Why? Apologetics, Moral Apologetics, and You

Saint Paul delivering the Areopagus Sermon in Athens, by Raphael, 1515.

I recently heard of a key administrator in a Christian university who questioned the legitimacy of continuing to fund the study of apologetics because the leader found the concern to defend the faith irrelevant and distracting from more pressing matters of ministry. Let that sink in for a moment. Apologetics is irrelevant and distracting? Sadly, there are many who agree with this leader’s concerns, and many more who would probably not be so bold as to relegate apologetics to a matter of irrelevance and distraction but who, nonetheless, have little time, energy, or resources to devote to defending the faith once delivered. Rather than cursing the darkness I find in this lamentable reality, I want to light a candle and, hopefully, shed light on why apologetics matters. My earnest conviction is that, far from irrelevance and distraction, apologetics is of the essence of the church’s mission in our post-modern, post-Christian, post-everything culture. So, here are three questions for those who are unsure that apologetics matters today.

First, why apologetics? Stated rather bluntly, the answer to this question is one word: obedience. Apologetics is commanded in Scripture, and the command is not isolated to academicians or those with specialized rhetorical gifts. Quite the opposite is true. Apologetics is the calling, the directive, the command to every believer. 1 Peter 3:15 makes this unequivocally clear, stating that each believer must “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.” Pretty straightforward, right? Indeed, it is, and as Peter wrote to everyday believers who found themselves suffering for their faith amid a hostile culture, he also wrote to us. Peter’s command is not labored to make his point, and that’s just the point—apologetics is the straightforward expectation of all who trust in Christ even when the world around them doesn’t. All of us are commanded, in the context of setting apart Christ as Lord of our lives, to always be ready to defend our faith, our hope, our reasonable trust in the promises of God found in His word and manifested in our lives. Doing so is a matter of obedience, and not doing so is a matter of disobedience. It’s that simple. So, rather than questioning the relevance and legitimacy of apologetics, the real question is whether we will obey God. Apologetics is about doing our duty. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons to make a defense of our faith, including the help apologetics affords in clearing obstacles to evangelism, the need to strengthen the faith of those who struggle, and the way in which apologetics enflames the soul with deeper love for God in the heart and mind. But when we reduce the matter to its bare minimum, doing apologetics is a matter of obeying God.

Second, why moral apologetics? Given that there are many ways to “do” apologetics, including answering questions about the reliability of the Bible, providing evidence concerning the resurrection, offering arguments for the existence of God based on the cosmos, and so on, the focused concern of MoralApologetics.com is to promote a particular type of apologetic engagement, namely, moral apologetics. The driving concern in moral apologetics is to begin with moral facts, moral knowledge, moral rationality, and moral transformation, reasoning thereby with the mind and heart to the existence of God. Not just any god, by the way, but a personal God who is the source of all morality, of all good, and who calls and graciously enables His creatures to find their truest self and greatest happiness in a life of righteousness and holiness reflective of His divine nature. While there are important nuances and careful qualifications that can and should be made by moral apologists, the fundamental reason moral apologetics matters is because all people are innately aware of a moral sense that permeates the very fabric of human existence. We know what right looks like, we know when justice has been violated, and we know that guilt is a pervasive human struggle. It is precisely at these points that the moral apologist can enter into the angst and struggle of human existence on common ground with every other person. Moral apologetics provides a touchpoint, a genuine connection between God’s goodness and humanity’s moral wantonness and frailty. In my experience as an apologist, many times I have started from a moral connection and found a ladder of sorts to climb from morality to questions of explicit religious concerns, and especially Christian ones. I hasten to add that moral apologetics is not the only starting point for a faith conversation, and sometimes it may not be the best starting point given the particulars in play in each dialogue with an unbeliever. What moral apologetics does provide, though, is an accessible and universal “sameness” from which I can talk with others about their struggles, the world, and the hope God offers in Jesus Christ. So, why moral apologetics? From my vantage point, it is usually the most direct route to move from the question to the questioner at a time when the vast majority of struggles humanity encounters are principally of a moral nature. Moral apologetics just makes sense as a beginning point in my efforts to obey God’s command to give a defense for the reason I find my highest and surest hope in Jesus Christ.

This brings me to the final question. Why not you? Given that apologetics is a matter of obedience to God’s good commands, and that moral apologetics provides a reasonable and plausible starting point for discussing matters of ultimate reality and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, why would you not commit to becoming a better apologist? Why not take your place among the ranks of God’s people who are His ambassadors of truth and goodness in a world beset with lies and wickedness? I can’t think of anything more legitimate and relevant.

