On My Journey to Become Charismatic

C. Michael Patton over at Parchment and Pen has a good post that may seem misleading once you're read it. However, I think he touches on some important points about how important it is to be willing to change one's mind in regard to theological positions AND how carefully we must do that so we do not just change at the slightest provocation. DB


Theological opinions are hard to change. Once they have set in, they are usually there to stay. The theological glue that makes ideas stick early in your studies is, for better or worse, rock solid. It must be that same stuff they use on your teeth. I have one fake tooth glued to the root of the old tooth. I can’t believe that sucker is still holding. Strong stuff.

Ironically, I am in the business of changing theological opinions. Well, that is notentirely accurate. Sometimes – a lot of times – it is just solidifying opinions, rather than changing them. However, I don’t change my own opinions too much. In terms of my basic theological confession, I am pretty much the same person I was twenty years ago. I can still sign the same confessions (even though some of them cause me to raise an eyebrow or two).  I am still Protestant, Evangelical, Calvinist, dispensationalist. I believe in inerrancy, I hold to a pre-tribulational view of the end times, and I believe in dunking rather than sprinkling. I am a complementarian, a traducianist, and a memorialist with regard to the Lord’s supper. Heck, I even believe in a young earth! The point is that I rarely change my positions. Life is just more comfortable that way.
Don’t get me wrong. I have actually tried to change some of these opinions. I really want to change some of these opinions. What I mean is that many times, I find the view that I don’thold to be more palatable or, for lack of a better word, more likable than the one I do. For example, I really want to be a charismatic. I desire so deeply to believe in and experience that miraculous divine intervention the way that charismatics do. I salivate as I look at their worship, hope, and engagement with God. However, though I have studied, argued, prayed, talked to the right people, and prayed some more, I am still not a charismatic (and doubt I will ever be).

The funny thing is that I know I am wrong about so much. When I stand before God, I expect to be surprised at how many of the things I taught, preached on, blogged about, wrote books about, and shouted from mountain tops were wrong. Obviously, I don’t know which ones these are or I would change them now. However, for the most part, I don’t think I will be in too much trouble. The best I can do is believe that those things I will be wrong about were sincere. In other words, I believe that the things I might end up being wrong about are difficult issues that “could go either way.”

Therefore, with so much of my theology, while I still hold to particular positions, I try my best to figure out what things I should hold on to loosely and which I should hold on to tightly. For those of you who know me, you have probably guessed that the things I hold on to most tightly are those of the consensus fidelium - those things that Christians of all time and in all places have believed.

There are some things that I have changed my views on. Most recently, I have changed my view on the Crusades. I no longer see them as a black eye to Christianity. Also, I became a Calvinist (after all, who starts out as a Calvinist?!). But, most of the things I change on are not too dramatic. Normally, once I have studied something somewhat extensively, the view I come to is the view I stay with. With the Crusades, this is the first time I have really studied them. It was the same thing with my Calvinism back in 1995. I had not really studied it before then.

Of course I have nuanced my views quite a bit. I no longer believe that all Catholics are going to hell, that those who speak in tongues are demon possessed, that one cannot be a Christian evolutionist, or that a believer has to be right on all theological issues. This is a big change in a lot of ways, but it does not represent any particular theological issue I have changed on.

But I need to be ready and have the courage to change. In 2009, New Testament scholarTomas Schreiner changed his opinion about the millennium. He went from being an amillennialist to a premellennialist. This change was very instructive to me. Not because he changed to my position, but because he changed at all. Surely, it took a scholar such as Schreiner a lot of courage to change. How did that glue break? I don’t know. But I glad it didjust for the sake of what the change represents. I can think of many other changes that are visible. J. P. Moreland and Sam Storms both changed from being ardent cessationists (umm . . . they did not believe in modern day prophets or the gift of tongues) to being charismatics. Scot McKnight changed from being a complementarian to an egalitarian (which is very common these days). More dramatically, Francis Beckwith changed from being a Protestant to a Catholic.

