I've been using this book as my main helper while preaching very slowly (because very occasionally) through the Sermon on the Mount. When my pastor neI've been using this book as my main helper while preaching very slowly (because very occasionally) through the Sermon on the Mount. When my pastor needs me to fill in, I just pick up the next passage. Pennington has quickly commended himself as the most helpful guide to this marvelous portion of Scripture, one of my most important life companions (along with Psalms 1, 2, 40, and 51; Rom 3; and a very few others). In Pennington one gets the feeling that one is getting a responsible round-up of scholarly opinion while also getting Kidner-quality prose and trustworthy homiletical guidance. Pennington does an exceptionally admirable job of keeping his perceived main theme of the sermon in view; this is something I don't do so well at, and I appreciate it when others do. I occasionally wonder if that theme is as clear as he thinks it is, but he usually wins me over.
It's pretty bold to call your work a "theological commentary" these days. Everybody wants to claim those two honorifics. But Pennington actually delivers. Here's a flavor:
Even though the theme of the kingdom is apparent and consistent, this closing exhortation to enter according to the narrow way may seem an abrupt shift toward merely external behaviors, unlike the emphasis on the internal wholeness that Jesus has been picturing throughout the Sermon. That is, “wide” and “easy” and “broad” sound like the life of loose morals, while “narrow” and “hard” conjure images of piety and self-sacrifice and duty. Historically this text has been read and pictorially represented with images that show the broad way as impious behaviors and the narrow way as acts of service and Christian duty. Has Jesus suddenly shifted gears from wholeness/virtue to fiery-preacher behaviorism? ¶ Quite the opposite. Despite a long Christian pietistic tradition of understanding the difference between the narrow gate and broad way as a contrast between immoral behaviors and pious practices, the distinction made here depends on the same internal versus external righteousness that has marked the entirety of the Sermon. The wide and easy way that leads to destruction is precisely what Jesus has been describing all along as living with merely external righteousness, while the narrow and “difficult” way is the vision he has cast for righteousness that is more and deeper than behavior.
He ties a difficult passage back to the sermon's theme and also relates it to all of Christian theology. And he's done the exegetical homework necessary to get here. Highly recommended....more
Great little title. Punchy and short. Genuinely full of wisdom.
The three things that stood out to me most:
1. The very genres of Scripture demonstrate Great little title. Punchy and short. Genuinely full of wisdom.
The three things that stood out to me most:
1. The very genres of Scripture demonstrate that not all of Scripture is meant to be—or even can be—preached expositionally, in sequence. Think Proverbs. And even Galatians, Pennington points out, just keeps hitting the same point in various ways. Unless you want to preach essentially the same point 12 times in a row, perhaps it's best to suit the sermon to the genre. I'll be chewing on this one. It's a relief, honestly. It's not that I'm eager to skip portions of Scripture in preaching/teaching in the church; it's that I sometimes wonder if we're really justified in doing so, because we all do it. Some portions of Scripture are more suited to topical coverage (Proverbs, again) or to one-off sermons ( respective minor prophets?). It was helpful to hear this advice from a confident and skilled preacher whose homiletically flavored commentary on the Sermon on the Mount I have found immensely helpful.
2. When someone praises your sermon, "It is not humility to dismiss or deflect the compliment." That hit hard. Pennington says that to say, "Oh, it's not me! Only God gets the credit!" is to "dishonor your gift and God's structure of the universe. When someone thanks you for your sermon, receive this good and beautiful gift, completing the cycle of giving and receiving that God has created."
He suggests saying:
• "I'm glad to hear that you benefited from the message. Thank you!"
• "You're very kind. Thank you for taking the time to encourage me."
• "That's very nice to hear. I need encouragement like everyone else."
3. "The unexamined sermon is not worth preaching." This is tough for a small church assistant pastor whose only feedback basically comes from his wife (not to denigrate the value of that feedback; I treasure it). But Pennington says that in order to improve and to be sure you are serving people well, "You will need to regularly seek out intentional and meaningful evaluation of your preaching by others, uncomfortable as it may be."
