Month: May 2017

Walk in Wisdom

On May 27, 2017

The wisdom of Christ plays a very important role in the book of Colossians. In fact, Paul alludes to wisdom literature a number of times throughout the book. The book of Proverbs exemplifies wisdom literature. Solomon writes Proverbs in order to teach his son about the pursuit of wisdom. Paul implicitly replaces the pursuit of wisdom with the pursuit of Christ.

I want to point out a couple passages in Colossians, in which Paul does this.

Colossians 1:10 is Paul’s prayer that God might fill the Colossians with wisdom and spiritual understanding. The wisdom that Paul asks for is a wisdom, which will teach the Colossians to live well before God. Proverbs gives the same reason for pursuing wisdom. When a young man fears the Lord, he gains wisdom, which is the ability to make good decisions day by day.

Colossians 1: 15-20 teaches us about the source of that wisdom. The source of that wisdom is Christ. Christ performs a similar function to the wisdom through which the Lord created the world in Proverbs 8. Like wisdom, Christ is the means for creating the earth. Christ is not the same as wisdom. Rather, he is the source of wisdom. Proverbs 1:7 teaches the same thing about God: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Paul confirms all this in Colossians 2:2-3. Paul teaches that all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Christ. Proverbs teaches us to pursue Wisdom. Implicitly, Colossians teaches us to pursue Christ. After all, if all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Christ, that means we should be seeking out those treasures.

In the remainder of chapter 2, the treasures of Christ are contrasted with the elemental principles of this world. Christ is sufficient for all knowledge and all wisdom. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a type of wisdom without Christ. Rather, you don’t need anything other than Christ himself in order to live well before him.

All this puts chapter 3 in a new light as well. Christ raises Christians to the heavenly places so that they dwell with the source of wisdom. Christians are now free to pursue Christ. When they pursue Christ they begin to understand his desires for a holy life before God.

Finally, in chapter 4, Paul tells us, “walk in wisdom towards outsiders.” The wisdom of Christ affects all areas of the Christian life. If Christ is the source of wisdom, we demonstrate Christ by walking in wisdom.

Conversation with the Fathers 2: Denying the Role of Reason.

By James

On May 18, 2017

In Hermeneutics, History, Traditionalistic exegesis, Uncategorized

I believe that conversation with the fathers of the faith is under attack.

I want to note three different ways the conversation has come under attack. I believe that each way ultimately undermines the role of reason in responding to the authority of scripture. They undermine the role of reason because they lose the possibility of having a conversation about the meaning of scripture with fellow saints.

The first attack comes from rationalists. They are more popularly known as liberal Christians. The rationalists attack this understanding by exalting human reason. Human reason is the ultimate authority, not scripture. They deny the singular authority of scripture. In this way scripture just becomes one of the many voices that leads us to truth. Rather than a discussion about a firm revelation, we have a discussion that guesses at what might have been revealed. Because there is no firm authority your guess is as good as mine.

Conversation concerning scripture comes under attack because there is no shared “center” for conversation. There is no foundation for conversation Because conversation is under attack, reason also comes under attack. To understand this, we need to understand the purpose of reason. Reason is a tool to persuade one another. If you do not have a foundation upon which to rest your reason you will have no ability to persuade another person of your view. In this way, reason is lost in interpreting the scriptures.

Consider a discussion on Genesis 1. Rationalists often reject what Genesis 1 contains because it does not fit their experience. Or maybe because a God like God could not have created the world in that way. Suddenly they begin to find whatever they want in Genesis 1.

Another attack comes from Christian radical individualism. In this view, the individual reader becomes the most important interpreter of scripture. Conversation with fellow saints both of the past and of the present is lost because “me and my Bible” are the most important pair out there. The problems with this understanding are well documented today, in part because this understanding is very common in North America.

Loss of conversation leads to the loss of reason once again. Any reasonable argument can be rejected on the basis of my reading of scripture. Even though Christian radical individualism accepts the authority of scripture, it borrows from rationalism. Like rationalism, this individualism understands that its interpretive authority is primary.

Consider a discussion on the book of Revelation 11. The fact that there are two witnesses is unquestioned. The radical individualist will tenaciously hold to his interpretation of these two witnesses, even if he cannot support his understanding through well-reasoned arguments.

Finally, we come to traditionalism. At first, it doesn’t make sense that traditionalism would reject conversation with the fathers. Traditionalistic churches have a huge respect for the fathers. They certainly don’t reject the opinions of the fathers. Rather, they reject the conversation with the fathers. A well-reasoned argument can not overturn a well-established opinion. They never find Calvin wrong. John of Damascus is sublime on every point. Thomas Aquinas is absolutely rigorous in every doctrine he developed. They reject the tool of reason in discerning whether the fathers were right, partly right, or plain wrong on a certain issue.

Traditionalism is a plague to all Christians, but there are churches that mandate traditionalism in their confessional material. The result is silence before tradition, not conversation. One must repeat after the fathers or be silent.

A classic example here would be the doctrines that have accumulated around the Virgin Mary. Even though these have very little or even no support from scripture, they are treated as authoritative doctrine because certain fathers discerned teaching about Mary in certain scripture passages.

What I would prefer is a conversation. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers, discussing and seeking to discern the meaning of the Holy Book that God has given to us. This doesn’t mean we have to apply our reason to every issue, rather we use the reason that God has given to us unto those issues that the Spirit have led us to.

n.b. These categories are meant for a helpful overview. I believe that most denominations will have all the categories listed above, even though they may officially lean toward one of these understandings. This is true of individuals as well.

Conversation with the Fathers.

By James

On May 2, 2017

In Hermeneutics

I wanted to write a quick explanation of how I interact with the exegetical tradition of the church. In general, I understand myself as approaching the text in a community of interpreters. This is why I rely on the thousands of scriptural commentaries of the past. Even if I do not make my reliance on tradition explicit all the time, there is a history of conversation with present day saints and saints of the past when I commit myself to a teaching of the church.

When I approach the tradition of scriptural exegesis, I view myself as having a conversation with Fathers in the faith. They are witnesses to the truth of Christ. They didn’t only confess Christ but they have died in him as conquerors. As faithful Christians, they submitted themselves to Christ’s word, just as I do. Their understanding of scripture should be respected. I include here all the Fathers of the faith from Athanasius to Calvin, from Augustine to Charles Hodge, from John Cassian to John Wesley, from Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure to J. Gresham Machen. I honor them but I allow for differences between myself and them. They already have many differences between one another.

I have this qualification. If I am the only one with a certain interpretation of a passage, I am very careful. If I do decide that what I have is a reasonable interpretation of scripture, I must first of all offer it to the communion of the saints both present and future. God will guide his saints in discerning what is good and what is evil.

The reformers, Luther and Calvin, seem to share this understanding of their Fathers in the Faith. They were reading elder statesmen in the church of Christ. I would add that we build on the work of these elder statesmen. Luther and Calvin built on the medieval scholastics and the fathers of the early church. We, in turn, build on Luther and Calvin and the other reformers. The church grows in its ability to exegete carefully by standing on the shoulders of giants.

The community of saints and her shepherds labor in both the growth of knowledge and in testing the witness of those both past and present.