The Master’s Seminary Journal 34, 2 (2023)

The latest Master’s Seminary Journal has been posted online. According to the Editorial, ‘the focus of the current issue… is the biblical imperative to teach the Word of God faithfully by interpreting it accurately in order to deliver the divine intent of each passage’.

A pdf of the journal can be downloaded here.

Iosif J. Zhakevich

Editorial: Accurate Interpretation of Scripture

John F. MacArthur

The Mandate of Biblical Inerrancy: Expository Preaching

The special attention evangelicalism has given to the inerrancy of Scripture in recent years carries with it a mandate to emphasize expository preaching of the Scriptures. The existence of God and His nature requires the conclusion that He has communicated accurately and that an adequate exegetical process to determine His meaning is required. The Christian commission to preach God’s Word involves accurately transmitting that meaning to an audience, a weighty responsibility. A belief in inerrancy thus requires, most important of all, expositional preaching that does not have to do primarily with the homiletical form of the message. In this regard, expository preaching differs from what is practiced by non-inerrantists.

John F. MacArthur, Austin T. Duncan

Inerrancy and Exposition: A Conversation with John MacArthur

This dialogue between John MacArthur and Austin Duncan explores the battle for biblical inerrancy and its relationship to biblical exposition. With years of preaching

experience and wisdom, Dr. MacArthur provides counsel to pastors seeking to

accurately and boldly preach the Word of God. In the previous article… Dr. MacArthur explained the inseparable partnership inerrancy has with hermeneutics and expository preaching. In this conversation, Dr. MacArthur reinforces the fact that, as Scripture is the eternal Word of God, so the charge to interpret it accurately and preach it boldly is also timeless.

Brad Klassen

The Doctrine of Inspiration and Its Implications for Hermeneutics

The doctrine of inspiration affects biblical hermeneutics. If every word of Scripture is to be affirmed as simultaneously God’s Word and man’s word in the truest sense, if every portion and element of Scripture equally possess all the qualities of the divine and human intents, if there is no separation to be sought between what was meant by God and what was meant by the human writer, then what method provides the most appropriate principles to study such a text? Because God is the Author of Scripture, the Bible is to be read unlike any other book. Yet, because God has revealed His Word through human biblical writers, the Bible is to be read like other books. The hermeneutical method that best achieves the study of this unique text is the grammatico-historical method.

Michael J. Vlach

Hermeneutical Principles and the Bible’s Storyline: A Dispensational Approach

This article addresses the issue of interpretation principles for understanding the Bible’s storyline from a dispensational perspective. The particular questions discussed are the (1) consistent use of grammatical-historical hermeneutics in all Scripture; (2) consistent contextual interpretation of Old Testament prophecies; (3) passage priority; and (4) Jesus as the means of fulfillment of the Old Testament. Application of these principles leads to a proper understanding of the Bible’s grand narrative from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22.

Tom Pennington

The Pastor and Systematic Theology

Pastors committed to expository preaching often fail to grasp in theory and execute in practice the legitimate use of systematic theology in studying the biblical text and in crafting the sermon. Some tend to downplay its importance in the interest of being biblical, while others give systematic theologies, creeds, or confessions too exalted a role in both exegesis and exposition. Part of the path forward is to understand the scriptural guidelines for the illegitimate and legitimate use of systematic theology in the normal pattern of consecutive exposition.

Noah Hartmetz

The Expositional Method of John Chrysostom

This article recognizes Chrysostom as a noteworthy expositor in the early church and examines the key aspects of his technique. After surveying Chrysostom’s life and training, the article explores Chrysostom’s view on the inspiration of the Bible, the effect of biblical inspiration upon his hermeneutics, and the particular elements of his hermeneutical and homiletical methodology. Chrysostom’s method defined his exposition of the biblical text such that his homilies were a clear explanation of the literal sense of Scripture.

