Noah Athan Jordan

Born on September 18,2006

Incarnation and Inspiration

I want to take some time over the next several post to talk about the inspiration and interpretation of Scripture. I will take a break in this subject only to introduce my precious son when he comes.
Few men have shaped my thinking about interpreting Holy Scripture more than Dr. John Piper. Though I would differ on some of his nuances and would not be an advocate of his, most commentaries are not useful tools for hermeneutics. I do however consider his approach to Scripture and hermeneutics as wise and fruitful. I have read a lot on the subject of the interpretation of scripture but I know of no single idea that has had a greater impact on how I view and approach Scripture than this one found in a qoute by Dr. Piper.

Evangelicals believe that God humbled himself not only in the incarnation of the Son, but also in the inspiration of Scripture. The manger and the cross were not sensational. Neither are grammar and syntax. But that is how God chose to reveal himself. A poor Jewish peasant and a prepositional phrase have this in common, they are both human and both ordinary. That the poor Jewish peasant was God and the prepositional phrase is the Word of God does not change the fact. Therefore, if God humbled himself to take on human flesh and to speak human language, woe to us if we arrogantly presume to ignore the humanity of Christ and the grammar of scripture.
Biblical Exegesis:Discovering The Meaning of Scriptural Text.

Wow,what an amazing explanation of the inspiration and interpretation of Holy Scripture. God could have chosen to communicate divine truth in any form, but he chose many human authors, different genres, two different languages over thousands of years. This understanding doesn't make the Bible any less complex but it does help to bridge the gap between human authorship communicating divine truth.

Here is a model I came up with to help me understand this truth. Notice how there is a vast gap between these two realities until you insert one word.



Humanity-----------------------------------------------Divintiy
Humanity---------------Incarnation-------------------Divinity


I will leave this theoretical for today but will show how this forms a functional approach to the interpretation of scripture in the next post.

Transparent Truth

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way our culture defines truth. The way in which they define truth will shape the way they seek it. Here is a quote that for me captures much of the postmodern thinking about truth. The late C.S. Lewis was not just great at seeing truth but masterful at describing it in away that did more than just make sense of it but enabled you to see it also.

You can't go on "seeing through" things forever. The whole point of "seeing through" something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond is opaque. How, if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to see through first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent, but a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To "see through" all things is the same as not to see.
C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Amanda,

What a blessed man I am to be married to you. On your birthday I wanted to take some time to express my deep gratitude to God for you. I've said it to you before and I'll say it again, trying to describe your splendor and beauty, feels like trying to describe the brightness of the sun.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame is not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your books were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. Psalm 139:13-16

I know of no better passage in Scripture to share with you on your birthday than this one. I was reminded this day, as well as you have probably been, of the God who has created you in his very image. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, my love. I am moved when I consider these words from the Psalmist, Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your books were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. This means that God who created you, knew and had already formed your days before you entered the world. While you were in the womb, God was creating a woman who would one day be the love of my life, my best friend, mother of my children, and partner in the gospel mission. On this day I am thankful to God for sustaining you and saving you, but also for giving you to me.

Happy Birthday

Love To The Brethren

In a letter entitled, "Love To The Brethren", John Newton works out the implications of the verse "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Here are just two quotes that struck me and caused me to fall upon the mercies of God and ask for a deeper love for the people of God.

In our happiest hours, when we are most affected with the love of Jesus, we feel our love fervent towards his people. We wish it were always so; but we are poor inconsistent creatures, and find we can do nothing as we ought, but as we are enabled by his grace.

We know that the love we bear them is for his sake; and when we consider his interest in them, and our obligations to him, we are ashamed and grieved that we love them no better.

Pregnancy and the Trinity

I stated in my last post that I was going to comment more on the dangers of popularity in ministry, however there is a more pressing and important issue on my mind. My wife and I are expecting the birth of our second child soon, like real soon. We are those no fun people that wanted to know the babies gender, it's a boy! My wife is due in September, if she can last that long. The thought of having a son is both exciting and sobering. This past Sunday our care group through us a baby shower. They went all out and really blessed us immensely. I have also been surrounded here of late with baby things and have had many conversations about baby stuff and of course the baby. In considering this exciting time of experiencing new life with the birth of my son, I was reminded of something that I had read earlier in the year by Bruce Ware. I will most likely comment on his excellent book on the Trinity entitled Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, in a future post. The subtitle of the book says it all, Relationship, Roles, & Relevance. This books aim is to first better understand and then live our life in light of the God who is three in one. Dr. Ware focuses his attention on the relationship and roles of the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit with each other and with us. In his chapter about the relational relevance of the Father in all of life, entitled, Beholding The Wonder of The Father, Ware makes this application of the Trinity to pregnancy.

My wife and I have two precious daughters. God has given us the privilege of being the biological parents of these children. As a theologian, I've been led to think somewhat differently about this than perhaps some have. God made the original pair. Adam was formed from the dust of the ground when God shaped him and then breathed into him the breath of life. Then God said it was not good for man to be alone, and so God took a rib from the man and fashioned from this the woman, whom he then brought to the man-a helper suitable for him, specially crafted by God. But then, after the creation of male and female in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27), God tells them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen. 1:28). In other words, God has now given them the privilege and responsibility of bringing into existence all subsequent image-of-God persons. It is as if God said, "I created the first and original pair of human beings in my very image, and I could continue creating them unilaterally so that you would have no part to play. But instead, you are now to bring about human beings; you are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with my greatest of all creations, humans made in my very image" I believe that this is one of the main reasons why God has made the sexual experience in human life to be as pleasurable and wondrous as it is. Image-of-God procreation is designed to reveal the pleasure God has in creating people in his own image, and the joy of bringing yet more of these humans into existence. We have the privilege of creating image-of-God persons. God didn't have to do it this way. He could have done it himself. But, the Father desires to share. He chooses to give us some of the most wondrous aspects of his work.

Popular Preachers and Gospel Gurus

For my birthday my good friend Aaron gave me a copy of The Letters of John Newton. So far it has been an excellent read. In a book like this I skip around and look at various topics that he discussed and read them. Two nights ago I was drawn to a letter he wrote to a friend who was entering the ministry. The title given to this specific letter is "On the Snares and Difficulties attending the Ministry of the Gospel". I thought he said very warm and wise words in this letter but there is a section that struck me and captured my thoughts. This section falls in line with my last post about a right view of a pastor. One of the temptations and dangers of ministry in America is not just the lack of persecution but the praise and popularity of preachers, teachers and evangelist. A culture of support and respect would be the right response to the men who serve Christ and his church so faithfully, instead we have adopted Christian icons and gospel gurus. Brothers, this kind of popularity is a dangerous temptation and can become a hindrance to gospel ministry. For now I will let John Newton's counsel to his friend speak about the temptation of popularity. I will comment in my next post about the possible hindrances popularity may create for the gospel to be purely preached and the church to be firmly planted on Christ not on a man and his ministry.

If you should meet with but little opposition, or if the Lord should be pleased to make your enemies your friends, you will probably be in danger from the opposite quarter. If opposition has hurt many, popularity has wounded more.It is easy for me to advise you to be humble, and for you to acknowledge the propriety of the advice; but while human nature remains in its present state, there will be almost the same connection between popularity and pride, as between fire and gun powder: they cannot meet without and explosion, at least not unless the gunpowder is kept very damp. So unless the Lord is constantly moistening our hearts (if I may so speak) by the influences of his Spirit, popularity will soon set us in a blaze. You will hardly find a person who has been exposed to this fiery trial, without suffering loss.