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Dr. Thomas J. Gentry (aka., TJ Gentry) serves as the pastor of First Christian Church of West Frankfort, Illinois, the Executive Editor of MoralApologetics.com, and Executive VP of Bellator Christi Ministries. Dr. Gentry is a world-class scholar holding 5 doctorate degrees and 6 masters degrees. Additionally, he is a prolific writer as he has published 7 books including Pulpit Apologist, Absent from the Body, Present with the Lord, and You Shall Be My Witnesses: Reflections on Sharing the Gospel. Be on the lookout for two additional books that he will soon publish. In addition to his impressive resume, Dr. Gentry proudly served his country as an officer in the United States Army and serves as a martial arts instructor.

Models of Oral Tradition and the Ethics Behind Accurate Transmission

The Sermon on the Mount, Carl Bloch

In a heartfelt testimony, Bart Ehrman describes the origins of his descent from a fundamentalist Christian to an atheist-leaning-agnostic in his book Misquoting Jesus. The central factor in Ehrman’s doubt was the differences found in the Gospel texts. The catalyst of his departure was an apparent error in Jesus’s quotation of 1 Samuel 21:1–6 along with apparent differences in the Gospels’ presentation of the life of Jesus.[1] Ehrman is not alone. While Ehrman is correct in that Christianity and Judaism are “bookish religions,”[2] James D. G. Dunn is also correct in noting that properly understanding the transmission of early Jesus requires a shift in one’s default thinking to an “oral mind-set.”[3] At the end of the day, it must be asked how much liberty early writers were given to report the deeds and teachings of Jesus. If the writers of the New Testament intentionally tried to mislead individuals, then there lies an ethical problem behind the formation of the New Testament Gospels. Let us look at the three models of oral traditions and which one most closely aligns with the New Testament texts.

Informal Uncontrolled Model—Bultmannian Viewpoint

The first model is advocated by German scholar Rudolf Bultmann and is called the informal uncontrolled model. In his book Jesus and the Word, Bultmann shows a striking similarity to Ehrman’s concepts as he writes, “I do indeed think that we can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary, and often legendary; and other sources about Jesus do not exist.”[4] Bultmann does not deny that a genuine Jesus tradition is found in the Gospels, but holds that they have faded from view. In this model, the transmission of the Jesus traditions was informal because of the lack of an official teacher to pass along (i.e., παραδιδωμι) the information, and it was uncontrolled since the community exercised great fluidity as the data was changed and shaped according to the needs of the time.[5]

Formal Controlled Model—Scandinavian School

In stark contrast with the informal uncontrolled model, Scandinavian scholars such as Birger Gerhardsson, Harald Riesenfeld, and Samuel Byrskog contend that the church had far more control over the Jesus traditions than the Bultmannian school conveyed. As Riesenfeld and the Scandinavian school deduced, the παραδιδωμι of the Jesus tradition was formal in the sense that it was entrusted to a special school of disciples, and it was controlled in the sense that the key features were memorized and preserved.[6] In his classic yet controversial book Memory and Manuscript, Gerhardsson compares the early transmission of the Jesus traditions to the παραδιδωμι (i.e., handing down) of the Oral Torah,[7] which was set forth with care using mnemonic devices, written notes, repetitions, and with a great concern for accuracy.[8]  Thus, “Jesus is the object and subject of a tradition of authoritative and holy words which he himself created and entrusted to his disciples for its later transmission in the epoch between his death and the Parousia.”[9] But what about the portions of Scripture that seem to present variations in the material? Gerhardsson holds that the traditions were more comparable to haggadic material than halakhic material[10] which permits a wider margin of variation. Thus, one should anticipate some variations in the retelling of the material while also maintaining a high scrutiny for truth and accuracy.[11]

Informal Controlled Model—Kenneth Bailey

A third model is provided by Kenneth Bailey in an article written for Themelios Journal, which he calls the “informal controlled model.”[12] The informal controlled model is an ancient methodology are transmitted by a community called the haflat samar.[13] Certain individuals of the community memorize the material and recite it to the community. The elders of the community also memorize the material and offer correction if the reciter should err in his retelling of the story or teachings. While the storytellers were given some license to adapt the material, the core essential data must remain the same. Bailey estimates that no more than 15 percent of the story could be changed to permit interpretations and applications, but even then, the essential markers of the material could not be altered.[14] Thus, for Bailey, the material is informal in the sense that the community is involved with the preservation of the material and controlled due to the insistence of the community to accurately convey and παραδιδωμι truthful information that accurately conveys what one said and did.

Conclusion

From my continued research, the New Testament Gospels seem to convey a blend of the Scandinavian formal controlled model and Bailey’s informal controlled model. The early credal material assuredly matches Gerhardsson’s and the Scandinavian model. However, the parables seem to hold a greater similarity with Bailey’s informal controlled model allowing for greater flexibility. It may be that different portions of the New Testament Gospels swing from one side of the pendulum to the other. Regardless of whether a passage is found in Gerhardsson’s or Bailey’s model, both emphasize the early Christian community’s commitment to accuracy and truthfulness. Therefore, one can take confidence in the early church’s commitment to ethical integrity and truthful transmission. The early Christians believed that they were preserving the message of Jesus whom they believed was the Son of God. As such, models such as Bultmann’s do not consider the early ethical standards of the first church. Also, Bultmann’s model does not seem to cohere with the biblical data. Craig Blomberg puts it best by saying, “we may confidently declare that the approach to oral tradition (that is, the formal controlled and informal controlled models) is far more likely to approximate historical realities than those of Funk, the Jesus Seminar, and others who promote the model of informal, uncontrolled tradition.”[15]

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About the Author 

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2022. MoralApologetics.com.