Little things that also stuck with me:
- The first and last moments of your sermon are perhaps the most important and memorable. Don't waste them by fumbling to a start or apologizing to a "close."
- It's not extra holy to refuse ever to preach to the cultural calendar, things that are happening right now, from Mother's Day to Veteran's Day.
- Sermons should have a narrative arc, a feel of push toward a climax and a denouement.
- Writing is often the best way to think. You should manuscript at some point in the homiletical process, even if you don't take the manuscript into the pulpit.
This short book is full of lots of great little pieces of advice like this. It reminds me of H.B. Charles' book, "On Preaching: Personal & Pastoral Insights for the Preparation & Practice of Preaching," also a Lexham Press title! I really appreciate short books, I do. I haven't read a great many preaching books, but I feel certain that there are plenty that contain less wisdom and yet more words than Jonathan Pennington's Small Preaching....more
**spoiler alert** Scrivener adopts the standard canons of New Testament textual criticism that are still used today. He is independent, however, and i**spoiler alert** Scrivener adopts the standard canons of New Testament textual criticism that are still used today. He is independent, however, and is willing to dissent in given passages from the readings adopted by Wescott and Hort. He is an engaging writer and an effective teacher to his intended audience, namely those who do not read Greek.
He rejects the Johannine Comma, accepts the so-called longer ending of Mark, and takes what is still the consensus view (I believe) of the Pericope Adulterae, namely that it is very ancient and probably apostolic but that its original location is not certain.
"We may broadly assert that modern critics have come to a unanimous, or almost unanimous, conclusion, first, that it does not belong to the place where it is usually read; secondly, that it is no idle fable, no vulgar forgery, but a genuine apostolic or primitive record of what actually took place. The state of the evidence is so utterly unlike what we have found or shall find elsewhere in the New Testament, that no other verdict than this can well be pronounced."
Love that florid 19th century style.
He speaks highly of Vaticanus, but not so highly of Sinaiticus.
Those looking for the editor of the standard Greek New Testament edition used in KJV-Onlyism to propound views similar to theirs will be sorely disappointed. In every way he reasons like today's evangelical mainstream. And if he dissents from Westcott and Hort in places, he nonetheless adopts their methods. I feel certain that he would be horrified to discover that people have proclaimed his Greek New Testament edition—which was created as an academic exercise as part of his work on the English Revised Version—to be perfect in every jot and tittle. To take only one example, but a very important one, here's what he said about 1 John 5:7:
"There is no vestige in Codex Sinaiticus, nor indeed in any other manuscript worth naming, of the famous interpolation of what are called the Three Heavenly Witnesses in [1 John 5:]7, 8, which yet deforms our Authorised translation."...more
Some interesting information about historical printings of the KJV in America. He’s simply and clearly right about the fact that alway/always, ensamplSome interesting information about historical printings of the KJV in America. He’s simply and clearly right about the fact that alway/always, ensample/example, thoroughly/throughly, and a few other spelling variations are all the same word, respectively. I’d never done the work on these; his work is solid. It is truly bizarre to see extremist KJV-Onlyists claiming that variations in spelling indicate wholly different words. This is, as Ross says, a specific kind of Ruckmanism. It’s proposing that, in the words of one extremist book Ross critiques, God actually solved ambiguities in the Hebrew and Greek with additional revelation through the KJV. This is a variety of KJV-Onlyism so extreme that I don’t really deal with it directly in my own work.
This is still a KJV-Only book. Misspells “principle.” Puts “FACTS” in all caps. Calls the KJV the “final authority” and treats it as inerrant as opposed to modern versions. But clearly rejects double inspiration. Ross is courteous and clear and puts his training in history to some good use.