We all need to be ready and have the courage to change. Now I know, I know . . . we all like stability. We like this virtue in ourselves and in others. “Flip-flopping” is not a good thing in any area, especially theology. So I am not talking about changing every two to three years just for the sake of change. If you are like that, I don’t think I could follow you. I would not trust you. I need you to be stable. However, as fearful as it may be, we need to be ready to change our positions when that change is truly warranted. We need to have the ability to break that glue, let go of that rope, and submit our emotional attachment to a position to what is true, not what is comfortable.

I have tried to do so with regard to the charismatic issue. It was easy for me to change on my view of the Crusades. Most Christians actually like it and are intrigued. They don’t have much emotional or intellectual investment on the issue. They are willing to follow me there, so I won’t lose any friends. However, were I to become a charismatic, I think I would lose some friends. Invites to speak at certain places I love would cease to come. Fellowship with others would not be so sweet. I can think of one person that I would not even be able to look in the eye if I changed my position. Therefore, I have relinquished my concern for these things. So what? Who do I follow? The Lord or the acceptance of man? At least this is how I do my best to think. So, when it comes to the charismatic issue, I don’t think my fear of man is dictating the lack of change.
But I don’t want my desire to become charismatic to dictate things either. Just because I want to see the hand of God in a more evident way should not make me theologically mobile. My emotional desire does not have a vote in truth, so I need to be careful.

However, (just thinking out loud here), I often wonder if my desire to become charismatic is influenced by didactics. In other words, maybe I want to change in some significant area just to say I have. Isn’t that a crazy spin? I teach about change, integrity, and following the Lord rather than people, yet I have not changed in any significant area. Maybe I want to change for the purpose of legitimacy. After all, being a “convert” has a certain feeling of authenticity.

Obviously, there are a lot of reasons for my journey to become charismatic not panning out. I believe these reasons warrant my current non-charismatic position. But (if you have made it this far), you probably know that this post is not really about my journey to become charismatic. It is about our ability, need, and desire (or lack thereof) to change theological positions. It is about how complicated changing really is. It is normally not as simple as having the right intel on the subject under scrutiny. There are a lot of nuances that factor in.

Are there any theological positions you have changed?

What were/are the road blocks for your to change your position?

Elements of Productive Bible Study: Interpret, Part 2

Elements of Productive Bible Study: Interpret, Part 2

by John MacArthur

Faithfully reading Scripture is fundamental to your spiritual growth. But reading alone isn’t enough to sanctify you—it’s just the first step in the process.
To truly get the full meaning—and the full benefit—of Scripture, you’ve got to be able to interpret it accurately. While you might be able to glean some eternal truth from a basic, surface reading of the text, God’s Word deserves and demands our careful attention and diligent study.

We already looked last week at some of the common, dangerous mistakes people make when it comes to interpreting the Bible. Today, I want to highlight five key principles of sound biblical interpretation. These are tools I use regularly when I’m preparing to teach, and I know they will help you in your own study.

The Literal Principle

In simple terms, this means you take the words of Scripture in their literal, normal, natural sense. A literal view of God’s Word will help guard you against spurious interpretive methods like numerology, extreme allegory, and bizarre mysticism. What each word means is what it means.

Obviously, that’s not a call for slavish, rigid literalism. But even where Scripture employs parables, hyperbole, similes, metaphors, and symbolism, we’re to read and understand those figures of speech in their natural, normal sense.

Fans of allegory will point to the figurative language deployed in some apocalyptic prophecies, but that’s far from the norm in Scripture. And even in those passages, a clear understanding relies on historical study and not the imagination of the reader.

Don’t approach Scripture as if it’s a treasure map or a puzzle that needs to be solved to access some secret meaning. If you ignore the literal understanding, you discard any hope for an accurate, coherent interpretation. With few exceptions, the simple, direct meaning of the text is its original, intended meaning.

The Historical Principle

We need to work to understand the Bible in its original, historical context. Ask yourself this question: “What did this verse or passage mean to its author and its original audience?” A text without a context is a pretext.

To fully understand any book of the Bible, you need to be aware of the history involved. Who was the original audience? Where did they live? What were the political and cultural conditions like? What were the tensions, problems, and crises in that community at the time of the writing, and did the writer address those issues? Were there specific customs or rituals that have a bearing on the meaning of the text?