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[1] Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2009), 9.

[2] Ibid., 20.

[3] James D. G. Dunn, The Oral Gospel Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2013), 49.

[4] Like Ehrman, Bultmann argues that the earliest community was not interested in preserving historical information about Jesus and his messages, but they were rather more interested in the situations facing the evolving church. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (New York, NY: Scribners, 1958), 8.

[5] Historical accuracy was not the primary focus in this model. While Ehrman and the Jesus Seminar popularized this model, this is far from the only one.

[6] Riesenfeld argued that the “words and deeds of Jesus are a holy word, comparable with that of the Old Testament, and a handing down of this precious material is entrusted to special persons.” Harald Riesenfeld, “The Gospel Tradition and Its Beginnings,” in The Gospel Tradition (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1970), 19.

[7] Oral traditions associated with the Torah and the memorization of the written texts.

[8] Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 335.

[9] Riesenfeld, “Gospel Tradition and Its Beginnings,” Gospel Tradition, 29.

[10] Halakhic material (Heb. “the way”) contained the totality of the laws that were passed down since biblical times and largely from written sources. Haggadic material—haggadah meaning “tales”—contains non-legal material that was offered to preserve historical events, folklore, and moral teachings that were part of the Jewish Oral Law (תורה שבעל פה). The Haggadah has passed along important teachings and interpretations, while also allowing for a more spiritual and allegorical dimension.

[11] Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 335.

[12] Kenneth E. Bailey, “Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels,” Themelios 20, 2 (1995): 5.

[13] Samar is an Arabic cognate of the Hebrew shamar which means “to preserve.” Ibid., 6.

[14] Ibid., 7.

[15] Craig L. Blomberg, “Orality and the Parables: With Special Reference to James D. G. Dunn’s Jesus Remembered,” in Memories of Jesus: A Critical Appraisal of James D. G. Dunn’s Jesus Remembered, Robert B. Stewart and Gary R. Habermas, eds (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2010), 125–126.

How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What can be Done about It

Is it possible to be over-committed to the Bible? In this thoughtful and challenging article, Moreland suggests that Evangelicals may sometimes misunderstand the purpose and intended function of the Bible. Given the Bible's critical role in moral transformation and moral knowledge, Moreland's article can provide some helpful guidelines for using the Bible in moral apologetics. "How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What can be Done about It" by J.P. Moreland.

The Tragedy of Solomon

A Twilight Musing

Recently I reread the account of King Solomon’s reign (I Kings, chapters 3-11) and was once again impressed with the tragic story of a man who began exceedingly well but ended disastrously. The story of his rise and decline is marked by the three appearances of God to him at the beginning, middle, and end of his long life as king. These messages from the Lord to Solomon occur at the humble and noble beginning of his reign (3:3-14), at the vulnerable middle when he was at the peak of his success (9:1-9), and at the shabby end (11:9-13), after he had succumbed to the temptations of lust and self-indulgence. God’s very best blessings to Solomon turned out to be snares to him. Therein we have the essential elements of a literary tragedy: the story of a man with heroic virtues whose gifts are pursued to excess and lead to the destruction of both himself and the people who have benefited from his virtuous actions.

The seeds of Solomon’s fall are there even before God appears to him the first time. In I Kings 3:1, we read, “Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem.” This youthful marriage to a pagan bride is a foreshadowing cloud the size of a man’s hand that eventually matures into a veritable storm of apostasy by Solomon. It is ironic that reference is made to it just before the heart-warming story of the initial appearance of God to the young king, in which he pleases God by humbly asking only for “an understanding mind to govern your people” (3:9). God then assures him that he will receive not only what he has requested, but riches and honor as well (3:13), and his marriage outside of God’s people is pushed to the background.

The effect of this act works away like a dormant disease which will break out to pollute Solomon’s great achievements. Even though he must have known that he had violated God’s command not to intermarry with pagan foreigners, perhaps he rationalized that by bringing her to Jerusalem to live, her exposure to the holy project of building the Temple would temper her pagan upbringing. But far from being influenced for good by Solomon, his Egyptian wife progressively separated herself from him. First, he built her a house attached to his own, but separate (7:8), and afterward she moved even farther away, going “up from the city of David to her own house that Solomon had built for her” (9:25). The building of a separate house by Solomon for his Egyptian wife prefigures his building pagan shrines for the 700 wives and 300 concubines who led him astray at the end of his life (11:1-8).