Impossible to rate because I’m grateful for some good homework, glad to see someone who is careful and courteous in the KJV-Only world pushing back against the extremists in that world, but still not in agreement with his final landing spot....more
Don Carson's prose is elegant, and his pace is perfect. He briskly moves the reader through a narrative of the conflict among evangelical Christians oDon Carson's prose is elegant, and his pace is perfect. He briskly moves the reader through a narrative of the conflict among evangelical Christians over so-called "gender-inclusive language" in Bible translation, then he tackles the linguistic issues in as efficient a way as anyone could.
I should have read this book many years ago, but the interesting thing to me is that my love for language and linguistics over time has brought me to all the same positions. I read the book very quickly because none of the concepts were new to me; there was no uptake required. What's so sad to me is that my *tribe* should have read this book many years ago, and many of the concepts would have been new to *them.* I recently got an email from a wonderful, gracious, studious pastor who is a respected friend—and he had picked up that the NIV 2011 was bad because of its gender language. I totally understand that not every pastor can read every book and be up on every issue, but I've *never* heard of pastors in my circles being aware of the kinds of arguments Carson makes. And they really, really ought to be, because I just hate to see easier-to-read translations like the NIV and CSB blithely ignored when they could be such great tools for our sheep.
Carson is so evenhanded. He is a complementarian who nonetheless takes an unpopular position among his fellow conservatives. He critiques the work of friends and former students graciously but clearly. He also is willing to side with the critics on individual rendering choices in specific passages. He talks carefully and patiently (but not ad nauseam) through examples of grammatical gender in multiple different languages—and the way they do things is all over the map. He also works through the strengths and weaknesses of the respective position statements that were rushed to print during the late 90s controversy over gender-inclusivity.
I'll tell you where I'm at with all this kind of thing right now: I'm crying out to God. He's the one who gave us a situation in which the following obtains:
- His word is available to 99.9% of Christians only through translation. (How many Christians can read biblical Hebrew and Greek at sight?)
- Some translation decisions are difficult and obscure, especially in Hebrew but also in Greek.
- We had a monolithic standard in English-speaking Christianity for approximately three centuries.
- Most Christians can use their native language incredibly well but cannot describe it with accuracy. They don't know English the way a linguist knows it; they can't sort out the issues involved even on only the English side of the inclusive language debate.
- If even Wayne Grudem on John Piper and Andreas Köstenberger come in for due criticism (though also due praise; except that Grudem probably does come off the worst in Carson's book) for mistakes at the nexus of translation and linguistics, what can the rest of the righteous do? (Even Mark Dever, of whom I think the world [yes, I do], just fell into the Grudem/Piper/Köstenberger/CBMW trap in a recent tweet, as if Carson never wrote this book.)
This is why I cry out to the Lord like the psalmists of old: why does this all have to be so hard? A good friend of mine lost a man from his church when this man found out that they were using the NIV 2011 and not the NIV 1984 as he had assumed.
The KJV-Onlyists, of course, want to solve all the problems by freezing translation and textual criticism in time (1611 or 1769, depending on how you look at it) and calling all advances in these fields suspect at best and corruptions at worst.
But that's no solution. Or it's a cure that brings problems worse than the disease. As merely one example, it has caused a large number of churches to invent a Bible doctrine (the preservation of God's Words through a 17th century English translation) that is simply not taught in Scripture—and to divide on this point from all Christians who disagree.
I think the only thing I can do is what I am doing: I can join Carson in the popularizing work for which he is so well known. I can pray that the Lord would illumine Christian people and gentle them. I can hope that the mere fact that conservatives like Carson (and me!) see real value in inclusive language translations would give our fellow conservatives pause—maybe they're missing something. I can hope that what this controversy has done for me it will do for others, namely drive them deeper into the fascinating and helpful study of language and Bible translation. There are so many valuable things to find.
It would be interesting to have Carson write an afterword to this book 20+ years on. I feel as if he has been vindicated. People unselfconsciously experience gender-inclusive language as normal English and not as feminist-inspired oddities. Where people like Poythress (whom I greatly admire!) have scored some lasting points against inclusive-language translations, I think they are mainly doing what Carson himself did and noticing specific instances of silly or softheaded overreach. They are not, I think, undercutting Carson's basic case in favor of the idea that when English changes (and it is changing!), our translations have to change along with it or they will actually be inaccurate.