Answering those questions and others like them helps bridge the gap between the culture of the Bible and our modern society, bringing you to a clear, thorough understanding of the writer’s original message.

The Grammatical Principle

Often the syntactical construction of a passage is the key to its meaning. Verbs, nouns, pronouns, prepositions—just as in any other language, the usage and placement of the individual words help determine their meaning.

Sentence diagramming isn’t as stressed in grammar classes as it once was, but identifying the grammatical parts of a verse or passage and how they work together is very helpful when studying Scripture. If you don’t accurately and precisely follow the sequence of the words and phrases, how can you hope to know what God’s Word truly says?

The first thing I do when I prepare to teach a passage is study the biblical text in its original language. I want to make sure to get the full meaning of each word in the passage, and not overlook some nuance that can be lost in the translation to English. You can do the same in your personal study, even if you don’t know Greek and Hebrew. Interlinear translations, Bible dictionaries, and good commentaries ought to give you insight into the original languages, and help you break down what the words and phrases meant to their original audience.

The Synthesis Principle

If the Bible is God’s Word, it must be consistent with itself. No part of Scripture can contradict any other part. It was all inspired by one Author—the Holy Spirit—and consequently, it reflects a marvelous, supernatural unity.

That means that obscure passages can—and should—be understood in light of clearer ones. The synthesis principle puts Scripture together with Scripture to arrive at a clear, consistent meaning. If you hold to an interpretation of one passage that does not square with something in another passage, one of the passages is being interpreted incorrectly—and possibly both of them.

Using Scripture to interpret itself will also guard you from many heretical, extrabiblical doctrines, as it forces you to submit your interpretation to the standard and context of the rest of Scripture. It protects you from spiritual contradictions.

The Practical Principle

You can’t end your Bible study without asking, “What does all this have to do with me?” What does the passage have to say about faith, godliness, growth, sin, and repentance, and what are the implications for your life?

Regardless of what you’re studying, there will be some practical connection to your life. As Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”

Once you’ve considered the literal meaning of a passage, its historical and grammatical context, and how it harmonizes with the rest of Scripture, you need to draw out the practical implications for your life. That’s what productive Bible study looks like—digging down to the original meaning of a text and applying it to your life.

Does that seem like something you can do faithfully in your own, personal study of God’s Word?

Elements of Productive Bible Study: Interpret, Part 1

Elements of Productive Bible Study: Interpret, Part 1

 by John MacArthur

When it comes to Bible study, too often people want to jump straight to application. They might be faithful to read God’s Word, but they skip an important step on the way to applying it to their lives. And in many cases, that application comes from only the most basic, shallow knowledge of what Scripture truly says and means.

You can’t dig deeply into the riches of God’s truth if you only have a surface understanding of its meaning. If you truly want to apply God’s Word to your life, you cannot skip over the important step of interpretation. It’s not enough to simply know what the Bible says—we must strive to know what it means by what it says.

It’s a matter of, as Paul charged Timothy, “rightly dividing the Word” (2 Timothy 2:15, NKJV). Left to our own understanding, we might be able to make some limited sense of portions of Scripture. However, other passages would leave us as clueless and confused as the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:31). In fact, without careful interpretation, you could wind up with a different application of biblical truth for each person in your family, your Bible study group, or even your congregation.

In order to interpret the true meaning of Scripture, there are a number of gaps we need to bridge. Since the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Greek, and even some Aramaic, there are language gaps we need to cross. Why did the biblical authors use the words, phrases, and idioms they used, and what did they mean to the original audience? And do our translations of those words and phrases capture their full meaning, or is there more to it than is instantly apparent in our English Bibles?

Along those same lines, we need to bridge the culture gap. We need to understand how the biblical authors thought and lived, and how that influenced what they wrote. You can’t appreciate the full weight of the parable of the Good Samaritan or Christ’s interaction with the woman at the well if you don’t understand the tension between Jews and Samaritans. We don’t need to contextualize Scripture to make it relevant today—we need to understand its original context and how it shaped God’s Word.

