New English Translation of the Septuagint Online

As I was reading through the latest issue of BIOSCS, I came across this great free online resource listed in a footnote.  The entire NETS is available online in .pdf form – easy to download and easy to search!

Of course for those who prefer to hold a book in their hands, it is available in hardcover as well.

Granted it’s cheaper to utilize the online version, but for anyone doing any significant amounts of reading, the print form is a great buy for a very reasonable price!  ($22.81)

Enjoy!

__________
Andrew

John Owen on Kids and Church

I’ve read Death of Death by Owen and was thoroughly amazed and strengthened by it.  I’ve only read bits and pieces of Owen since then, usually with profit.  What I read below makes me want to read more, along with Trueman’s acclaimed book on Owen.

Here’s a piece I found by Owen in his Works volume 16 (London: Johnstone and Hunter), found here on Googlebooks.

On page 22, Owen asks this question: “Whether a church may not, ought not, to take under its conduct inspection, and rule, such as are not yet meet to be received into full communion, such as are the children and servants of those who are complete members of the church?”  In other words, can a church take into its company people who have not publicly professed faith?

Owen’s answer reminds me a little of the Heidelberg (Q/A 74) and a little of Bavinck:

“No doubt the church, in its officers, may and ought so to do, and it is a great evil when it is neglected.”  Pretty clear!

He goes on:

“For, 1) They are to take care of parents and masters as such, and as unto the discharge of their duty in their families; which without an inspection into the condition of their children and servants, they cannot do.

2) Households were constantly reckoned unto the church when the heads of the families were entered into covenant, Luke xix; 9 Acts xvi 15; Rom xvl 10 11; 1 Cor i 16; 2 Tim iv 19.

3) Children do belong unto and have an interest in their parents covenant; not only in the promise of it, which gives them right unto baptism, but in the profession of it in the church covenant, which gives them a right unto all the privileges of the church whereof they are capable, until they voluntarily relinquish their claim unto them. (Note: I take Owen’s ‘capable’ here to mean admission to the Table.)

4) Baptizing the children of church members, giving them thereby an admission into the visible catholic church, puts an obligation on the officers of the church to take care, what in them lieth, that they may be kept and preserved meet members of it, by a due watch over them and instruction of them.

5) Though neither the church nor its privileges be continued and preserved, as of old, by carnal generation, yet, because of the nature of the dispensation of God’s covenant, wherein be hath promised to be a God unto believers and their seed, the advantage of the means of a gracious education in such families, and of conversion and edification in the ministry of the church, ordinarily the continuation of the church is to depend on the addition of members out of the families already incorporated in it.  The church is not to be like the kingdom of the Mamalukes, wherein there was no regard unto natural successors, but it was continually made up of strangers and foreigners incorporated into it; nor like the beginning of the Roman commonwealth, which, consisting of men only, was like to have been the matter of one age alone.”

Outstanding.  Amen.  By the way, though there’s much more to it, a Marmaluke was a boy/man around the 10-14th centuries who would be randomly chosen or bought to be a soldier for Islam.  Owen’s point is that the Marmaluke decision on who would be a soldier had nothing to do with families or blood-lines, and the Roman principle was to wait until a person reached a certain age to become a citizen.  The same things do not follow for incorporation into the visible church.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Faith: Shut Your Eyes and Listen!

One reason why true faith fluctuates so much is because it is fundamentally not something for our eyes (cf John 20.29, Rom 10. 17, 2 Cor 5.7, Pet 1.8).  We cannot see Jesus here, as the Heidelberg says, “In his human nature Christ is not now on earth” (Q/A 47).  Christian faith has to do with trusting in a testimony, a promise, a Word – which are beyond the range of sight.  The cry for “show me your glory” is answered in this age with, “be patient, not now.”  It is easy for us to stumble because it is hard for us to rest content in the unseen things.

Stephen Webb has an excellent book that explores this “sightless” truth in terms of speaking and sound, mouth and ear instead of eye and object.  If you’re interested in homiletics, preaching, Christian faith and speech, and listening (instead of seeing!), be sure to get this book: The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004).

Back to believing, not seeing.  Listen to the following quotes (from p 31):

“We need to explore the extent to which all aspects of Christian faith are soundful.  …Sound is the most fundamental category by which we can conceive of God.”

“Christianity…has a particular sound, an oral quality, not just in the fact that its tradition was originally passed down by word of mouth but also in every Christian’s love for certain words, whether heard, chanted, or sung, and the church’s receptiveness to the idea that the divine can be heard in speech. In fact, our love for certain words is made possible by the reality that God made and loves us through the Word, a Word that had all the specificity of an embodied voice.  Without that belief, all words sound alike.”

“The disciples did not seem to care what Jesus looked like, since no physical descriptions of him or likenesses were passed down to later generations.  But they cared about his voice.  This is especially true in the Gospel of John, which reports that the temple police said, ‘Never has anyone spoken like this!’ (7:46).  The disciples witnessed more with their ears than with their eyes….  It was a voice that accomplished what was said without further action, as when Jesus ordered Lazarus to rise from the dead – a scene that echoes the Genesis account of God creating the world by calling it into being.”

“There is…a soundscape to Christian theology, and it is often overshadowed by talk about the landscape of sacred places.”  Later Webb goes on to explain that the church is not just a people, but also an acoustical space, a place made by speaking.  The church is the place where people are re-made by sound waves from God!

