No Falling Words

Dale Ralph Davis in the Preface to his commentary on Joshua, No Falling Words.

My purpose has been to provide a model of what a pastor can do in biblical study if he will sweat over the Hebrew text and assume that the text as we have it was meant to be bread from God for his people. My conviction is that if one is willing to keep his Hebrew Bible before his eyes, a congregation of God’s people next to his heart, and the struggle of hermeneutics (i.e., what does this writer intend to proclaim to God’s people in his time, and how do I faithfully hold to that intention and helpfully apply that text to God’s contemporary flock?) in his mind, he will have manna to set before God’s hungering people.

Clearly, I think commentaries should be written from this conviction and after this pattern. I never felt I could expect my college or seminary students to warm to the Old Testament unless they sensed it nurturing them as they heard it taught. (Why should not the Spirit be at work in our classrooms?) But if once they felt the fire of the Old Testament text ˗ well, then, the Old Testament becomes a new book to them! Certainly, all the technical matters (linguistic, archaeological, critical) are in order; but we must bring the fragments together in an expository treatment that is not ashamed to stoop to the level of application.

 In recent years, evangelicals have made much of the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture. Rightly so. But three “i’s” is not enough. We must push the “instruct-ability” of Scripture. The apostle was surely completely sober when he wrote that the Old Testament is “profitable” (2 Tim.3:16). We must demonstrate that. If the church is to recover the Old Testament, our expositions of it must show that, without torturing or twisting, it speaks for the comfort and correction of the saints.

 I trust No Falling Words approximates such standards. The title comes from Joshua 21:43-45, the sheet anchor of the book (precisely, from v.45; see also 23:14). There were no falling words among the ancient Genesis promises; no falling words means no failing words. I trust readers will find the same ˗ that God’s promise contains no falling words, only standing ones, upon which we, too, can stand.

Taking part

Scripture - the Old and New Testaments - is the story of creation and new creation. Within that, it is the story of covenant and new covenant. When we read scripture as Christians, we read it precisely as people of the new covenant and of the new creation. We do not read it, in other words, as a flat, uniform list of regulations or doctrines. We read it as the narrative in which we ourselves are now called to take part. We read it to discover "the story so far" and also "how it's supposed to end." To put it another way, we live somewhere between the end of Acts and closing scene of Revelation. If we want to understand scripture and to find it doing its proper work in and through us, we must learn to read and understand it in the light of that overall story.

N.T. Wright

Surprised by Hope

The humble scientist

I've had the book St Thomas Aquinas, by G K Chesterton, on my shelves for many years, but had never read it until this week. What a great book, very readable, very clear and able to give insight not only into Aquinas but also into his time and into the history of philosophy in general. Over the next few days I'll be adding various long and short extracts from the book to this blog. 

We have all heard of the humility of the man of science; of many who were very genuinely humble; and of some who were very proud of their humility. It will be the somewhat too recurrent burden of this brief study that Thomas Aquinas really did have the humility of the man of science; as a special variant of the humility of the saint. It is true that he did not himself contribute anything concrete in the experiment or detail of physical science; in this, it may be said, he even lagged behind the last generation, and was far less of an experimental scientist than his tutor Albertus Magnus. But for all that, he was historically a great friend to the freedom of science. The principles he laid down, properly understood, are perhaps the best that can be produced for protecting science from mere obscurantist persecution. For instance, in the matter of the inspiration of Scripture, he fixed first on the obvious fact, which was forgotten by four furious centuries of sectarian battle, that the meaning of Scripture is very far from self-evident and that we must often interpret it in the light of other truths. If a literal interpretation is really and flatly contradicted by an obvious fact, why then we can only say that the literal interpretation must be a false interpretation. But the fact must really be an obvious fact. And unfortunately, nineteenth century scientists were just as ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about nature was an obvious fact, as were seventeenth-century sectarians to jump to the conclusion that any guess about Scripture was the obvious explanation. Thus, private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion.
But St. Thomas had the scientific humility in this very vivid and special sense; that he was ready to take the lowest place; for the examination of the lowest things. He did not, like a modern specialist, study the worm as if it were the world; but he was willing to begin to study the reality of the world in the reality of the worm. His Aristotelianism simply meant that the study of the humblest fact will lead to the study of the highest truth. That for him the process was logical and not biological, was concerned with philosophy rather than science, does not alter the essential idea that he believed in beginning at the bottom of the ladder. But he also gave, by his view of Scripture and Science, and other questions, a sort of charter for pioneers more purely practical than himself. He practically said that if they could really prove their practical discoveries, the traditional interpretation of Scripture must give way before those discoveries. He could hardly, as the common phrase goes, say fairer than that. If the matter had been left to him, and men like him, there never would have been any quarrel between Science and Religion. He did his very best to map out two provinces for them, and to trace a just frontier between them.
It is often cheerfully remarked that Christianity has failed, by which is meant that it has never had that sweeping, imperial and imposed supremacy, which has belonged to each of the great revolutions, every one of which has subsequently failed. There was never a moment when men could say that every man was a Christian; as they might say for several months that every man was a Royalist or a Republican or a Communist. But if sane historians want to understand the sense in which the Christian character has succeeded, they could not find a better case than the massive moral pressure of a man like St. Thomas, in support of the buried rationalism of the heathens, which had as yet only been dug up for the amusement of the heretics. It was, quite strictly and exactly, because a new kind of man was conducting rational enquiry in a new kind of way, that men forgot the curse that had fallen on the temples of the dead demons and the palaces of the dead despots; forgot even the new fury out of Arabia against which they were fighting for their lives; because the man who was asking them to return to sense, or to return to their senses, was not a sophist but a saint. Aristotle had described the magnanimous man, who is great and knows that he is great. But Aristotle would never have recovered his own greatness, but for the miracle that created the more magnanimous man; who is great and knows that he is small.