In addition to language and culture, there’s also a geography gap. Even a basic understanding of Old and New Testament geography can make a significant difference in your understanding of a particular text. How many times have you consulted the maps in the back of your Bible? Just that basic information helps bring vivid detail to the life and ministry of Christ, His disciples, and many other Old and New Testament figures.

Finally, when it comes to interpreting God’s Word, we need to bridge the history gap. Knowing Pilate’s background and the mistakes he’d made with the Jews helps you understand why he was so willing to hand Jesus over for crucifixion. Knowing about the wicked lives of the Roman rulers helps you understand the kind of persecution and opposition Paul and the other apostles faced. Don’t fall into the trap of treating God’s Word like a collection of fables, fairy tales, and ancient proverbs. Knowing the real history that shaped the events in Scripture helps bring them to life in your study.

The work of bridging those gaps is interpretation, and it’s a vital part of any thorough, productive Bible study. It can seem like daunting work at first, but it’s the only way to get past a shallow, surface understanding of God’s truth. To help you with that, tomorrow we’re going to look at five key principles of Bible interpretation.

The Pitfalls of Biblical (Mis) Interpretation- Part 3

Be careful not to spiritualize or allegorize the Biblical text...But don't take my word for it. Here's what MacArthur says:

by John MacArthur

If you believe the Bible is God’s Word—that it’s His revelation of Himself and His plan for redeeming sinners, and that it supplies all the instruction and encouragement believers need for life, spiritual growth, and godliness—then getting the message right is of the highest importance.

However, the emphasis in many churches has shifted away from careful, disciplined Bible study to more intuitive and internal methods of spiritual formation. People who profess to love the Lord treat His truth carelessly, or disregard it altogether. Others simply lack the training and wisdom to get beyond the most basic, surface understanding of God's Word.

Over the past few days, we’ve been looking at some key mistakes people make when it comes to interpreting and understanding God’s truth, and today we want to look at one more. In order to get the message of Scripture right, don’t spiritualize or allegorize unless the text itself calls for it. Some people use the Bible as a flexible fable to back up some point or platform they want to put across. Instead of seeking the true meaning of Scripture, they make it an allegory to support whatever they want to teach.

An extreme example of the perils of allegorizing is the young couple that came to one of our assistant pastors to get counseling about their marital problems. He began talking with them, and after about thirty minutes he asked them, “Why did you ever get married? You are miles apart!”

“Oh” said the husband. “It was the sermon the pastor preached in our church.”

“And what was it?”

“Well, he preached on Jericho.”

“Jericho! What does that have to do with marriage?”

“Well, he said that God’s people claimed the city, marched around it seven times, and the walls fell down. He said if a young man believed God had given him a certain young girl, he could claim her, march around her seven times, and the walls of her heart would fall down. So that’s what I did, and we got married.”

“That can’t be true,” said our assistant pastor. “You’re just kidding, aren’t you?”

“No, it’s true,” said the husband. “And there were many other couples who got married because of the same sermon!”

Some people believe their marriages were made in heaven. Here was a marriage made in an allegory—and a silly one at that!

That kind of interpretation has gone on since the early days of the church, and it continues today. A well-known charismatic preacher did a sermon series on the book of Nehemiah. As he taught, just about everything in the book represented something else or meant something symbolic. These are among his points:

• Jerusalem’s walls were in ruin, and that speaks of the broken-down walls of the human personality.
• Nehemiah represents the Holy Spirit, who comes to rebuild the walls of human personality.
• And when the pastor got to the king’s pool (Nehemiah 2:14), he said it referred to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and from there he went on to teach the importance of speaking in tongues.

The book of Nehemiah has nothing to do with the walls of human personality, the baptism of the Spirit, or speaking in tongues. But when a preacher reads that kind of application into the story, some people think it is marvelous Bible teaching. I say it isn’t. It’s hucksterism. It makes the Bible say what we want in place of what God is saying to us (cf. 2 Corinthians 2:17).

The real danger of that kind of teaching is that it teaches believers to use the same approach in their personal study. It robs God’s Word of its true meaning, supplanting the original intent with all kinds of freewheeling, unhinged interpretations. It treats Scripture as if it can mean anything and everything. That kind of approach cuts you off from the original, objective meaning of God’s truth, and therefore cuts you off from the true source of spiritual growth.