John Calvin (with an introduction by Ian P. Hazlett)

Calvin’s Latin Preface to His Proposed French Edition of Chrysostom’s Homilies: Translation and Commentary

The contribution below consists of two parts. First, Ian Hazlett offers a helpful introduction to Calvin’s preface on Chrysostom and the value Calvin saw in this preacher with a “golden mouth”… The second part is the actual preface by Calvin to the homilies of Chrysostom. In his preface, Calvin indicates that while he affirms the priority of Scripture, he also recognizes the benefit of resources that help interpret Scripture. He turns particularly to Chrysostom to feature him as an example of a preacher who explained the plain meaning of the text and who would be profitable to the study of Scripture. Thus, Calvin defends the use of secondary resources specifically for the goal of accurately expositing the Word of God.

John Calvin

The Epistle Dedicatory: John Calvin on Exposition and the Book of Romans

The contribution below consists of two parts. The first part (“A Man Worthy of All Honour”) is a letter that Calvin wrote to another scholar and friend Simon Grynæus, describing to him the practice of Bible exposition. Calvin noted that the goal of exposition is to explain the mind of the author to the reader, both with simplicity and brevity. The second part (“Epistle to the Romans: The Argument”) is Calvin’s introduction to Romans in which Calvin moved through the book chapter by chapter in summary form. Calvin thereby illustrated exposition by demonstrating how Paul advances through his argument in the epistle. The ultimate purpose of Calvin’s work is to mature the believers in their love for Christ.

Reviews

Themelios 47, 3 (December 2022)

The latest Themelios is online here (and available here as a single pdf), containing the below articles, three of which are devoted to the work of J.I. Packer.

Editorial

D.A. Carson

One of the Saddest Texts in the OT

Strange Times

Daniel Strange

A Late Review of a Late Sonata in Late Modernity

Etienne Jodar

The Cryptic Saying of Isaiah 28:10, 13 and Paul’s Controversy over Tongues in 1 Corinthians 14:20–25

While the study of the New Testament use of the Old Testament has received much attention in the last decades, this discipline has not generally had much bearing on translation. In this article I use Paul’s use of Isaiah 28:11–12 in 1 Corinthians 14:21 in order to shed light on the cryptic saying of Isaiah 28:10 and 13. Presupposing that Paul draws from the immediate context of Isaiah 28:11–12, I suggest that the rhetorical effect of Paul’s quotation is stronger if Isaiah 28:10 (and 13) is interpreted to represent an incomprehensible sequence of syllables, like a minority of English translations do. Starting in the Old Testament, the most likely meaning of Paul’s quotation in its original context is determined. The focus then turns to 1 Corinthians 14:20–25, as various views are presented and considered successively. The discussion concludes by explaining the rhetorical effect that Paul’s quotation would have made upon the Corinthian believers and why the minority view of Isaiah 28:10 and 13 might be the most likely.

Michael Kuykendall

Numerical Symbolism in the Book of Revelation: A Weakness of Modern Bible Versions

Several modern Bible versions do a disservice to John’s use of numbers in the book of Revelation. This article first offers a short primer on symbolism in Revelation, then overviews the book’s symbolic use of numbers. John utilizes “good” numbers and “bad” numbers to express theological truths. The bulk of the study examines how several modern versions unwittingly thwart John’s theological intentions by masking his numerical symbolism. This is evidenced in two ways – changing (updating) the actual symbolic number when measurements and distances are mentioned; and rendering key terms in Revelation found exactly seven times with different English words, which obscures significant numerical interconnections. The conclusion asserts that future modern versions and revisions of existing translations must treat Revelation differently on this issue.

Nathan Parker

Heaven’s War upon the Earth: How to Turn a Moderate 17th Century Pastor into a Radical

There appears a strong apocalyptical expectation in the writings of the 17th century Puritan pastor John Flavel (1628–1691), but, as this paper will argue, this materialized in his later writings. Most people who thought the end of the world was imminent in the 17th century tended to be within radical groups that were active during the Interregnum. Though the momentum of apocalyptical thought was generally arrested over the next two decades it is notable that by the time of the Glorious Revolution it was incorporated into the preaching of a peaceable and deeply conciliatory pastor. After providing a brief summary of who Flavel was and why he was an important (though heretofore overlooked) figure, this article will shed light on how one moderate Puritan came to embrace ideas with alarmingly radical implications.