But there is no direct reference to this shadow in the account of the celebratory events (8:1-11) leading up to the Lord’s second appearance to Solomon. The wise king is at the height of his glory and success, having just completed the building of the Temple and being at rest from all of Israel’s enemies. The whole tone of the occasion was triumphal, with the procession of the priests carrying the ark of the covenant to the Holy of Holies in the Temple, accompanied by all the treasures accumulated by David in his preparations for the building of God’s house. Moreover, there were sacrifices of “so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered” (v.7). These actions were followed by Solomon’s magnificent dedicatory prayer (8:12-61), which stands at the peak of his success and constitutes the crux of his career, looking both backward to what has been accomplished, and forward to what will come.

It begins by acknowledging that the God who enabled Solomon to build the House of God is too great to be contained within it (in contrast to pagan idols); but embedded in the prayer were repeated references to the future sins of the people and their need for forgiveness. The primary focus in the prayer was not, as might be expected, on the physical splendor of the edifice, nor even the acts of worship that would be carried out daily there, but on the various circumstances by which the Israelites in the future would be separated from the Temple and would need to repent and pray for forgiveness. I suspect that Solomon did not realize that he was prophetically projecting the future rebellions and infidelities of God’s people, nor that these would spring from his own turning away from the Lord.

Solomon begins the body of his prayer (8:22) with three positive petitions, based on God’s faithfulness to His promises and His covenant with David and the people of Israel: (1) that God will perpetuate the placing of a descendent of David on the throne of Israel; (2) that God will honor His promise to manifest His Presence in the Temple built for Him according to His specifications; (3) and that God would always hear the prayers of His people toward this Temple, wherever they may be. This first section of the prayer is concluded by the general request, “And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive” (8:30). This concern with God’s forgiving the sins of the people is echoed repeatedly in the following seven specific requests for God to hear and respond to the people’s prayers, four of them explicitly mentioning sins against God and His covenant that require God’s forgiveness before the people can be restored. (The remaining three reaffirm God’s intent to defend the righteous among His people and to punish those who mistreat them.) Thus, Solomon’s petitions are weighted toward the likelihood that God’s people will need to pray for and receive forgiveness for straying from God’s covenant.

In view of this cautionary tone of Solomon’s prayer, what the Lord says to the king when He appears to him a second time (9:1ff) is especially poignant, for Solomon is then at his maximum vulnerability to pride, having just completed both the Lord’s house and his own magnificent palace (the building of which, by the way, took twice as long as for the Temple; see 6:38-7:1). He is renowned for the wisdom God gave him, and he has been freed from any threat from his enemies (see I Kings 4). He has every human reason to assume that he is in good standing with the Lord. At this point,

“the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. And the Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. . . . And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked with integrity of heart and uprightness . . . , then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever . . .. But if you turn aside from following me . . . and do not keep my commandments . . . but go and serve other gods and worship them . . . then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight . . . .” (9:2-7).

As is typical in literary tragedy, the hero is given warnings that, if they had been seen and heeded, would have enabled the great man to avoid the errors that led to his downfall. The writer of I Kings has revealed these warnings to the reader, but they are unperceived by the hero, for he is caught up in the apparent security of his successes and is ripe for his fall. In the aftermath of God’s second appearance to Solomon, a good deal of text is devoted to picturing the opulence and glory of Solomon’s reign, including the visit from the Queen of Sheba, who further fuels Solomon’s blind pride by declaring that his wealth and wisdom exceeded all that she had heard about him (10:6-7). All of this description of Solomon’s magnificence makes abruptly shocking what comes next in the narrative.

By the time God appeared to Solomon the third time (11:9-13), he had fallen into the twin pits of lust and degenerate idolatry. We are told that “when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God,” for he built high places for the worship of abominable deities “for all his foreign wives” (I Kings 11:1-8). The story of this most favored king of Israel coming to so wretched an end, in spite of his great God-given wisdom, should raise the elements of pity and fear that great tragedy evokes: pity that Solomon allowed his blessings to become pitfalls, and fear lest we do the same.

Image:Idolatry of Solomon by Sebastiano Conca. Public Domain.

Drinking the Cup

A Twilight Musing

“Let’s sit down with a cup of coffee (or tea) and chat a while.” That’s a common invitation of people in our society, since partaking of a cup of something is associated with relaxed fellowship together. It has been so from ancient times, although the contents of the cup until modern times was wine, rather than a brewed hot drink. There are about 65 occurrences (by my count) of the word “cup” in the Bible, and it is striking that 55 of them have some sort of symbolic significance, while only ten of them have an entirely literal meaning, and in most of those the literal cup is in the context of a larger purpose or moral lesson. For example, when Jesus commends the giving even of so little a thing as a cup of cold water to honor Him (Mark 9:41), the cup has a significance beyond itself. When Jesus accuses the Pharisees of giving more attention to cleaning the exteriors of their literal cups than to spiritually cleansing themselves, the literal quickly fades into the symbolic. Why this preponderance of symbolic meanings in the figure of a cup in Holy Scripture? I think it is because what we imbibe is inherently associated with our relationship to God and to our fellow humans. What we drink, depending on our choices, can be a part of wonderfully satisfying fellowship, or it can be terrible in its consequences.