The Pitfalls of Biblical (Mis) Interpretation- Part 2

The Pitfalls of Biblical (Mis)Interpretation, Part 2

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

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by John MacArthur

If you had to give a presentation on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, how would you prepare? Would you study the work of scholars to absorb as much pertinent information and insight as you could? Or would you simply mull the few facts and details you already know, hoping for the shreds of disparate information to coalesce into a useful outline?

Obviously the second method is a path to embarrassment, misinformation, and failure. But why then do we tolerate similar patterns when it comes to studying and teaching God’s Word?

We’ve been identifying some key pitfalls in the area of Bible interpretation, and the next one is simple: avoid superficial study. Good, accurate Bible study is hard work. As we have seen already, discerning what God is saying to us through His Word cannot be done by flipping through quickly and looking for messages wherever our eyes happen to settle. Nor is understanding the Bible a matter of personal opinion (“To me it means...”).

Careful and accurate handling of God’s Word requires diligence. If we are diligent, we can arrive at a correct interpretation of the major truths of Scripture and the general thrust of particular passages. God has not hid His truth from us.

But neither is the meaning of His Word always instantly clear. Sometimes the real meaning of a passage is revealed in an understanding of the culture to which it was addressed. Sometimes it is made clear by a simple nuance in the original language. That’s why we cannot get by with the haphazard ad-libbing and flippant freewheeling that is so popular in some churches today. Some differences of interpretation may never be resolved in this life, but that does not negate our responsibility to study carefully and diligently.

In 1 Timothy 5:17, Paul describes the “double honor” to be given to those in the church “who labor in the word and doc­trine.” The reason God has given teachers to the church is that understanding His Word and correctly instructing people in the Scriptures requires people who are committed to persistent, conscientious labor in response to the divine calling.

Bernard Ramm wrote,

It is often asserted by devout people that they can know the Bible completely without helps. They preface their interpretations with a remark like this: “Dear friends, I have read no man’s book. I have consulted no man-made commen­taries. I have gone right to the Bible to see what it had to say for itself.” This sounds very spiritual, and usually is seconded with amens from the audience.

But is this the pathway of wisdom? Does any man have either the right or the learning to by-pass all the godly learning of the church? We think not.

First, although the claim to by-pass mere human books and go right to the Bible itself sounds devout and spiritual it is a veiled egotism. It is a subtle affirmation that a man can adequately know the Bible apart from the untiring, godly, consecrated scholarship of men like Calvin, Bengel, Alford, Lange, Ellicott, or Moule....

Secondly, such a claim is the old confusion of the inspiration of the Spirit with the illumination of the Spirit. The function of the Spirit is not to communicate new truth or to instruct in matters unknown, but to illuminate what is revealed in Scripture. Suppose we select a list of words from Isaiah and ask a man who claims he can by-pass the godly learning of Christian scholar­ship if he can out of his own soul or prayer give their meaning or significance: Tyre, Zidon, Chittim, Sihor, Moab, Mahershalahashbas, Calno, Carchemish, Hamath, Aiath, Migron, Michmash, Geba, Anathoth, Laish, Nob, and Gallim. He will find the only light he can get on these words is from a commentary or a Bible dictionary.¹

What Ramm was describing—that lack of respect for the work of gifted theologians and expositors who have spent years studying and interpreting Scripture—is on display in many churches, ministries, and in particular, on Christian college campuses today.

I won’t pretend to understand all the reasons that mentality appeals to people, and especially young people. It could flow out of a deep dissatisfaction with the church models and practices of their youth. Or it could simply be evidence of a heart bent to outright rebellion. No matter the reason, the impact is still the same: it cuts the individual, the congregation, or even the whole community off from the collected teaching and wisdom of the church and the guidance and instruction of church history.

In terms of your own spiritual growth, along with that of anyone who might follow your example, the spiritual stakes are far too high to rely solely on your own understanding, or to wait for special, unique instruction from the Lord.