Geoff Chang

New Insights into the Formative Influence of Spurgeon’s Early Years

This article draws on lesser-known primary sources to argue for the formative influence of C.H. Spurgeon’s early years on his future ministry. First, it examines John Spurgeon’s time in Raleigh, which explains why Spurgeon spent the first five years of his life with his grandfather, a relationship that shaped his view of ministry and the church. Second, it reflects on the ministry of T.W. Davids, pastor of the Congregational church in Colchester, and his influence on young Spurgeon. Third, it summarizes new insights from Spurgeon’s earliest preaching notebooks.

Kenneth J. Stewart

The Young J. I. Packer as a ‘New Warfield’? A Chapter in the Post-1930 Revival of Reformed Theology

J.I. Packer (1926–2020) first came to the attention of the reading public with a 1953 essay in the second printing of the New Bible Commentary. His essay, ‘Revelation and Inspiration’, replaced Daniel Lamont’s essay on the same subject, in the first printing issued earlier that year. It had been in certain respects unsatisfactory. Packer’s 1953 essay, his controversial 1955 Evangelical Quarterly article on the Keswick movement, and his 1958 book, ‘Fundamentalism’ and the Word of God illustrated his growing affinity with the writings of Princeton theologian, B.B. Warfield (d. 1921). In all this, Packer was a leading voice in the post-WWII reassertion of Reformed theology. But Packer, rather than being the pioneer of this movement, was in fact building on the legacy of others who had pointed in this direction: Douglas Johnson of British Inter-Varsity, Alan Stibbs of Oak Hill College, and T.C. Hammond – formerly of Dublin and from 1936, principal of Moore College, Sydney. This movement, closely associated with Inter-Varsity, was itself part of a larger post-1929 resurgence of orthodox Reformed theology.

Paul R. House

J.I. Packer and the Next Wave of Evangelicalism: Foundations for Renewal

This article surveys the life and ministry of James Innell Packer (1926–2020), evangelical Anglican, theologian, author, Bible translator, and church renewal advocate. It suggests that Packer’s ministry is especially informative because it had roots in pre-war evangelical circles and extended through the growth of the evangelical movement from the 1950s to the 1990s and the movement’s ebbing afterwards. It asserts that Packer’s efforts to aid theological and church restoration provide principles for much-needed biblical renewal in current evangelicalism.

Don J. Payne

The Explicit and Implicit Theological Method of J.I. Packer

J.I. Packer’s theological works have wielded remarkable influence on the landscape of North American evangelicalism. His hallmark theological emphases reflect both explicit methodological commitments and implicit methodological traits. Packer’s theological method is marked by a commitment to the inerrancy and authority of the biblical text, as interpreted within a covenantal, canonical, and Christo-centric framework. His method also reflects assumptions about the nature of divine and human rationality, the capacity of human rationality to access the formal meaning of the text, the nature of meaning in the text, and the role of the Holy Spirit in the hermeneutical process.

John Jefferson Davis

Is the Holy Spirit Really a “Person” – with a Distinct Personality?

The purpose of this article is to help the reader conceptualize and imagine the Holy Spirit as a real person with a distinct and knowable personality – a person of the Trinity more accessible to our faith, reading of Scripture, and worship. Factors in church history tending to marginalize the Holy Spirit in the life of the church are identified. Biblical texts dealing with the names, images, words, and actions of the Holy Spirit are expounded to put the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit into sharper focus.

Trent A. Rogers and John K. Tarwater

A Biblical-Theological Framework for Human Sexuality: Applications to Private Sexuality

What are good sexual acts? It is not that surprising when cultural voices, without reference to God, argue for the inherent goodness of all “unharmful” sexual desires and acts. Regrettably, ethical pragmatism has influenced some Christian sexual ethics, and this influence is particularly evident with the issue of masturbation. What God defines as good sexual acts are those that fulfill his unitive and procreative purposes for sex within marriage. Given God’s unitive and procreative purposes for sex within the context of marriage, we argue that masturbation is a categorically impermissible act because it fulfills neither of these purposes, and we counter Christian arguments for its permissibility. God calls Christians to deal with sexual desires, including good sexual desires, through either marital sexual expression or Spirit-enabled self-control.

