses  the  subject of Christian  cultural engagement  in a post-Christian context. In Part One (Foundations 70), the author establishes that cultures of the West can be characterised as post-Christian. He then explores the issue of engagement through a  series  of  dialogues  with  different characters:  1)  the  Knight,  who  represents  a  political approach to cultural change, 2) the Gardener, who represents the Benedict Option espoused by conservative writer Rod Dreher, and 3) the Member of the Loyal Opposition, who represents the posture  of  “faithful  presence”  espoused  by  sociologist  James  Davison  Hunter.  Part  Two (in Foundations 71) gathers the various characters for a round-table discussion. After pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each, the author lays out his own approach which focuses on imaginative  cultural  engagement  using  the  arts  and entertainment.  He  explores  the  issue  of same-sex  marriage  as  a  case  study,  and the  reconciliation  between  gay  activist  Shane Windemeyer  and  American Christian  businessman  Dan  Cathy  as  an  example  of  winsome engagement in which each discovered a common humanity in the other. Our goal is a cultural engagement that is an analogue to that kind of winsome reconciliation that creates space within which  estranged  parties  can  meet,  or  what  the  author  calls “planting  oases”.  He  then  briefly considers two examples of this in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, and U2’s Superbowl performance in February 2002. 

Andrew Latimer

Is the Adamic Work of Christ Shared with the Believer? A Critique of Van Drunen

One of the ongoing debates in Reformed theology is how Christians are to engage with the wider culture. David Van Drunen’s book “Living in God’s two Kingdoms” provides a clear presentation of a two kingdoms approach to cultural engagement and is written to challenge the “vision that the  redemptive  transformation  of  culture  is central  to  the  Christian  life”.  This  article  aims  to show how Van Drunen’s misreading of the covenant with Adam sets him on the wrong course, and  leads  to conclusions  which  are  at  odds  with  the  New  Testament’s  description  of  the Christian life. He fails to see that alongside an “exile paradigm” for believers in this age, the New Testament  also  describes  a  “conquest  paradigm”,  and  he  misses how  the  New  Testament teaches that in Christ believers share in Christ’s Adamic work.

Ben Rogers

Ryle and Evangelical Identity

This  article  examines  J.C.  Ryle’s  understanding  of  Evangelical  identity.  More specifically,  it examines his discovery, definition, and defence of Evangelical principles. He was convinced that Evangelical religion, which is characterised by five distinguishing principles, was the religion of the Scriptures, the Thirty-nine Articles, the English Reformers, the leading Pre-Laudian divines, and the leaders of the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century. This conviction was born out of his own conversion and reinforced by his study of the Bible and church history, and it led him  to  become  an  outspoken  advocate  of  Evangelical  principles  and  an apologist  for  the Evangelical cause.

Samuel Crossley

Recent Developments in the Definition of Evangelicalism

The  second  half  of  the  twentieth century  saw  a  spike  in discussions pertaining  to Evangelical identity. During these discussions the term “Evangelical” came to be used with greater intensity and was deployed in an increasingly technical manner. This phenomenon was in no small part due  to  the Evangelical  renaissance, where New and  Conservative Evangelicals  came  to  global prominence. This paper  examines the  two distinct  approaches  to defining  an Evangelical  that were used in this period, with particular reference to the propositional approach of John Stott and Martyn  Lloyd-Jones  and  the phenomenological  approach  of David Bebbington. The paper finishes by considering the merit of these two approaches in the present day. 

Book Reviews

Richard Simpkin

The Message of Worship (Risbridger)

Tim Ward

Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Scepticism

Q Ideas on Culture

This week’s question from Q Ideas is ‘Why Should Christians Care About Culture?’

Several responses are offered here, including:

Andy Crouch and Gabe Lyons

Culture, Power and Institutions

We hear a lot of discussion in the church about how we should be engaging culture. What are we talking about, when we talk about culture?

Alissa Wilkinson

New Wine for New Wineskins: Highlights from Q Nashville

Before the first session on day 2 of Q Nashville even began, the joke was already circulating on Twitter: “Take a swig (of coffee) every time you hear the word ‘flourishing.’”

Comment Magazine

The Whole Big Ecosystem of Culture

All too often, students get involved in fellowship groups or other student ministries only for emotional encouragement. Of course we all need something like a pep talk now and then. But motivation is always toward something. Sheer enthusiasm for something vaguely Jesus-y leaves us vulnerable to cultural captivity.