I’ll discuss more of this book at a later date.  For now, let me just say it is a pretty exciting read. Webb talks about theo-acoustics, the “sounds” of Luther, Calvin, Barth, etc., as well as the fact that the “visualness” of our culture has robbed the church of her distinct sound.  Webb has a penetrating critique of how churches use media (p 212-219).  One more thing: the book is not terribly complicated.  I’m pretty sure the average layperson who is a “reader” will benefit from this book.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Polycarp, Peter, and Pauline Presuppositions

I was recently studying 1 Pet 1.9, where the apostle says that the outcome of the Christian’s faith is the salvation of her/his soul.  While pondering how Peter would define faith there (and in the broader context of the epistle), one of my Pauline presuppositions kicked in: when thinking of faith and salvation I remembered that faith is not about working, but resting/trusting in Jesus.  Are Peter and Paul related?  I was leaning there, of course!

To make a longer study process shorter, I’ll skip ahead to the part where I checked the Scripture reference in The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (3rd edition, ed. Michael W. Holmes).  I was more than a little excited to see what text Polycarp used to explain “faith” in the context of 1 Pet 1.8-9.  He used Eph 2.5 & 8-9!  Here’s the full quote from Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians (1.3; my translation), written in the early 2nd century AD.

“Even though you haven’t seen him (Jesus), you believe (pisteuo) in him with great and glorious joy – which many desire to have – while knowing that by grace you have been saved, not by works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ.”

I understand that Polycarp may have simply juxtaposed the two and written them from memory (the Greek is somewhat close to the NT phrases), but the point remains.  In his thought – and pen – he wrote about Jesus (1.1-2) and faith in Christ (v3) – faith which is not working, but trusting in him whom we cannot see.  Anyway, I was thinking along those lines, and was happy to see Polycarp go where I went, or me going where Polycarp went.  Of course, other commentators go there as well, most notably perhaps Calvin (cf. his comm. on 1 Pet 1.9).  This is what “reading the Bible with the church” means, in part.

Read the Apostolic Fathers, and use the Scripture references in the back!

shane lems

sunnyside wa

The Hollywood Conversion Experience?

I’m sure many of us have heard great accounts of how Jesus sought, found, and rescued a sinner who was tiptoeing on the edge of hell’s chasm – maybe some readers have such an amazing testimony.

While those who speak these testimonies are trophies of God’s grace, these extraordinary experiences should not be the standard or rule when it comes to conversion any more than a “slow” or ordinary conversion.  Of course, this has much to do with the Great Awakenings (I & II) here in the United States, and is still discussed in journals, books, and the blogosphere.

Here’s Bavinck’s level-headed approach to conversion experience (by way of a few quotes).

“Although true conversion is always the same in essence, yet in the manner and the time when it occurs, there are all sorts of differences.”

“When we take as our standard the way Paul, Augustine, and Luther came to conversion and apply it to the conversions of which our missions tell us, we are, aside from a few exceptions, sorely disappointed.  The motives for the conversions that come to our attention are frequently very different from what we would have expected or wished.”  Bavinck goes on and explains reasons why and ways in which people turn to Jesus.   He also explains that  there are differences in conversion experiences between those who have grown up in a Christian home and those who have not.  For those who have grown up in a solid Christian home, conversion may not consist of an “outward and visible change, but it always includes a heartfelt sorrow over sin and a sincere love for God and his commandments.”

“Sin is so multiform that everyone has their pet sin of which they above all experience the power and from which they need deliverance.  And the gospel is so full of riches that one moment it can enlighten and comfort a seeker-of-salvation with one truth and the next with another.  This diversity in conversion is something we need to respect.  We may not simply make one type the standard and apply it to all others.  We must accept the varied hidden and amazing leadings of the Holy Spirit. We may no more demand from everyone a ‘penitential struggle’ and ‘breakthrough’ period of dread and despair and a sudden subsequent surge of peace and joy, than we may at once infer the authenticity or inauthenticity of conversion from a variety of intense feelings and odd incidents.”

Here’s the key: “What matters more than anything else in the case of these most necessary and important changes in a person’s life is not the form and the manner, but the substance.  And about that substance no human can judge but only God, who knows the hearts of people.  All we can say is that true conversion always consists both in hating sin and fleeing from sin, and in a sincere love of God and his service.”

This is pretty important stuff to ponder.  I’ve heard of new Christians with radical (and great!) conversion experiences who float from church to church, holding their conversion experiences and attitudes as the norm and standard.  The reason they floated around from church to church is because they couldn’t find a church full of experiences and attitudes like thiers.  Instead, many of the churches were “cold” because most of the people grew up in that church and couldn’t explain their conversion well.

Sometimes that critique is a point well taken, but at the same time, Bavinck’s words should make us a bit more “accepting” when it comes to conversion experience.  It’s not the intense feelings or odd incidents that prove our conversion, but the internal and sometimes slow, quiet work of the Spirit making a person hate sin and love righteousness.  Sometimes that takes 20 years!  Grace, says Bavinck, restores nature; it works with, not against it.  In my own pastoral experience, I’ve had to counsel Christians who had no huge conversion experiences to not worry so much.  It certainly doesn’t help when churches make people who have had radical conversions “stars” or “celebrities.”

Since this is already longer than our usual posts, let me put one more quote of Bavinck out there: those who focus “completely on a sudden crisis, an intense wave of emotion, a conscious turnaround,” make it “appear as if one were saved ‘by conversion rather than by Christ.’”  Amen.

Quotes taken from Vol IV of Bavinck’s Dogmatics, section 463 on pages 153-158.  Be sure to also check out Scott Clark’s Recovering the Reformed Confession, chapter 3, for more similar info.

shane lems

sunnyside wa