The symbolic references to drinking a cup are wide-ranging and multifaceted. In some places it signifies a fullness of blessings, as in Ps. 23:5; but by contrast, it is also used as a symbol of the administration of God’s wrath (Ps. 75:8, Rev. 14:10). In the institution and subsequent observance of the Lord’s Supper, partaking of the cup together is an act of deep fellowship between believers and a mystical union with Christ (Lk. 22:20, I Cor. 11:25). But immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane praying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup [of suffering] pass from me” (Matt. 26:39). I think some spiritual benefit can be derived from a more detailed consideration of these four categories of figurative uses of “cup” in Scripture: the cup of blessing, the cup of wrath, the cup of communion, and the cup of suffering. The first two reflect the relationship between humans and God under the Old Covenant, and the second two deal with how that relationship becomes closer and more profound under the New Covenant.

The best known passage using the cup as an image of blessing is in Ps. 23:5: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” This is a summation of the Great Shepherd’s care and protection over His flock, so great that it overwhelms the speaker’s expectation and comprehension. Ps. 116:13 says, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” in response to “all His benefits” (v. 12). But more often mentioned, especially in the prophets, is the “cup of horror and desolation” (Ezek. 23:33) or the “cup of staggering” (Zech. 12:2) which God administered in judgment to rebellious Israel or another wicked nation. The underlying message of these passages is that God holds people accountable, and blesses those who obey Him and punishes those who do not, especially His own covenant people. God is merciful and will forgive when people repent of their evil, but the frequency with which He found it necessary to pour out His cup of wrath indicates that dependence on law-keeping was a precarious way to walk with God. The promise of the coming of the Messiah speaks of a more lasting covenant, one planted in the hearts of God’s people (see Jer. 30-33, esp. 31:31-34). But the New Covenant established through the Messiah would involve a radically new kind of cup to drink from.

A short time before Jesus “set His face toward Jerusalem” for the fatal last journey of His life, James and John came to Him requesting that they be granted “to sit one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mark 10:37). To which Jesus replied, “Your do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” (v. 38). When they presumptuously and ignorantly assured Him that they could, it was clear that they had no inkling of the cup of suffering from which Jesus asked the Father to deliver Him as He agonized in Gethsemane. It is not surprising, then, that none of the disciples realized the full meaning of Jesus’ words when He instituted the Lord’s Supper.

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." (Mark 14:23-25)

None of the disciples understood what Jesus meant by His blood being poured out for many, nor that a New Covenant would be established through the shedding of His blood. But when they began to partake of the Lord’s Supper after the Day of Pentecost, when the New Covenant was activated and the Church was established, they were reminded constantly in partaking of the Supper together that the cup of blessing they had drunk with Jesus in that Upper Room was symbolic of the cup of suffering that He alone could drink on the cross. For every Christian observing this holy feast since the Day of Pentecost, drinking of the sacramental cup is a recognition that we are participating in His death by dying to self so that we can be alive with Him. As Paul puts it in Romans 8:10, “If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness”— the righteousness of Christ provided through the shed blood that we symbolically drink in the cup of the Lord’s Supper.

This is a grave and serious matter, as Paul makes clear in his recap of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in I Cor. 11:27-29.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

But in this act of gravity, we also look forward to the joy and assurance of His coming again. Until then, the cup of blessing and the cup of suffering are coupled in the Lord’s Supper, looking forward to that time to which Jesus referred when He said He would not drink again with His disciples until they are together in the final Kingdom of God, where we will celebrate the great wedding feast of the Lamb as His spotless bride, the perfected Body of Christ, the Church (Rev. 19:6-8).

Summary of Chapter 6, “The Emotional Aspect of God’s Love” of The Love of God: A Canonical Model by John Peckham

The Love of God: A Canonical Model

In chapter six of The Love of God, Peckham explores “The Emotional Aspect of God’s Love.” God’s love is more than emotion and includes the qualities of volition and evaluation (as developed in previous chapters), but the emotional aspect of divine love uniquely reflects its passion and intensity. Peckham argues that “God’s love for humans is ardent and profoundly emotional” (p. 187). He further elaborates on the range of divine emotions reflected in the biblical portrayal of God, “Scripture presents God as affectionate and loving, devotedly interested and intimately concerned about humans, affected by the world in feeling joy and delight in goodness, yet sorrow, passion and intense anger at evil, alongside profound compassion and the desire to redeem humans” (p. 189).