From pages 69-71 of the Hodder edition of 1962, which surprisingly, has several proof-reading errors in it!

Inexhaustible

I have completed reading the whole Bible through since January last. I began it on the first day of the present year, and finished it on the 26th of October. I have read it in that space four times, and not without real profit to myself. I always find in it something new; it being, like its Author, infinite and inexhaustible. — Samuel Eyles Pierce, 1814

This man's biography in Wikipedia makes interesting reading...frequently accused of antinomianism, he fell out with congregations and patrons a number of times. At one point his first wife even withdrew her financial support because of his beliefs. 

Between Ascension and Parousia

How is the life of Christ, the life which is a true foretaste of the kingdom, continued in the period between the ascension and the parousia? the answer must be somewhat as follows. It will not be by the universal application of an unchanging pattern of personal and social behavior as laid down in the faith and practice of Islam. It will not be in a series of abstract moral and political principles. It will be in the life of a community which remembers, rehearses, and lives by the story which the Bible tells and of which the central focus is the story told in the New Testament. This remembering and rehearsing will be through the continual reading of and reflection on the Bible and the continual repetition of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. And it will maintain its link with, its continuity with the body of men to whom Jesus said, "As the Father sent me, so I send you," through a ministry in which the personal call of Jesus, "Follow me," is continued through the generations, not in abstract moral or political principles but in the actual personal encounters in which men and women who have themselves been called, call others to follow. It is this actual body, this community which as a matter of historical fact has existed through the centuries from the first apostles, which is the prior reality, having ontological primacy over the particular styles of life and ethical codes and political principles which it may develop as it seeks to be faithful in its situation. 
Once again we have to insist that since the response to the gospel has to be made in freedom, and since all human beings are fallible, there will not be unanimity in the ways in which the Church in any time and placeseeks to "contextualize" the gospel, seeks, that is to say, so to proclaim and to embody the life of Jesus that his power both to sustain and to judge every human culture is manifest. The New Testament itself makes it clear that there have been from the very beginning sharp differences among Christians about how to relate to the surrounding culture. The passages in the epistles to the Romans and to the Corinthians referring to controversies about food offered to idols are ample evidence of this. One must expect that this will be so to the end. If Christian obedience were to be exhaustively defined in terms of following one or other "line" in respect of all these controversies, the Church would have splintered into fragments long before the end of the first century. That it did not do so is, I am sure, the central clue to answering our question about true and false contextualization. Where there is a believing community whose life is centered in the biblical story through its worshipping, teaching, and sacramental and apostolic life, there will certainly be differences of opinion on specific issues, certainly mistakes, certainly false starts. But it is part of my faith in the authenticity of the story itself that this community will not be finally betrayed. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But where something else is put at the center, a moral code, a set of principles, or the alleged need to meet some criterion imposed from outside the story, one is adrift in the ever changing tides of history, and the community which commits itself to these things becomes one more piece of driftwood on the current.

Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Societ, pgs 147-8

I will meditate...

