Redemptive-Historical Survey: 3 | The Flood & Noahic Covenant (LDBC Recap 2/28/16)

February 29, 2016November 26, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

On Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous posts:

Recap/review

This week we covered the flood and the Noahic covenant, noting how this event and God’s dealing with humanity and creation in this event fits into redemptive history. (We also began discussing the Abrahamic Covenant; but since we did not finish our discussion on that topic, we will hold off on recapping that section until we make our way through it completely.)

Overview of Biblical material

As always, we began with an overview of the Biblical material in this stage of redemptive history. This is important because we want to make sure we know what we are talking about before we talk about how it actually fits into the all-encompassing storyline of scripture.

Continue reading →

Redemptive-Historical Survey: 2 | The Fall (LDBC Recap 2/21/16)

February 22, 2016November 26, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

See previous posts:

Recap/review

This week we covered the role that the fall plays in the all-encompassing storyline of scripture that is redemptive history. Now, by “the fall,” we mean, of course, humanity (and, by extension, creation’s) “fall” into sin and corruption.

Overview of Biblical material

We began with an overview of the Biblical material that covers this fall.

Genesis 3:1-6:8

Continue reading →

Redemptive-Historical Survey: 1 | Creation (LDBC Recap 2/14/16 Pt. 2)

February 18, 2016November 26, 2017Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

Explanation

See previous posts:

Recap/review

In this post we will recap our initial venture in surveying redemptive history, i.e., the role of creation in redemptive history.

The basic narrative of redemptive history

First, we recalled the basic narrative framework of redemptive history as a refresher. It can be presented as follows:

These four events are the central turning points in the all-encompassing storyline of scripture. But they leave a lot out (like all of God’s dealings with Israel!). Therefore, in this section of the course, as we survey redemptive history, we will unpack the contours and stages in between these four pillar-events.

Continue reading →

D.A. Carson on the Pros and Cons of the Postmodern Hermeneutic

February 17, 2016November 22, 2017Kirk E. Miller

I was finishing up D.A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies this afternoon (I’m writing this on 2.1.16); and I came across a section in which Carson evaluates what he calls “The New Hermeneutic.” It reminded me of another place in Carson’s writings where he tackles the same issue. And I decided these were worth sharing here.

I appreciate Carson’s even-handed approach, noting both the cons as well as the pros. I find this refreshing because, while there are obvious issues with the postmodern hermeneutic (or “The New Hermeneutic,” or deconstructionism, or whatever else you want to call it) that we, as evangelical Christians, should find troublesome when taken to an extreme, postmodernity is not all bad. (I mean, we’re a bit naive if we want to reject all that postmodernity has brought to our attention in favor of clinging to modernity as if its ideas were pristinely Christian!)

But I digress. Let me share the two excerpts.

None of us interprets anything from an entirely neutral stance. One would have to enjoy the attribute of omniscience to be entirely objective. Insofar as it reminds us that we are finite, and that our findings, at some level, must always be qualified by our limitations, postmodernism has been a salutary advance. It has been especially useful in checking the arrogance of modernist claims. The problem is that in the hands of many interpreters, postmodernism demands a nasty antithesis: either we claim we can know objective truth exhaustively, or we insist that our finitude means we cannot know objective truth and therefore cannot truly “know” reality. Since finite human beings can never know anything omnisciently, only the second alternative is defensible. In that case, all our “knowledge” is a social or a personal construct; the only “reality” we can know is the one we construct.

There is a sense, of course, in which this latter claim is transparently obvious: the only “reality” we can know is the one we construct. But the crucial issue is this: Can this “reality” that we ourselves “know” be tightly aligned with objective reality? In other words, even though we finite human beings can never enjoy omniscient knowledge, can we not legitimately claim to know some objective things truly, even if we do not know them perfectly, exhaustively?

Continue reading →

Redemptive-Historical, Biblical-Theological Hermeneutics (LDBC Recap 2/14/16 Pt. 1)

February 16, 2016November 26, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

See previous posts:

Recap/review

Introduction

This past week we did two things:

First, we finished up our section on foundational matters by laying out some principles of interpretation (hermeneutics) that are particularly relevant for studying and understanding redemptive history and Biblical theology.
Second, we began our survey of redemptive history itself.

I’ve decided to break up our recap/review this week into two segments. The first one (this one), will cover the principles of interpretation we discussed. The second one will review our initial embark into redemptive history.