December Musings, Updates, and Lots of Links (12/13/2024)
Riddleblog and Blessed Hope Updates:
I have gathered all the essays from my recent ecclesiology series into one place (Christ’s Spotless Bride).
Recent and future episodes of the Blessed Hope Podcast deal with controversial subjects of much interest, such as the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts (including speaking in tongues), as well as the question of whether or not spiritual gifts are still operative in the church. I hope you’ll find these episodes helpful. I enjoyed putting them together. Given the subject matter, the episodes covering 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14, will be a tad longer than usual.
I’ll be taking a break from December 22, 2024 through January 1, 2025. Now that I’m retired I can do stuff like that.
Thinking Out Loud:
When someone says , “I don’t want to be that guy . .” you know full well that they are that guy and are about to correct you or raise some otherwise obvious observation.
Churchill at War (on Neflix) is very good—even if the actor really doesn’t look like Winston.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has recently floated the most ridiculous proposed rule change in MLB history (The “Golden at Bat”). When Manfred retires, no doubt he’ll leave with a favorability rating on a par with Joe Biden’s.
Speaking of baseball, Juan Soto is a great player and a good get for the Mets. But at 765 million? That’s ridiculous. The Mets will eventually be hamstrung by that deal. I guess Bobby Bonilla will have to take a pay cut.
Lincoln Riley really makes me miss Pete Carroll.
NIL as currently constituted is destroying college football.
Anyone else watching NewsNation? So far, I really like the dinner time news coverage and program format. It reminds me of CNN and Fox when they first started and were news driven, not partisan cheerleaders.
Recently Read:
The recent book, God’s Israel and the Israel of God from Lexham Academic (2023) is a mixed bag. The discussion of whether the church “replaces” Israel takes place at two levels. One level of debate over “supressionism” is that waged between dispensationalists (such as John MacArthur) and amillennarians who reject the dispensational understanding of Israel’s future. The label J-Mac tries to stick on us is "replacement theology,” while we Reformed amillennarians speak of the covenantal promises God made to Israel largely fulfilled in a believing Jewish remnant in Paul’s day with the gospel going to the ends of the earth (“expansion theology”) until “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25-26). I interpret these words in reference to the end-times salvation of Israel as a harbinger of the end of the age (What Does the Future Hold for Israel? A Look at Romans 9-11).
The other level is the on-going debate in academic circles regarding Paul’s understand of Israel’s future in Romans 9-11 which this volume addresses. What exactly does Paul say about Israel’s future in light of the coming of Jesus Christ as Israel’s Messiah? Does the covenant God made with Israel come to an end when the gospel goes out to the Gentiles?
There are seven essays presented in this book—three relatively agreeable and helpful, with four quite unacceptable chapters, invoking the worn out shibboleths of colonialism, multiple truths (“we all have our own”), and Rome’s inclusion of Jews in its ecumenical embrace quite apart from the gospel as preached by Paul. Since this is more of a book notice and not a full review, I will cover only the chapters of the first thee contributors (Scot McKnight, Michael Bird, and Ben Witherington III). For what it is worth, I found the final four chapters (those from Lynn Cohick, David Rudolph, Janelle Peters, and Ronald Charles) deserved the largely negative response and evaluations given them by Scot McKnight in his summation. You’ll have to read those on your own if you think this volume will be of interest to you.
McKnight asks the question, “is Christianity’s belief in Jesus as God, or the Trinity, a sufficiently restrictive faith (or break) within Judaism to make most or many forms of Judaism uncomfortable?”(16). He presses the matter further,”how can one say Jesus is Messiah, and not at some level be suppressionist in one’s faith, in comparison with those who think Jesus is not Messiah?” (16). After evaluation of various interpreters of Paul (including N.T. Wright) McKnight concludes, “is Jesus the Messiah? If he is then . . . salvific supressionism makes the bold true claim that the New Testament affirms that salvation is only found in Jesus Christ” (40). The way to understand this difficult reality is be clear that “Israel is not done away with; Israel is not superceeded; Israel is expanded to include gentiles” (42). I wholeheartedly agree with McKnight’s conclusion regarding expansion and inclusion of Gentile believers into God’s covenantal purposes. As a brief aside, editors who insist upon using lower case “gentiles” will meet my on-going resistance.
Michael Bird strives to explain how Paul relates to non-Christ believing Jews(47). He states up front that his “thesis is that Paul does indeed think of his gentile assemblies as belonging to Israel.’” Bird explains further that “Paul is supercessionist in the sense that he is sectarian; he believes that his view of God, gentiles, Messiah, the end, covenant fidelity, and community boundaries should be the norm in Jewish communities” (46-47). He concludes, “for Paul the advent of the Messiah has created a fissure within ethnic Israel between those who believe and those who do not” (59). Yet, Paul “simultaneously affirms that God has not rejected his people’” citing Romans 11:2 (59).
Ben Witherington’s chapter is similar in its conclusions to McKnight and Bird, although focusing largely upon Galatians. Yet, when discussing Romans 11:26, Witherington contends, “in the end . . . [Paul] foresees an eschatological miracle of conversion of Jews to Jesus Christ” (76). “For Paul, Israel still has a future but that future was `in Christ’” (77). He notes that, ”Jesus is both the Messiah for Israel and the savior of the gentile world” (77). Witherington points out that Paul’s understanding of Israel’s place in redemptive history eliminated any further sacrifices for sin, a Levitical priesthood, and a temple (78). Christ “was where the fulfillment of Israel’s future and Israel’s mission could be found going forward” (79).
God’s Israel and Israel’s God is a helpful survey of Paul’s relationship to Israel and his people. It provides us with the lay of the contemporary Pauline landscape. The volume also demonstrates how far from the Pauline center dispensationalists are and will remain when it comes to the eschatology of the New Testament.
Recommended Links:
Westminster Seminary California has posted a wonderful tribute to Dr. Robert Strimple, who recently died in Christ. Dr. Strimple was a dear man, an excellent teacher, and was so very patient with me when I bugged him with a thousand questions—I was still a functional dispensationalist when I enrolled at WSC back in 1981, as Strimple had been before studying under John Murray at Westminster Theological Seminary. Please take the time to read the seminary’s tribute, and Dr. Godfrey’s piece on Strimple written shortly after Strimple’s retirement
The School of War podcast’s recent discussion of America’s readiness to go to war with China is sobering (more like frightening). This is a must listen: China’s Military Spending. There are also stellar recent episodes on Israel’s military tactics and recent events in Syria
What is the biblical case for church membership? Scott Clark answers that question here. A Case for Confessional Church Membership
How do Christians define sin? A recent survey reveals little biblical reflection—hardly a surprise, Report on Sin
An ancient mosaic (from about 230 CE) was found near Megiddo, and affirms that Jesus is God and fed the five thousand
Michael Kruger looks at the earliest canonical list of New Testament books—Origen, circa 250 CE
Fun Links:
There are worse things than being bald. When baldness cures go wrong Get the garlic and the silver bullet
What’s the fascination with guardian angels?
That’s no bear—“that’s a man, baby . . .” A rather lame insurance fraud
Watch out! Pigs will steal your beer. When a pig breaks into your garage
My wife’s greatest fear. Monkeys on the run, lots of them
More Jurassic Park. What can possibly go wrong? The once extinct Tasmanian Tiger might be back
Wrong tickets. No “Roll Tide” this time
That’s not how pillowcase disguises work. The eyes have it
In light of the AI revolution, this was only a matter of time: Jesus hologram takes confessions
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Previous Musings: Reformation Weekend and Mid-Fall (10/25/2024)
Video: A great scene from one of my favorite movies (Uncommon Valor)