This aspect of divine emotionality raises the question of whether God can be affected by the actions of humans. Because of the intensely emotional nature of divine love as portrayed in Scripture, Peckham rejects a view of God’s immutability that incorporates belief in his impassibility, the idea that God is not emotionally affected by the world or that he cannot be affected by anything outside himself. Peckham instead argues that God’s love is passible in the sense that “God is intensely interested in and affected by humans, and may be pleased or displeased by their response to him such that the quality of his life is affected by the state of affairs in the world” (p. 187). At the same time, Peckham acknowledges the very real differences that exist between divine and human emotions.

The Biblical Portrayal of Divine Emotionality

Peckham’s presentation of the biblical portrayal of divine love is both exegetical and devotional. He begins by exploring the most prominent terms for love in the OT and NT—the word groups for ’ahav and agapao respectively. Both terms denote a type of love that is “affectionate, passionate, warm, compassionately concerned with and interested in its object(s); love in the sense of high regard, value and appreciation for its object(s); and love that includes enjoyment pleasure and fondness” (cf. Col 3:9; 1 Thess 2:7; 1 Pet 1:22; 4:8) (p. 149). Jesus had a deep love for his followers (John 13:1) and even for the rich young man who would make the choice not to follow him (Mk 10:21). God takes genuine joy in his people (Zeph 3:7), and familial images of various types particularly reflect the emotionality of divine love. The Lord loves Israel as his bride (Isa 62:4; Jer 2:2-3; 16, 23; Hos 1-3) and has adopted Israel as his son (Hos 11:1-4). God’s compassion even exceeds that of a nursing mother for her newborn child (Isa 49:15). The Hebrew word for compassion (racham) is etymologically related to the noun for “womb” and thus likely reflects “a womb-like mother love.”

God does not merely will to love volitionally; he loves with “an emotion that is stirred and roused, responsive to the actual state of affairs” (p. 151). One of the primary NT terms for compassion (splagnizomai) belongs to a word group referring to the inward parts of the body as the seat of emotion and thus depicts compassion as a visceral emotion and a “gut response.” Jesus often reflected this type of compassion as he encountered people in need (cf. Mt. 9:36; 14:14; Mk 1:41; 6:34). The “yearning” of God’s heart (Jer 31:20; Is 63:5) in the OT reflects the churning of internal organs as God is touched by the pain and grief of his people. All of this language conveys “profoundly passible and intense emotionality” (p. 153).

God’s emotional love is particularly reflected in those times when he relents from sending judgment because of the entreaties of his people for grace and mercy. The Lord is moved to pity even at the plight of his rebellious people. The revelation that Yahweh is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger” so that he shows mercy and forgives iniquity (Exod 34:6-7) is foundational to the OT portrayal of God. The Lord continues to “bestow compassion beyond all reasonable expectations” throughout Israel’s history when they betray him and turn to other gods (cf. Judg 10:13; 1 Sam 8:8; 1 Kgs 11:33; 2 Kgs 22:17; Neh 9:7-33). The Lord relents from judgment when humans cry out to him for grace and mercy (cf. Exod 32:9-14; 1 Kgs 21:25-29; Amos 7:1-6; Jon 3:6-10). At the same time, God is not obligated or compelled to show mercy and he may not relent from sending judgment, and he may also withdraw his mercy when humans persistently rebel against him (Jer 16;5; Hos 9:15). The Lord’s “lovingkindness” toward Israel was unconditional in terms of his enduring commitment to the relationship, but conditional in that the blessings and benefits of that lovingkindness were for those who reciprocated with love and loyalty toward the Lord (Deut 7:9; Matt 18:27-35; Rom 11:22). God does everything that he can to avoid the outcome of judgment and destruction, but divine mercy may be forfeited by persistent human rebellion. Jesus lamented over those he desired to save but who were unwilling (Matt 23:37).

God’s compassion is complemented by his passion. God’s jealousy (qana’) in the OT conveys a passionate love and concern for his people and name (cf. Deut 4:24, 31; 5:9; 6:15) without the negative connotations associated with human jealousy. God is provoked to jealousy by Israel’s unfaithfulness (Deut 32:3`; Ps 78:58) and is often portrayed as a scorned husband (Isa 62:4; Jer 2:2; 3:1-12), but this aspect of divine emotionality reflects his protectiveness of the exclusive covenantal relationship he has with his people. God is not jealous in a manipulative, controlling, or envious way but in a manner that reflects the depth of his passionate love for Israel and his desire to protect his people from the consequences of their sinful choices.

God’s love manifests itself in both positive and negative emotions, but these negative emotions are never arbitrary or unmotivated. They always come in response to sin and evil, and God’s wrath is so terrifying because it is the divine response to the rejection of his powerful love. Even when humans sin, God is constantly pulled toward forgiveness and mercy. God is also deeply pained by human sin (Gen 6:6), because he can see the terrible consequences that will follow.