(One other little thought I have to stick in somewhere or I'll forget it: to call the NIVI the NIV Inclusive Language Edition, as the UK publishers Hodder & Stoughton did back in the late 90s was a major mistake. It made a relatively minor feature—something akin to using red letters—part of the very name of the translation, raising its profile to such a height that it could only look to some people like an imposition of feminism on the Bible.)...more
I’ve said before that I’m an emotional reader. My five stars for this book represent my rapture at great prose and, more importantly, my fervent amensI’ve said before that I’m an emotional reader. My five stars for this book represent my rapture at great prose and, more importantly, my fervent amens in the final portion of the book.
I realize now—how could I have missed this?—that I never actually did get around to reading a Eugene Peterson book (aside from select portions of The Message, which kind of does and kind of doesn’t count) until a friend recently urged me to read this one. Said I’d love it. I sent him a message telling him I’d gotten to the portion that, I’m sure, made him think of me. And it was indeed that last portion, a portion focused on Bible translation.
If you’ve always assumed, like I half-consciously did when The Message came out, that it was a watered down Bible pandering to the same market that buys the kitsch on Christian bookstore shelves, you need to read Peterson’s eloquent and intellectual defense for his work. You will see that he taught the original languages in a seminary before entering the pastorate, that he spent 30 years in the pastorate before sitting down to 10 years of producing The Message, and that he had learned, academic reasons for choosing the tack he chose. He appealed in particular to the “Light from the Ancient East” that Deissmann and others helped bring us so long ago. It really is true, and so important, that we see clearly the language God chose for the New Testament. It’s not as simple as saying, “It was the language of the common man.” As Peterson carefully acknowledges, the language of the NT moves up and down the social registers of the time. But the key words there are “of the time.” The NT was revealed using the language of a particular time, language actual people actually used. When Grenfell and Hunt discovered a trove of Koine Greek papyri at Oxyrhynchus, this was what came out. As Peterson shows with some patient detail, there were many words that were hitherto thought to have appeared only in the New Testament but which proved to be part of common coin.
If you know my work, you know that I cannot help but hear everything I say about the Bible through the ears of our KJV-Only brothers. And in the case of this topic, I hear it also through the ears of my own conservative evangelical tribe. Both groups—rightly!—wish to show honor and reverence to the words of God. Both groups instinctively rely on tradition to help them do so. The KJV-Only appeal to the KJV tradition; my tribe tends to appeal to the tradition of formal/literal translation philosophy. I see great good in both traditions. But I think both groups have worked so hard to protect the Bible from desacralization that we have thereby, at times, hyper-sacralized it. What if, instead, we did what we all say we’re doing? What if we let the Bible itself dictate the social register of our translations?
At the very least, we’d all have to entertain the possibility that Peterson saw something we didn’t, something that was really there, when he made The Message. He himself says in this book that The Message was only meant to be a “supplement” to the study translations. But I see Peterson’s paraphrase with a new seriousness, as a supplement that showed us an element that was missing in many of our main translations—an element that was present in Tyndale, an attempt to really and truly make the biblical writers speak English and not Biblish.
Don’t hear me saying here more than I am. I don’t think the ESV, for example, which my church uses, is so deep into hyper-sacralization that we ought to stop using it. I simply think that’s the ditch it is nearest, and that people who use the ESV in church, as I do, would do well to go to the other side of the Bible translation road on a regular basis and read the NLT—and even The Message. English speakers have an embarrassment of riches to read.