TED

Disappearing Cultures

Christians believe that humans are made in God’s image and in their diversity reflect his multifaceted character. The cultures they create, then, also can reflect the manifold richness of God, giving us deeper insight into what it means to be human. If those cultures disappear, we lose ways of coming to know God better. In this TED talk, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis talks about cultures that are disappearing from the earth altogether. Languages are disappearing, and along with them, entire ways of life that once existed are no more.

Makoto Fujimura

The Paradox of Beauty

Why should Christians care about culture? One reason is apparent: beauty is one of the most effective ways that God’s love reaches an over-politicized postmodern culture. In this excerpt from his talk at Q New York, artist and thinker Makoto Fujimura explores how beauty, cultural engagement, and love of neighbor are inextricably related.

Andy Crouch on Power

Having thoroughly enjoyed as well as benefited from his Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008), I have been looking forward to the new book by Andy Crouch: Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power (Downers Grove: IVP, 2013).

At this point, the volume is not even out in the UK, but it has already received some substantial coverage online:

• A lengthy profile by Byron Borger here

• A Gabe Lyons video interview with Andy Crouch here, some of which is excerpted here

• An interview with Justin Taylor here

• A piece in Christianity Today here, from which the following is taken:

‘I believe we need a new conversation about power in the church. I say a new conversation, because it will be a genuinely new topic for many pastors and laypeople.... [T]here are surprisingly few times when pastors and people directly address power. And this is especially true in churches that participate in the culture of middle- and upper-middle-class America, where we can easily take power for granted.

‘I also say a “new conversation” because when we do talk about power, we often talk about it strictly as something negative – something dangerous to be avoided – rather than as a gift to be stewarded...

‘But from beginning to end – that is, from creation to consummation – the Bible is full of references to power. You will often hear pastors say that Jesus “gave up power.” And indeed, the climax of salvation is the cross, on which Jesus is stretched out, suffers, and dies, having refused to grasp the power within his reach. But as the early Christians reflected on his life, death, and resurrection, they came to a different conclusion. Precisely because they were witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection after a violent death, the New Testament writers could no longer acquiesce to the idolatrous fiction that violence is the truest form of power. Instead, they had seen with their eyes, and touched with their hands, evidence of a much greater power at work in the world than Rome could muster...

‘What would a new conversation about power include?

‘It would acknowledge, indeed insist, that power is a gift – the gift of a Giver who is the supreme model of power used to bless and serve. Power is not given to benefit those who hold it. It is given for the flourishing of individuals, peoples, and the cosmos itself. Power’s right use is especially important for the flourishing of the vulnerable, the members of the human family who most need others to use power well to survive and thrive: the young, the aged, the sick, and the dispossessed. Power is not the opposite of servanthood. Rather, servanthood, ensuring the flourishing of others, is the very purpose of power...

‘[I]f power is a gift, then we can be accountable for its proper use – to its Giver, and to one another.’

Update (5 October 2013) – another review, by John Nugent, starting here, and another review by John Starke here.

Michael Horton on Radical, World-Changing Discipleship

Michael Horton has written a wonderful post on ‘the call to radical, world-changing discipleship’. It’s directed especially towards preachers, but is more widely applicable. It functions as a helpful reminder to be a bit more thoughtful than we sometimes are when we call on people to ‘change the world’.

Citing James Davison Hunter’s notion of ‘faithful presence’, Horton writes of those who ‘don’t set out to change the world but to live out their identity in Christ where they are in all sorts of ordinary ways that sometimes turn out to present extraordinary moments of extraordinary opportunities for extraordinary service’.

He has some lovely examples of what he has in mind, which I happily cite in full:

‘Think of the nurse who dragged herself out of bed to attend the means of grace after having worked a fifteen-hour shift. Ministers shouldn’t feel guilty for not having cared for the physical needs of hundreds of neighbors in the hospital this last week. But why should they load down this nurse for failing to “live her faith” because she extended hours of neighbor-love in her ordinary vocation rather than as an identifiable church-related “ministry”?

‘Or picture the parents of 4 children, one of whom has a rare blood disease. They both work tirelessly, one outside the home, loving and serving neighbors. They would like to have more friends and open up their home. Stirred by the opportunities and needs to volunteer for all sorts of good causes, they find that all of their time, energy, and resources go to caring for their family. Are they world-changers? Should they be giving more time to “finding their ministry” in the church, so that the church can receive the credit for having an impact on the community?

‘I also think of the banker who came to church today. On Thursday he stretched the “best practices” a bit to extend a low-interest loan to a responsible but disadvantaged young family for their first home.

‘I picture the mom and dad who, though tired at the end of a busy day, read Scripture and prayed with their children and then tucked them into bed with an imagination-building story.