The Issue of Passibility Versus Impassibility

In light of the biblical data, Peckham concludes that maintaining divine impassibility and supposing God’s impassible passion and/or feelings fails to do justice to the many biblical passages in which God experiences responsive emotions. There are simply too many passages like Hosea 11:8-9 that “use passionate, gut-wrenching language” to depict God’s intense emotions, and this pervasive canonical witness argues against imposing an ontological presupposition of God’s impassibility onto the text that leads to reinterpretation of the biblical data (pp. 161-62). Impassibility is particularly difficult to maintain in light of texts that place God’s emotionality within the contexts of give-and-take-relationships where God reacts to unfolding events and human responses to his various initiatives. Based on his analogical understanding of language about God, Pekcham concludes that God’s emotions are real but not identical to human emotions. Nevertheless, there must be similarity for this language about God to have any real meaning. Because of his canonical approach, Peckham particularly seeks to establish a view of divine emotionality that prioritizes and is consistent with the canonical depiction of God. This approach recognizes anthropomorphism in the biblical portrayal of God, but also insists that divine emotionality should not be viewed merely as metaphorical language unless there are canonically derived reasons for doing so.

While rejecting the idea of impassibility, Peckham sees validity in the qualified impassibilist attempts to maintain divine transcendence and the ontological invulnerability of God to the effects of his creatures. God’s passibility is voluntary. God’s emotions may genuinely be affected by the free choices of his creatures and he may feel emotions in response to the free actions of his creatures that he does not causally determine, but God is not involuntarily invulnerable to these effects. God experiences emotions differently from humans because his experience of emotions is “entirely flawless” (p. 180). He is never overwhelmed by his emotions or manipulated by others because of some form of emotional codependency. God has freely opened himself to being affected by his creatures. While God maintains the sovereign freedom to remove himself from this arrangement, he also elects to remain constantly committed to it as an expression of his faithfulness (p. 181). In concluding the chapter, Peckham summarizes: “While none can overpower God, he is affected by worldly events because he has willingly opened himself up to reciprocal love relationship with creatures (p. 189). God loves in highly emotive ways but not in ways that are beyond his divine control.

Image: "The Return of the Prodigal" By Michel Martin Drolling - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19222829

Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary of Chapter 2: What Does It Mean to Say the Bible Is the Word of God?

The question of this chapter is succinctly put: “How exactly do [Plantinga and Craig] and many other biblical theists understand the relationship between the divine and human authorship [of the Bible]?” Or what is the most promising way of understanding that relationship? F&C suggest a starting place is the appropriation model (hereafter AM) as expounded by William Lane Craig.

Craig’s version of the AM is closely related to his Molinism. His view is that an omniscient God knows what humans will freely do when placed in certain circumstances. So God knows that under certain circumstances I will freely choose to eat White Castle cheeseburgers. Should he create such circumstances, God will have brought it about that I would eat White Castle cheeseburgers without violating my free will. In the same way, God knows under what circumstances Paul would freely choose to write the book of Romans. By placing Paul under those circumstances, Paul will freely choose to write Romans, including the content, order, style, and vocabulary, yet God can convey the message he desires. Hence both divine and human authorship is responsible for the finished product.

What makes the writings in the Bible to be the Word of God and not some other writing (like this summary)? Could not one argue that God has providentially allowed me to write this summary? Why isn’t it the Word of God? F&C make clear that it is not God providentially bringing it about that makes a specific writing his word, “Rather it is that God in his providence appropriated the biblical text as his own speech, and he delegated the biblical authors to speak on his behalf—which may have included the possibility that Paul was prompted by the Holy Spirit to write.”

F&C now combine Craig’s AM with the Speech Act Theory (hereafter SAT) of Nicholas Wolterstorff. SAT holds that “speech is an action one performs.” There are three types of action one performs in speaking:

1. Locutionary act: Merely the uttering of sounds or transcribing of words as in “Go to bed.”

2. Illocutionay act: The action one does by way of performing the locutionary act: commanding a child to go to bed by saying the words, “Go to bed.” One can do many illocutionary acts: asserting, warning, arguing, promising, and threatening are examples.

3. Perlocutionary act: The action associated with the intention to being about some effect by way of the illocutionary act. My intention is for the child to go to bed, so I command him to do so.

According to F&C, Wolterstorff suggests that this distinction helps us to understand how God speaks through scripture: “To say ‘God Speaks’ is simply to say that God performs a particular illocutionary act. . . the speech acts he performs are authoritative: what he asserts we are to believe; what he commands we are to obey; and his promises are completely trustworthy.”