Robb Torseth

“The Sanctification of Our Speech”: The Theological Function of Truth and Falsehood in John Webster’s “Sins of Speech”

The contemporary debate concerning truth and falsehood has become distinctly conspicuous in light of recent global events. The increasing great divorce between diverging worldviews has resulted in what Susan Harding has coined the “repugnant cultural other,” where each group has retreated into itself, stigmatized the other, and thus neglects a genuine exchange of words and ideas. Here, the writings of the late John Webster help shed light on foundational conceptions of the purpose, use, and ethics of human language as primarily both theologically-oriented and theologically-originated. This article will consider Webster’s 2015 article “Sins of Speech,” first in relation to his broader thought, and second as it applies to the contemporary problem of speech, public or private, in the information age.

Carl Trueman and G.K. Beale on Issues in History and Exegesis

Westminster Theological Seminary have gathered together some essays in what they are billing as ‘The Best of Trueman and Beale from the WTJ’, containing the following pieces:

Carl Trueman

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

Carl Trueman

Richard Baxter on Christian Unity

G.K. Beale

Can The Bible Be Completely Inspired By God and Yet Still Contain Errors?

G.K. Beale

The Cognitive Peripheral Vision of Biblical Authors

The collection is available as a pdf here.

Credo Magazine 6, 4 (2016)

The current issue of Credo is available, this one devoted to the topic of ‘Sola Scriptura’.

Matthew Barrett writes in the Editorial:

‘As he stood there trembling at the Diet of Worms, certainly it must have seemed to Martin Luther that the whole world was against him. Yet Luther could boldly stand upon the authority of God’s Word because he knew that not even his greatest nemesis was a match for the voice of the living God.

‘While our circumstances may differ today, the need to recover biblical authority in the church and in the culture remains. The next generation of Christians need to be taught, perhaps for the first time, that this is no ordinary book we hold in our hands. It is the very Word of God. In other words, if Christians today are to give an answer for the faith within them against those who would criticize the scriptures, then they need to be taught the formal principle of the Reformation: sola Scriptura – only Scripture, because it is God’s inspired Word, is our inerrant, sufficient, and final authority for the church.’

The magazine is available to read here, and a 24.5 MB pdf of the whole issue can also be downloaded here.

John Piper on the Christian Scriptures

John Piper, A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016).

Crossway in the USA and IVP in the UK have just published a new book by John Piper, essentially on Scripture’s self-attestation. As so often, through the generosity of Desiring God, the book is also available as a free pdf download here.

There is a short video Piper introducing the book here, and a set of interviews with Michael Reeves on it here.

D.A. Carson et al. on Scripture

D.A. Carson (ed.), The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 1256pp., ISBN: 978-0-8028-6576-2.

My summer holiday reading is now sorted!

As one who benefited enormously from the two volumes edited by D.A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge in the 1980s (Scripture and Truth and Hermeneutics, Authority and Canon), I’ve been looking forward to this collection of essays since I first saw it announced a couple of years back.

It’s not yet out in the UK, but there is plenty to whet the appetite for those who might be interested...

• A list of contributors and chapter titles, along with questions raised in each chapter

• FAQ with answers on scriptural authority in the history of the church

• An interview with Carson by Fred Zaspel on the book

• An interview with Carson by Ivan Mesa on inerrancy

• An 18-minute video interview with Carson about the book

Kevin J. Vanhoozer on the Inerrancy of Scripture

Theology Network has posted a piece by Kevin Vanhoozer on the inerrancy of Scripture. I recognise it as a piece that’s been around some time (first made available by Latimer House, if memory serves), but it’s well worth looking at for a brief and careful identification of ‘the conditions under which Scripture speaks truly’, in order to ‘enable believers to keep the doctrine in its proper perspective’.