I once heard a radio interview in which a woman pastor was asked how she “got her sermons up.” She replied, “I don't get them up; I get them down. God delivers them to me.” Her words reflect an attitude all too familiar in the church today. Many believe it’s unspiritual to study. “After all,” some say (taking a verse completely out of context), “didn’t Jesus say, ‘For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say’?” (Luke 12:12).

That kind of shallow, superficial approach to Scripture is a sure way to miss its true meaning. You can’t ad-lib your way to biblical understanding and spiritual maturity—not in the pulpit and not in your personal study. Don’t attempt to speak for God when you have no idea what you’re talking about—and don’t follow anyone who does.

John MacArthur

It's Not You, It's Me

I was recently reading Deut. 33 and in it is detailed many blessings and curses for those that are obedient or disobedient. The obedient were on the receiving end of all kinds of positive things. The disobedient got all kinds of promises of disease or death, pestilence, etc.

It made me think of the way that many folks take a promise of God out of context and try to apply it to their own life. We would not dare take the curses as promises for us, because it is clear, looking at the context, that it is not for us (plus it is negative). If we would not accept the negative promises of God as our own, why do we accept the positive promises as our own without the same consideration?

I wonder if it is because we think we deserve all the blessings of God because we are so good, and God would surely not punish our disobedience to His holy, righteous law because of all the good we usually do.

I was thinking also of the promises to the Israelites for the promised land. We like to claim the promises for the promised land for ourselves, but not the promises to Moses, that he will not make it into the Promised land because of his disobedience. I think the same applies with Jeremiah 29, that I've addressed before...We like Jer. 29:11, where God has a good plan for us, but shouldn't also claim Jer. 29:17- thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Behold, I am sending upon them a sword, famine and pestilence, and I will make them like split-open figs that cannot be eaten due to rottenness.

Can we have it both ways? Can we claim promises of God that seem to be for someone else entirely? If we can, why not the promises of destruction for our disobedience also?

I wish we could claim some of these things as our own, but I am not at liberty to take something out of context and apply it to myself, no matter how encouraged it makes me feel...But we are called to rightly handle the Word of God and I don't think this does it.

Not Too Late to Read Through the Bible

For those that would like a few choices in regard to reading through the Bible, David Mathis over at Desiring God Blog posted this last week. Click here for the link to the links for the websites offering the various Bible Reading plans.

We’re now a week and a half into 2010, but it’s not too late to start a read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan. After all, you have more than 50 weeks to catch up on what you’ve missed. Or treat your year as January 10, 2010, through January 10, 2011.

Below are several good options.

Discipleship Journal
NavPress’s Discipleship Journal plan has been the most used at Bethlehem for years. I’m back at this one again in 2010, and I would highly recommend it. There are four daily readings (the year starts with Genesis, Psalms, Matthew, and Acts), but it’s only 25 days each month—which leaves some margin for missing here and there when life gets busy.

For Shirkers and Slackers
If “margin for missing” is what you know you need, then this plan from Ransom Fellowship might be right for you. Maybe you’ve tried the other plans in the past and stalled out again and again. This plan assigns certain genres to certain days of the week and breaks biblical books up into sections you can read in one sitting—so without reading everyday, you can still make measurable headway. Pace yourself well and do some extra reading, and you might even finish long before 2010 is over.

M’Cheyne
This is the classic plan, designed by Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843), the well-remembered Scottish minister who died before his 30th birthday. The plan has readings for every day of the year and will take you once through the Old Testament and twice through the Psalms and the New Testament. (Don Carson’s daily devotionals called For the Love of God are based on the M’Cheyne plan.)

ESV Study Bible
Like the Discipleship Journal plan, the ESV Study Bible plan has you reading in four places: 1) Psalms and wisdom lit, 2) Pentateuch and Israel’s history, 3) Chronicles and prophets, and 4) Gospels and epistles.

Chronological
With a reading for each day of the year, this plan from Back to the Bible aims to take you through Scripture in chronological order.

Engage Scripture
This new plan from The Journey in St. Louis looks very good. Also check out The Journey’s Engage Scripture page for videos and pdfs giving background info on the biblical books, as Pastor Darrin Patrick takes his congregation through the Bible in 2010