So how does God perform illocutionary acts through the writings of human authors? This can be answered through an understanding of Double Agency Discourse (hereafter DAD). This occurs when one person performs an illocutionary act through either (1) the locutionary act or (2) the illocutionary act of another person. An example of (1) would be a secretary who drafts a letter from her boss commanding the staff to attend a meeting and then he signs it. The locutionary act is performed by the secretary, but the boss performs an illocutionary act. The secretary does not have the authority to command, but the boss does. An example of (2) might be when an ambassador speaks on behalf of his government. He has been delegated the authority to speak for his government. In this sense the government is performing an illocutionary act thorough the illocutionary act of the ambassador. The ambassador is much more than just a secretary. He has real authority.

It is this idea of “delegated” or “deputized” speech that Wolterstorff suggests best fits the model of the prophetic and apostolic writings. An individual was commissioned by God to speak on his behalf. However, when it comes to the entire Bible as the Word of God for us today, he believes it is best understood as God’s appropriating various illocutionary acts as his own: “All that is necessary for the whole [Bible] to be God’s book is that the human discourse it contains have been appropriated by God as one single book, for God’s discourse.” F&C affirm:

This is what Craig means when he claims that Paul had been commissioned by God to preach and teach on behalf of Jesus to largely gentile communities. Hence, his writing to Rome was a form of delegated speech on God’s behalf. Later when these writings were incorporated into a single biblical canon, God was appropriating this book alongside various others as his speech.

This explains how one can affirm the Bible as God’s Word with God as the primary author without affirming that God dictated every word. It also explains how one can accept the Bible as God’s Word without claiming that God necessarily affirms exactly what the human author affirms.

With this in mind, Wolterstorff offers a “fundamental principle” for interpreting scripture and distinguishing what is appropriated discourse from what is not: “the interpreter takes the stance and content of my appropriating discourse to be that of your appropriating discourse, unless there is good reason to do otherwise.” So if Bob appropriates Bill’s words is such a way that based on evidence it is unlikely that Bill’s intentions are expressed, then Bob has probably not appropriated Bill’s words appropriately. This involves two steps when it comes to determining what God has appropriated from the human authors of scripture: (1) to work out what illocutionary act the human author performed when he authored the text and (2) to ascertain whether God was saying something different from the author in appropriating the text. To perform the second step one needs to take the Bible as a single literary unit as well as assume certain theological beliefs (God does not utter falsehoods, is morally good, etc. . .).

Wolterstorff suggests five ways in which the illocutionary act of the divine author might differ from that of the human author:

1. The rhetorical-conceptual structure of Scripture texts. Example: When the human author refers to himself as in Paul’s opening statement, “Paul, an apostle called of God,” or David’s claim, “Against thee I have sinned.”

2. The distinction between the point the human author affirms within the text and the way he is making the point. Example: Jesus’s affirmation that the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds. He is not teaching a biology lesson, but a lesson about the kingdom of God. Inerrancy is about what the Bible intends to affirm.

3. If the human author is affirming something literally but the divine author is appropriating it in a nonliteral fashion. Example: Passages concerning marital love in Genesis 2:24 which Paul tells us (Eph. 5:21-23) refers to Christ and the church.

4. Transitive discourse: in performing one illocutionary action we are performing another. Human authors may be telling a story for one point, while God might intend it for a different point. Example: The parable of the Good Samaritan instructs how to love our neighbor.

5. Recognizing the difference between a general principle and its specific application. Old Testament command to place a parapet around roof (Deut. 22:8) is more than just about how to build safe roofs. There is a general principle of safety behind it that God intends to convey.

If biblical theists encounter a text in which the human author seems to attribute to God a command that they have good reason to think God would not command (given our background theological assumptions and taking the Bible as a whole unit), they have three choices:

1. Interpret the text to say that God is saying something other than the human author is saying

2. Conclude that they have misunderstood the text and don’t know what God is saying

3. Conclude that God has not appropriated the text in question

If a biblical theist concludes that the human author commanded some immoral action, it does not follow that God commanded it. However, if one rules out 1 & 2 by the evidence, then one must deny biblical inerrancy. While biblical inerrancy is an important doctrine, it is not on the level of the existence of God, the historicity of the Resurrection, and the atoning work of Christ. However, F&C do not believe that inerrancy need be rejected, for there are strong reasons one can hold 1 & 2.

Returning to Bradley’s four propositions, F&C have shown that the fourth proposition needs reformulating to more accurately convey what Bradley’s claim is. Hence it has been readjusted as follows:

4. The Bible tells us that God commands us to perform acts that violate the Crucial Moral Principle, to

4’. The author of the Bible commands us to perform acts that violate the Crucial Moral Principle, to

4’’. The secondary author of the Bible commands us to perform acts that violate the Crucial Moral Principle, to

4’’’. The divine author of the Bible uses the text to perform the speech act of commanding us to perform acts that violate the Crucial Moral Principle.

In section two of the book, F&C will go on to show that biblical theists are not committed to any of the formulations of Bradley’s fourth proposition and that other alternatives concerning those passages concerning genocide are both plausible and reasonable.

Image: "Bible" by Olga Caprotti. Flickr.com