Vern Sheridan Poythress on Inerrancy and the Gospels

Vern Sheridan Poythress, Inerrancy and the Gospels: A God-Centered Approach to the Challenges of Harmonization (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 238pp., ISBN 978-1-4335-2860-6.

Following on the heels of the earlier Inerrancy and Worldview by Poythress (see here) comes this volume, freely available in its entirety as a 3.2 MB pdf here.

Here’s some of the blurb:

‘Responding to the questions surrounding the Gospel narratives, New Testament scholar Vern Poythress provides an informed case for inerrancy in the Gospels and helps readers understand basic principles for harmonization. He also tackles some of the most complicated exegetical problems, showing the way forward on passages that have perplexed many, including the centurion’s servant, the cursing of the fig tree, and more.’

Vern Sheridan Poythress on Inerrancy and Worldview

Vern Sheridan Poythress, Inerrancy and Worldview: Answering Modern Challenges to the Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 272pp., ISBN 978-1-4335-2387-8.

I don’t know how Poythress and Crossway manage to do this – but I’m very grateful that they do: this brand new book is freely available in its entirety as a 4.3 MB pdf here.

Poythress addresses from a ‘worldview’ perspective what he sees as various challenges to the Bible, its inerrancy in particular: challenges from science and materialism, from history, about language, from sociology and anthropology, from psychology, from examples, from our attitudes, and from corrupt spirituality.

John D. Woodbridge on the King James Bible

An essay by John Woodbridge, available here, was given as an address at the King James Version Festival, hosted by the R.C. Ryan Center for Biblical Studies at Union University, in September 2011 It will also appear, along with other papers from the event, in Ray Van Neste (ed.), KJV400: Legacy and Impact (Borderstone Press, forthcoming 2012).

Woodbridge sets something of the historical background to the translation, noting that ‘it was created in a context of genuine turmoil for many Europeans’.

But in line with a number of his own published concerns, he focuses particularly on the specific beliefs of the translators regarding biblical authority, arguing that ‘their understanding of Scriptural authority remained within the central Augustinian tradition of the Western Christian churches’.

The struggle over biblical authority between Roman Catholics and Protestants, he avers, is revealed in the writings of the William Whitaker (1547-95), master of St. John’s College, Cambridge University, who was an Anglican and a Reformed theologian.

In his A Disputation on Holy Scripture (1958), Whitaker identified certain significant traits as constituent elements of his doctrine of Scriptural authority: (1) that Scripture is completely truthful (in line with what Whitaker believed was the central teaching of the western churches); (2) that Scripture’s principal author is God, the Holy Spirit; (3) that Scripture is an infallible rule of faith and practice (in that it contains sufficiently all we need to know about salvation); (4) that Scripture’s original texts were inspired of God (the Greek and Hebrew originals as opposed to, say, the Latin Vulgate); (5) that vernacular translations of the Bible are authoritative to the extent they faithfully reflect the Hebrew and Greek originals inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Woodbridge maintains that ‘the translators shared many of the same perspectives as those of William Whitaker’, showing that they too affirmed the full truthfulness of Scripture, that its principal author was the Holy Spirit, etc.

He ends the essay with a personal note:

‘Personally, one of the great joys in having pursued this study of the translators’ views of biblical authority was to encounter their closing counsel to their readers regarding their love of the Word of God. Their preface ends in an exposition of their heartfelt desire that readers of their translation would love the Word of God. Their comments are genuinely inspirational. Hopefully, they will lead us to treasure God’s Word even more than we may presently do.’

Credo Magazine 1 (October 2011)

Credo – which describes itself as ‘self-consciously Evangelical, Reformational, and Baptistic’ – is a brand new digital magazine, to be published bimonthly.

Issue 1, just out, is devoted to Scripture – ‘The Living Word’ – with pieces by Matthew Barrett on ‘Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the Trustworthiness of God’, Robert Saucy on the debate between Peter Enns and Greg Beale, Owen Strachan on Sola Scriptura, Gregg Allison on the clarity and sufficiency of Scripture, Fred Zaspel on B.B. Warfield and inerrancy, Michael A.G. Haykin on the story behind the King James Bible, and an interview with John Frame on his recent Doctrine of the Word of God, along with some other items. A section of reviews includes a review (by Fred Zaspel) of Christian Smith’s recent book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), which has already caused a bit of a stir in some places.

