Theological Astuteness ≠ Spiritual Maturity (Paul Tripp)

June 20, 2014June 20, 2014Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

If you know me to any significant degree, you will likely know that I’m quite passionate about retaining the natural link between theology and practical matters. There’s a statement I say occasionally that my wife likes to call my ‘life motto’:

Everyone’s a theologian. Everything is theological. And all theology is practical.

In other words, I can’t stand it when people drive a wedge between theological understanding and practical matters (e.g., you often hear this when people speak of ‘heart’ versus ‘head’ and things like that, as if the Biblical view of man is partitioned like that). In my view, these things are mutually inclusive and interdependent.

Having presented that caveat (or better, complementary comment), I love what Paul Tripp is saying here. It’s challenging and pastorally perceptive.

It is quite easy in ministry to give in to a subtle but significant redefinition of what spiritual maturity is and does. This definition has it roots in how we think about what sin is and what sin does. I think that many, many pastors carry into their pastoral ministries a false definition of maturity that is the result of the academic enculturation that tends to take place in seminary. Permit me to explain.

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How the Covenantal Nature of the Church Disallows the Prevalent Individualistic, “Contractual” Ecclesiology (Gregg Allison)

June 17, 2014June 18, 2014Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

The Church is the Church of the New Covenant. It is the New Covenant community. And Gregg Allison [1] rightly perceives that apprehension of this reality destroys the popular individualism in much contemporary church culture.

The dilemma: individualism and “contractual ecclesiology.”

He cites Michael Horton who calls this unfortunate phenomena “contractual ecclesiology,” by which Horton means the following:

In evangelical contexts, the church is often regarded chiefly as a resource for fellowship. For the uniquely individualized personal relationship with Jesus, the church is not only dispensable but perhaps also a hindrance to personal growth. … [A] voluntaristic emphasis emerges, with human decision as the contractual basis for … ecclesial [church] existence. [2]

Many view the church as a ‘contractual reality,’ i.e., something that comes into existence when fellow Christians just so happen to commit to one another (what is seen as an otherwise optional activity). In other words, the church is the product of Christians deciding to form a community. Thus the church’s existence is thought to be based on fellow ‘contractual’ agreement.

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Tremper Longman III on the Proper Use of Commentaries

June 17, 2014June 17, 2014Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

Today in the library I was working on updating our “Recommended Old Testament Commentaries list” and came across this helpful advice from Tremper Longman.

There is a right way and a wrong way to use a commentary. Actually, there are two wrong ways. The ﬁrst is to ignore completely the use of commentaries. Some people do not consult commentaries because they believe that, since all Christians are equal as they approach the Scriptures, scholars have no privileged insight into the biblical text. The second error is to become overly dependent on commentaries. “These people have devoted their whole lives to the study of the Bible. How can my opinion measure up to theirs?”

Those holding the ﬁrst position are wrong because they forget that God gives different gifts to different people in the church. Not all people are equally adept at understanding the Bible and teaching it to others (1 Cor. 12:12–31). Those holding the second position err in the opposite direction. They forget that God has given believers the Spirit by which they can discern spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14–16).

The right way to use a commentary is as a help. We should ﬁrst study a passage without reference to any helps. Only after coming to an initial understanding of the passage should we consult commentaries.

Neither should we let commentaries bully us. Many times they will be of great help, but sometimes the reader will be right and the commentaries will be wrong.

Tremper Longman III, Old Testament Commentary Survey, 5th Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 17.

Scot McKnight and Robert Paterson on the Saving Significance of Christ’s Death in Acts (an Artificial Conversation)

June 15, 2014June 15, 2014Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

king-jesus-gospel I like to maintain the habit of reading multiple books simultaneous. An interesting thing that happens occasionally is when two or more books happen to ‘interact’ over an idea as I read these books in conjunction. Something like this happened as I just finished Scot McKnight’s The King Jesus Gospel and am near the front end of Robert A. Paterson’s Salvation Accomplished by the Son.

In The King Jesus Gospel (which, by the way, is a good book, although many conservative evangelicals like myself will quibble over emphases and the way he frames/words things), McKnight makes the point that too often evangelicals have reduced the Gospel to the cross of Christ to the exclusion of “the full Story of Jesus, including his life, his death, his resurrection, his exaltation, the gift of the Holy Spirit, his second coming, and the wrapping up of history so that God would be all in all” (119). However, this was

Not so in the early gospeling [i.e., evangelism], for in those early apostolic sermons [he is referring to those in the book of Acts primarily here], we see the whole life of Jesus. In fact, if they gave an emphasis to one dimension of the life of Jesus, it was the resurrection. The apostolic gospel could not have been signified or painted or sketched with a crucifix. That gospel wanted expression as an empty cross because of the empty tomb (120).

That’s true. McKnight is right.

But, without necessarily pitting McKnight’s argument against Peterson’s (to follow), one might get the impression from McKnight that the apostle’s gospeling in the book of Act’s didn’t provide much comment (if any) on the theological, redemptive significance of Jesus’ death. … And that’s where Robertson’s observations serve as a helpful conversation partner.

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Israel Trip (Photos)

June 1, 2014Kirk E. Miller 2 Comments

About two years ago, my parents had the opportunity to take a study tour of Israel. And about two years ago my parents decided to send me instead of themselves. Therefore, I offer a big thanks to them for providing me with this opportunity. And I’d like to ‘dedicate’ this post to them.

I spent the past 10-11 days on a study tour in Israel. We visited an unbelievable amount of locations (more than are represented in the photos here); and I took a enormous amount of photos (around 1,250!). I’d like to share an incredibly narrowed down selection of those photos. The following are some of my amateur iPhone shots that I took throughout the trip. Enjoy!

**Click on photos for larger images.