"Jesus and Other Religions"

I have mentioned this audio by Kevin DeYoung before, but it is good to mention it again since we just discussed the question "Is Jesus the Only Way? What about Other Religions?"  This sermon by Kevin DeYoung is an excellent follow up.  Download it to your music player and give it a world.

Survival 101: What to Do in a Free-Falling Elevator

The NY Times has a post on what you should do to increase your chances of survival should you find yourself in a free falling elevator. You should read the article...

Textual Criticism: Isn't the Transmission of the Biblical Text Like a Game of "Telephone"?

Another excerpt from Justin Taylor's interview with Dan Wallace on textual criticism. This is an objection you might here and should be ready to see through.

Isn’t the process of copying a copy of a copy somewhat akin to the old “telephone game”?
Hardly. In the telephone game the goal is to garble an original utterance so that by the end of the line it doesn’t resemble the original at all. There’s only one line of transmission, it is oral rather than written, and the oral critic (the person who is trying to figure out what the original utterance was) only has the last person in line to interrogate.

When it comes to the text of the NT, there are multiple lines of transmission, and the original documents were almost surely copied several times (which would best explain why they wore out by the end of the second century).

Further, the textual critic doesn’t rely on just the last person in the transmissional line, but can interrogate many scribes over the centuries, way back to the second century.
And even when the early manuscript testimony is sparse, we have the early church fathers’ testimony as to what the original text said.

Finally, the process is not intended to be a parlor game but is intended to duplicate the original text faithfully—and this process doesn’t rely on people hearing a whole utterance whispered only once, but seeing the text and copying it.

The telephone game is a far cry from the process of copying manuscripts of the NT.

Textual Criticism: What are variants and how do they affect the meaning of the text?

We have discussed textual criticism a few times in the past months.  Here is an excerpt from an interview Dr. Dan Wallace did (he is a leading textual critic).  You can read the whole article here at Justin Taylor's blog. 

What are the different kinds of variants, and how do they affect the meaning of the texts?
The variants can be categorized into four kinds:

• Spelling and nonsense readings
• Changes that can’t be translated; synonyms
• Meaningful variants that are not viable
• Meaningful and viable variants

Let me briefly explain each of these.

Spelling and nonsense readings are the vast majority, accounting for at least 75% of all variants. The most common variant is what’s called a movable nu—that’s an ‘n’ at the end of one word before another word that starts with a vowel. We see the same principle in English with the indefinite article: ‘a book,’ ‘an apple.’ These spelling differences are easy for scholars to detect. They really affect nothing.

The second largest group, changes that can’t be translated and synonyms, also do not affect the meaning of the text. Frequently, the word order in the Greek text is changed from manuscript to manuscript. Yet the word order in Greek is very flexible. For the most part, the only difference is one of emphasis, not meaning.

The third group is meaningful variants that are not viable. By ‘viable’ I mean a variant that can make a good case for reflecting the wording of the original text. This, the third largest group, even though it involves meaningful variants, has no credibility. For example, in Luke 6:22, the ESV reads, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” But one manuscript from the 10th/11th century (codex 2882) lacks the words “on account of the Son of Man.” That’s a very meaningful variant since it seems to say that a person is blessed when he is persecuted, regardless of his allegiance to Christ. Yet it is only in one manuscript, and a relatively late one at that. It has no chance of reflecting the wording of the original text, since all the other manuscripts are against it, including quite a few that are much, much earlier.

The smallest category by far is the last category: meaningful and viable variants. These comprise less than 1% of all textual variants. Yet, even here, no cardinal belief is at stake. These variants do affect what a particular passage teaches, and thus what the Bible says in that place, but they do not jeopardize essential beliefs.

Complementarian Decision Making in Marriage

I know most of you are not married, but the reality is that many of you will be one day.  And you will need to be able to be biblical in the way you lead (men) and follow (women).  Here is a great excerpt on decision making in marriage- a complementarian example (bonus points for anyone who can tell me what complementarian means).

Winning the Irish to Christ: The Mission of St. Patrick

Here is a good sermon for St. Patrick's Day by Dr. Michael Haykin from the Bible conference he did here are Grace Church in January of 2011.  If you wanted to know more about St. Patrick, this is a good place to start.

Systematic Theology on a Shoestring Budget

I just saw that Amazon has Wayne Grudem's "Christian Beliefs" on sale for $3.99 for the kindle (electronic version).  You can still read it without a kindle by downloading the kindle software to your computer for free.  This is a condensed version of his systematic theology book.  I have read his systematic and found it very helpful and easy to understand.

Does Paul Give His Own Opinion or Speak for God in 1 Cor. 7:12?

1 Corinthians 7:10-12

¹⁰ To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband ¹¹(but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

^{1 2}To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.

In verse 10, Paul says, “I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband…”  Then, in verse 12 he says, “I say (I, not the Lord) that….”  Should we take this to mean that Paul is writing God-breathed words (2 Tim. 3:16) in verses 10-11 but is simply giving a non-authoritative opinion in verse 12?  I don’t think that is what is going on here.

So, what does he mean by what he says?  In verses 10-11, the “charge” Paul gives is actually from the recorded words of Jesus in the Gospels.  On several occasions the gospel writers wrote down Jesus’ teaching on divorce (see Matt. 5:32, 19:9; Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18).  

However, in verse 12, Paul deals with an issue that Jesus did not speak directly about during his earthly ministry (at least it was not recorded for us in the Gospels).  He is telling the Corinthians about how to handle a marital situation in which one member becomes a Christian and the other does not.  So, when he says, “I not the Lord,” he does not mean what follows is uninspired, take-it-or-leave-it advice.  As A.T. Robertson says, “This is no disclaimer of inspiration. He simply means that here he is not quoting a command of Jesus.”^[1]

As an apostle, writing a book that is God-inspired, Paul is writing the words of God here.  Paul indicates that he is aware that he is speaking by the Spirit of God, for he says in verse 40 of this same chapter, “And I think that I too have the Spirit of God” (see also 1 Cor. 14:37 “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.”).

In conclusion, Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7 are all God-breathed words and carry the authority of God.  The reason Paul distinguishes in verses 10 and 12 between what he says and what the Lord says is that he is noting what the Lord Jesus specifically addressed in his earthly ministry and a situation which he did not. 

This is an answer to a question from the questionbox.  To submit your own question on the Bible, culture, or ethics, click on the questionbox link on the right side of this page.

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^[1] Robertson, A. (1997). Word Pictures in the New Testament (1 Co 7:12). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.

The New Form of Tolerance

DA Carson has a great post on the issue of tolerance which is a major issue in our current culture as we are constantly bombarded with the language of tolerance.  Read the whole article for some clear headed thinking on this issue.  Here is an excerpt:

This shift from "accepting the existence of different views" to "acceptance of different views," from recognizing other people's right to have different beliefs or practices to accepting the differing views of other people, is subtle in form, but massive in substance. To accept that a different or opposing position exists and deserves the right to exist is one thing; to accept the position itself means that one is no longer opposing it. The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another's position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own. We move from allowing the free expression of contrary opinions to the acceptance of all opinions; we leap from permitting the articulation of beliefs and claims with which we do not agree to asserting that all beliefs and claims are equally valid. Thus we slide from the old tolerance to the new.