From the additional notes to Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David, Psalm 119 verse 15



Ver. 15. I will meditate on thy precepts.
See this "I will" repeated again and again (Psalms 119:48; Psalms 119:78). In meditation it is hard (sometimes at least) to take off our thoughts from the pre-engagements of other subjects, and apply them to the duty. But it is harder to become duly serious in acting in it, harder yet to dive and ponder; and hardest of all to continue in an abode of thoughts, and dwell long enough, and after views to make reviews, to react the same thinking, to taste things over and over, when the freshness and newness is past, when by long thinking the things before us seem old. We are ready to grow dead and flat in a performance except we stir up ourselves often in it. It is hard to hold on and hold up, unless we hold up a wakeful eye, a warm affection, a strong and quick repeated resolution; yea, and without often lifting up the soul to Christ for fresh recruits of strength to hold on. David, that so excellent artist in this way, saith he will meditate, he often saith he will. Doubtless, he not only said "I will" when he was to make his entrance into this hard work; but likewise for continuance in it, to keep up his heart from flagging, till he well ended his work. It is not the digging into the golden mine, but the digging long, that finds and fetches up the treasure. It is not the diving into the sea, but staying longer, that gets the greater quantity of pearls. To draw out the golden thread of meditation to its due length till the spiritual ends be attained, this is a rare and happy attainment. Nathanael Ranew, 1670.

and also: 

Meditation is of that happy influence, it makes the mind wise, the affections warm, the soul fat and flourishing, and the conversation greatly fruitful. Nathanael Ranew.

Another reason why it's good to memorise Scripture!

Not unto us

From the additional notes to Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David, on Psalm 115. 

Verse 1. There are many sweet and precious texts of Scripture which are so endeared, and have become so habituated to us, and we to them, that one cannot but think we must carry them with us to heaven, and that they will form not only the theme of our song, but a portion of our blessedness and joy even in that happy home... But if there be one text which more especially belongs to all, and which must, I think, break forth from every redeemed one as he enters heaven, and form the unwearying theme of eternity, it is the first verse of this Psalm. 

I am sure that not one of the Lord's chosen ones on earth, as he reviews the way by which he has been led, as he sees enemy after enemy prostrate before his utter feebleness, and has such thorough evidence and conviction that his weakness is made perfect in the Lord's strength, but must, from the very ground of his heart, say, Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise and the glory ascribed. And could we see heaven opened—could we hear its glad and glorious hallelujahs—could we see its innumerable company of angels, and its band of glorified saints, as they cast their crowns before the throne, we should hear as the universal chorus from every lip, "Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake. I know not why this should not be as gladly and as gratefully the angels' song as the song of the redeemed: they stand not in their own might nor power,—they kept not their first estate through any inherent strength of their own, but, like their feebler brethren of the human race, are equally "kept by the power of God"; and from their ranks, I doubt not, is re-echoed the same glorious strain, "Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory." 

Even our blessed Lord, as on that night of sorrow he sung this hymn of praise, could truly say, in that nature which had sinned, and which was to suffer, "Not unto us," — not unto man, be ascribed the glory of this great salvation, which I am now with my own blood to purchase, but unto thy name and thy love be the praise given. 

Barton Bouchier - most likely quoted from Manna in the Heart, a book of comments on the Psalms.

A good setting

God not only created humanity good, God also placed us in a good setting. This setting was both sufficient to meet our material needs and a delightful place characterized by beauty and variety. To not be attached to a particular place (or to be displaced) is portrayed in Scripture as a dreadful consequence of sin, and not a marker of freedom. To experience shalom is not to be delivered from place, but to experience sustenance and delight in a particular place as we wait for the good place that is being prepared for us.

Eric Jacobsen
The Space Between

Slander

Verse 13. I have heard the slander of many. From my very childhood when I was first sensible of the concerns of men's souls, I was possessed with some admiration to find that everywhere the religious, godly sort of people, who did but exercise a serious care of their own and other men's salvation, were made the wonder and obloquy of the world, especially of the most vicious and flagitious men; so that they that professed the same articles of faith, the same commandments of God to be their law, and the same petitions of the Lord's prayer to be their desire, and so professed the same religion, did everywhere revile those that endeavoured to live in good earnest in what they said. I thought this was impudent hypocrisy in the ungodly, worldly sort of men—to take those for the most intolerable persons in the land who are but serious in their own religion, and do but endeavour to perform what all their enemies also vow and promise. If religion be bad, and our faith be not true, why do these men profess it? If it be true, and good, why do they hate and revile them that would live in the serious practise of it, if they will not practise it themselves? But we must not expect reason when sin and sensuality have made men unreasonable. But I must profess that since I observed the course of the world, and the concord of the word and providence of God, I took it for a notable proof of man's fall, and of the truth of the Scripture, and of the supernatural original of true sanctification, to find such a universal enmity between the holy and the serpentine seed, and to find Cain and Able's case so ordinarily exemplified, and he that is born after the flesh persecuting him that is born after the Spirit. And I think to this day it is a great and visible help for the confirmation of our Christian faith. Richard Baxter.

Quoted in Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David, additional comments on Psalm 31, verse 13.