The magazine is available as an interactive pdf here, and can be downloaded as a 15.5 MB pdf here.

G.K. Beale on Scripture, Inerrancy, and the Book of Revelation

G.K. Beale, ‘Can the Bible Be Completely Inspired by God and Yet Still Contain Errors? A Response to Some Recent “Evangelical” Proposals’, Westminster Theological Journal 73, 1 (2011), 1-22.

Those familiar with G.K. Beale’s earlier work on Scripture will know of his strong insistence (taking all the usual caveats into account) that Scripture is without error.

This article, from the Spring 2011 edition of Westminster Theological Journal sees Beale engaging less in debate with those who disagree (though he does mention Andrew McGowan’s work at the start) and more in first-order work on a particular biblical text, the book of Revelation in this case, in order to support an inerrant position.

In short:

‘My article will attempt to respond from the book of Revelation to views like that of McGowan. I will contend the following: (1) that John is more explicit about the doctrine of inerrancy than many think; (2) that John, in particular, explicitly refers to Christ’s character as “true” and then applies the attribute of “truth” from Christ’s character to the written word of Revelation as being “true.”’ (2)

His argument unfolds as follows:

1. John’s prophetic commission to write is based on the prophetic commission of Ezekiel to write

Here he notes the several links between the commissions of John and Ezekiel (not just the ‘scroll’ passage in Revelation 10:8-11), seeking to show that for both, the ‘commission entails not only seeing visions from God and hearing God’s word but also putting these visions and divine words into written form’ (4).

‘Their message carries with it the power of God’s word because it is God’s word, and it is this that they are commissioned to deliver... The point of repeatedly applying Ezekiel’s commission to that of John’s throughout the Apocalypse is to underscore that he has the same prophetic authority as Ezekiel the prophet’ (6).

2. The significance of Revelation 22:18-19 for the prophetic authority of the written form of Revelation

He looks at Revelation 22:18-19 (the warning not to add or take away from the book) exploring allusions back to several passages in Deuteronomy (4:1-2; 12:32; 29:19-20). In both cases, he avers, the ‘adding and taking away’ refers ‘to false teaching about the inscripturated word and following such deceptive teaching’ (8).

3. John’s prophetic commission to write true words is based on the truthful character of God and Christ from whom the words come

He recognises that this conclusion about ‘John’s flawless message’ rests ‘technically on logical deductions’ flowing out of the biblical data (i.e., in Ezekiel and Deuteronomy being alluded to in the book of Revelation), but he also contends that ‘they are inferences also explicitly and exegetically deduced later in Revelation itself’ (10-11).

In the remainder of the article, then, he seeks to show ‘(1) that John is commanded to “write” down the oral “words” from God and Christ in a “book,” (2) and the written words will be “faithful and true,” (3) because they come from Christ and God, who are “faithful and true.” (4) And because John writes under prophetic inspiration and authority, what he writes unswervingly represents what he has heard God or Christ say’ (11).

He looks particularly at the ‘faithful and true’ references in Revelation 3:14, 21:5 and 22:6, and the ‘true words of God’ reference in Revelation 19:9.

4. Reflection on the significance of the reference to the written words of Revelation being referred to as authoritative

‘Revelation 19:9, 21:6, 22:6, 18-19 all refer to the written words of the book as “true” or “faithful and true” or as inviolable. The fact that not mere concepts but the very written words are to be seen as without mistake is apparent in noticing especially the specific references in 19:9 and 21:9’ (18).

In the Conclusion he draws attention to Psalm 119:137-142 with its references to God’s character as ‘righteous’ and his written Scripture as likewise ‘righteous’, ‘pure’, and ‘true’, arguing that, like other parts of Scripture, John’s inference is that ‘since God’s character is unswervingly true, his written word of Scripture is unswervingly true’ (21).