by Richard Barcellos | Mar 10, 2011 | Apologetics, Audio/Video, Biblical Theology, Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, Systematic Theology
Are there inspired errors in Scripture? Are the narratives historical or something else? Was Adam a historical person? Was Paul wrong to assume he was? If the Bible assumes that the accounts in the Bible are historical, should we? If God’s oral word is true, is His written word the same?
Dr. Beale interacts with some troubling contemporary trends in evangelical scholarship. Watch it here.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
by Sam Waldron | Mar 10, 2011 | Family-Integrated Church
In my previous blog one of my last paragraphs read as follows: “To make a long story short, I hear Scott and Voddie affirming that when they say the church the church is a family of families, they are referring to their ‘philosophy of church ministry.’ I think this is what they mean by the church being a ‘family of families.’ I honestly would like to know from them if I have properly understood them.” This was not mere rhetoric. I really do want to know if I have correctly understood what the church being a “family of families” means for the NCFIC. While I wait to make sure that I understand what they mean, I want to do what theologians would call an excursus. I want to address a related issue that is a little bit off the subject, but still important to it. That subject is the question contained in my heading for this blog. Are We Guilty of a Messianic View of the Christian Family? Let me answer this question by answering several related questions.
Who am I talking to? I am not talking just to the family-integrated folks. I am talking to all of us who are trying to build a family on biblical principles and making tons of sacrifices to do so. I was one of the pastors of a church for 24 years whose families were basically homeschoolers. I was proud of them. I was proud of the sacrifices they made to have a biblical family. I was proud of how hard the moms worked for their principles. I was proud of the leadership our fathers provided to their families. I was proud of how relatively well our kids behaved and did compared to most others I knew. I was proud of our families. I was proud of what we believed about the family and related biblical and social issues. Many hard and sad experiences since then have taught me that I was perhaps too proud. I was placing hope in the wrong thing. I fear I had to some degree a messianic view of the family.
What do I not mean? When I say all of this, let me make clear that I still believe in biblical principles of family living. I believe in the headship of the husband and father and the submission of the wife and mother. I still believe in and practice family worship. I still believe that God will honor diligent parenting to the salvation of many (though not necessarily all) the children of diligent parents. I think the passages in the Old Testament about this apply to salvation and to New Testament believers. For instance, I believe Psalm 112:1-2 is for Christian parents today when it asserts: “Praise the LORD! How blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who greatly delights in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; The generation of the upright will be blessed.” Furthermore, I would not go back and change the standards on which I attempted to raise my children and lead my family. My wife and I would just try to live up to those standards more consistently than we did. I have not adopted some super-new covenant view which relegates all the promises of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament to the pile of abolished ceremonial precepts.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Richard Barcellos | Mar 4, 2011 | Hermeneutics, Historical Theology
Brief survey of the history of hermeneutics – 1. Intro.
Introduction: The Apostolic Fathers are those church leaders who wrote between A.D. 90 and 150.[1] Subsequent to that several other church leaders are identified as the Church Fathers. Two things happened in the era of the Apostolic Fathers: 1) the fathers continued the hermeneutical methodology of the New Testament and 2) they introduced a moral usage of Scripture or functional hermeneutic.[2] Dockery explains the moral use of Scripture as “…the readers appl[ying] the text to their own context and situation without attention to its original context and situation.”[3]
The moral use of Scripture approach was soon partially eclipsed, however, probably due to heretical views of the Old Testament. Gnostics denied continuity between the testaments, arguing that the God of the Old Testament was not the same as the God of the New Testament. Marcion (circa A.D. 85-160) argued on these lines. He was an early leader in the church at Rome. Excommunicated for heresy about A.D. 144, four years after he went to Rome, he rejected the entire Old Testament as Christian Scripture.[4] He believed that law and grace were incompatible and that the God of the Old Testament was not the same as the God of the New Testament.[5] The Old Testament was “not for Christians, but for Jews only.”[6] He insisted on interpreting the Old Testament literally, which, in fact, lead him to reject it altogether.[7] Marcion created his own canon, which included Luke (except chapters 1 and 2, which he viewed as too Jewish) and Paul’s letters (except the Pastoral Epistles). Though Marcion accepted 10 of Paul’s letters, he edited them to “remove remnants of Judaism.”[8] Marcion’s 11 book canon is the earliest known. Just as much of the material in the epistles of the New Testament was occasional, brought on by circumstances experienced by the recipients of the New Testament books, so Marcion’s canon helped create an occasion for orthodox believers to declare themselves on the issue of the canon.[9] Both Gnosticism and Marcion forced the Apostolic Fathers to justify the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. The functional hermeneutic was eclipsed by a typological hermeneutic more in line with Christ and the New Testament authors.[10] Dockery says, “Soon a typological interpretation of the Old Testament became a standard way of expounding the Scriptures.”[11] In the discussion of Patristic hermeneutics below, we will see several examples of this method of interpretation which, by the way, is basically consistent with the New Testament’s use of the Old.
[1] Dockery, Biblical Interpretation, 48.
[2] Dockery, Biblical Interpretation, 45.
[3] Dockery, Biblical Interpretation, 45.
[4] Thiselton notes that upon excommunication “Marcion established his own “church.”” Thiselton, Hermeneutics, 94. The quotation marks are Thiselton’s.
[5] Patzia & Petrotta, PDBS, 76. Cf. Thiselton, Hermeneutics, 94.
[6] Thiselton, Hermeneutics, 94.
[7] Thiselton, Hermeneutics, 94.
[8] Thiselton, Hermeneutics, 94.
[9] Though this is not the whole story behind the formation of the New Testament canon.
[10] More on this later.
[11] Dockery, Biblical Interpretation, 48.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
by Richard Barcellos | Mar 3, 2011 | Audio/Video, Ecclesiology, Preaching
Rare TV interview of the late great preacher here.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
by Richard Barcellos | Mar 2, 2011 | Biblical Theology, Eschatology, Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament
I suspect, though I could be wrong, that sacred space and sacred time theology (even under the days of the new covenant) is the historic Christian position, irrespective of theological tradition. It was neither invented by the Reformed, nor the Pentecostal, nor will it be done away with by 20th and 21st century Evangelicals. My hunch is that it has probably been around since the beginning of time. God’s mandate to Adam as His vice-regent was to extend the culture of the garden to the ends of the earth. And if the garden was the first temple (a special dwelling place of God among men on the earth), with the first priest (Adam), and it had a Sabbath (which was a pledge of eschatological rest), then both sacred space and sacred time were present concepts and, at least, potentially co-extensive. However, the fall took place. Adam failed to extend the garden-temple across the earth. But no need to fear! The mandate of Gen. 1:28 is now in the hands of the Mediator between God and man – Christ Jesus, the skull-crushing Seed of the woman. He is setting up mini-temples (sacred space/local churches) throughout the entire earth (Matt. 28:19-20), with priest-kings offering up spiritual sacrifices, particularly when they gather on the day on which the new creation dawned, the Lord Jesus’ day, the first day of the week, Sunday, the new covenant’s Sabbath. Some day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord in fulfillment of God’s creation mandate to Adam. Then all earthy space and time will be sacred. Then the Lamb will be all the glory! Until then, we get glimpses of that which will be ours in full when He comes. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Amen.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