‘A Sunday school teacher who labored over the lesson in between working two jobs, the high schooler whose vocation is to learn, grow, and assume civic as well as church responsibilities, the struggling artist who makes us all stop to imagine ourselves and our place in the world a little differently, the lawyer who prosecutes the claims of justice and defends the rights of the accused – who just this past week offered pro bono hours to a victim who couldn’t afford legal advice.’

More from Cardus on Abraham Kuyper

Cardus continues to post entries in its series on ‘Kuyper for Christians’:

Richard Mouw

Kuyper for Christians

Kyle Bennett

Taking the Game a Little More Seriously

Jeff Liou

Neither Salad Bowl, Nor Melting Pot

Edward Yang

Art: A Gift of God

William Whitney

‘Pray More’ is Not Counselling

Matthew Kaemingk

Faith, Work, and Beards: Why Abraham Kuyper Thinks We Need All Three

Bob Covolo

How Abraham Kuyper Saved My GPA (Or, Why College Ministries Need Kuyper)

Cory Willson

Learning Proper Manners for the Religious Roundtable: Kuyper and Convicted Civility

Clay Cooke

Evangelicalism and Neocalvinism: Friends or Enemies?

More on Abraham Kuyper

I’m still waiting for my copy of Richard Mouw’s new book on Abraham Kuyper (see here). Meanwhile, taking his cue from Mouw, Byron Borger has another lengthy set of semi-autobiographical reflections here on how Kuyperian themes have influenced their ministry at Hearts & Minds Books.

In addition, Cardus continues to post entries in its series on ‘Kuyper for Christians’:

Richard Mouw

Kuyper for Christians

Kyle Bennett

Taking the Game a Little More Seriously

Jeff Liou

Neither Salad Bowl, Nor Melting Pot

Edward Yang

Art: A Gift of God

William Whitney

‘Pray More’ is Not Counselling

Matthew Kaemingk

Faith, Work, and Beards: Why Abraham Kuyper Thinks We Need All Three

Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, and Tim Keller on the Church in Culture

For those who are following, or even vaguely aware of, the ongoing debates about the role of the church in culture – especially the lines being drawn in the sand between so-called ‘Two Kingdoms’ advocates on one side and so-called ‘Cultural Transformationists’ on the other side – this is a really useful 10-minute trialogue between Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, and Tim Keller.

Keller begins by asking: ‘What’s the church’s role in culture?’

To make it more granular, he asks: ‘What is the church’s job in equipping its members to carry out their callings in the world?’

In line with his recent published work on the gospel and the great commission, Horton speaks about culture (in this context) being about the ‘myriad callings’ we have as husbands, fathers, plumbers, teachers, etc., rooted in creation. But, he says, we have another calling in the great commission. Here, he deploys a distinction influenced by Kuyper between the church as an ‘organisation’ and the church as an ‘organism’. As an organisation or an institution, the church (for Horton) doesn’t have any calling to transform culture; but in terms of being an organism, the church as a people is scattered into the world to pursue their callings.

Chandler speaks about the mission of the church being ‘to proclaim the good news and make disciples’. But part of that process, he says, is training and releasing Christians to be faithful in their domains of society, to empower them to see themselves in their neighbourhood, hobby, workplace, etc. – the ‘units they do life in’ – as being a faithful presence and witness in those areas. Disciplemaking needs to go beyond emparting knowledge.

Keller judges that there is probably not much difference between the practice of Horton and Chandler. He says he hears them saying the same thing but not wanting to say it the same way. It’s not the church’s role, as the church, to change the social structures, but to equip the people to make a difference. Keller muses that it’s not the job of the pastor to lead a church to change a culture but to create a culture-changing people.

10 minutes well spent.

Joe Carter on the Cultural Mandate

The latest online Comment issue from Cardus includes a nice piece on the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28) by Joe Carter, noting the tendency to downplay the clear ‘making babies’ element when explaining it.

‘We may not be so elitist as to think that repairing cars or hemming pants is inferior to writing novels or creating sculptures. But we are likely to be made uneasy by the idea that the newly-married teenage mother has fulfilled the cultural mandate in a way that is more profound than the creation of War and Peace.’

Of course, he points out that Tolstoy also produced four children, showing that ‘we too should be able to reconcile the dual requirements of the cultural mandate’, and is careful to say that ‘not everyone is called to be a parent’, just as not everyone is called to be artist or an entrepreneur. Even so...

‘Once we view the cultural mandate from God's perspective, it becomes apparent that the production of folk culture pales in importance to the culture of producing folks.’