Peterson has many other valuable things to say about Bible reading. If, as some reviewers have pointed out, he is a little fuzzy on some important particulars of doctrine (and I tend to think they’re probably right), this is a book in which that doesn’t matter so much. If people heed the call he’s given to good Bible reading, I’m Protestant enough to believe that much good will come. Peterson did what my friend said he would do: he helped rekindle my desire to Eat this Book....more
I interviewed the author for the Bible Study Magazine Podcast. This is a well written book that really made me think carefully through typology (not fI interviewed the author for the Bible Study Magazine Podcast. This is a well written book that really made me think carefully through typology (not for me a hard sell) and allegory (for me a hard sell) in Scripture. I’m awarding five stars in hopes that I will continue to see allegory as a useful concept for Bible interpretation. I have always been, of course, afraid that it’s a dog that should never be let out of its cage. But if it is to be taken to exegetical obedience school, Chase has proven himself a good trainer. The 40 Questions format makes for an exceptionally pleasant experience, because it forces writers to say a lot of somethings in a short space. I like short chapters.
What really has me thinking is the allegorical interpretation Chase suggests (it still feels weird for me to say that word in any kind of positive way!) for John the Baptist’s diet. I just can’t deny that my Bible reading has brought me to the place where I expect the divine and human authors both to have had some reason for mentioning locusts and wild honey. I expect that reason to be accessible not through additional revelation, not through flights of creative fancy, but through careful reading of the Bible. Part of me doesn’t want to call that “allegory” (this was the question I didn’t get to in my interview: do we have to use that label?). But part of me sees the value in using that label: the text is indeed saying something underneath what it’s saying.
I loved the historical portions of this book. I do expect and want to find continuity with premodern interpreters. I’ve got more reading to do in this space. I want to get back into Craig Carter’s Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition, which explores similar themes to Chase. I’m about halfway through. It’s exciting to see careful evangelical biblical scholars finding good in teachers God gave to the church long ago—and showing how their view of Scripture has things to teach us.
I’m going to keep thinking about this book—and dipping into its neatly laid out examples of typology and allegory....more
I am a huge Steven D. Smith fan. This is a fascinating and powerful book which delivers on its promise to tie ancient Roman paganism to prevailing vieI am a huge Steven D. Smith fan. This is a fascinating and powerful book which delivers on its promise to tie ancient Roman paganism to prevailing views in the contemporary West. I couldn't put it down. Smith is an excellent writer whose wit and erudition and insight I find indispensable....more
I loved Sandel's book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? His power is incisive analysis: he cuts to the Augustinian heart of divisive issues usingI loved Sandel's book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? His power is incisive analysis: he cuts to the Augustinian heart of divisive issues using classic philosophical tools. He also explains all this slowly and clearly. He is the single most gifted guide of classroom discussion that I have ever seen (I not only read Justice; I watched the WBUR Boston recordings of his class; they were sterling).
This book wasn't quite as lean and refined as Justice; it also didn't deal with as important a topic. It was a bit long and a bit repetitive (though because I listened to the audio, read patiently and engagingly by the author, that actually worked out well). And it didn't seem to me to solve the dilemma it kept tossing from hand to hand for hour after hour: If meritocracy isn't so great, and aristocracy not so great either, then what?!
But I'm burying a really important lede: What Sandel did do was give me the best answer I've yet seen to a question I haven't been able to answer since 2016—why in the world did so many Americans vote for reality TV star Donald Trump?! This wasn't the point of the book, more of a very important supporting argument. The main argument was that meritocracy sounds good as a means of allocating certain sought-after goods in a society such as admission to elite colleges and access to high-paying and valorized professions. But—and I'll never forget this—meritocracy tends to make the "winners" feel arrogantly self-congratulatory, forgetful of how very many aspects of their success had nothing to do with their effort; and it tends to make the "losers" feel, well, like that's just what they are. They didn't have the talent or drive to achieve the American Dream, so they're out. Here's where Trump comes in: regular people who do work essential to our society *but not valorized by it* don't like it when elites look down on them. It's galling to hear Hillary Clinton call vast numbers of people "a basket of deplorables," to hear President Obama sneering at those who trust in "God and guns." It's offensive to be told that you are racist for complaining about factory jobs being taken by people in other countries. And yet meritocracy has not only produced all this, it has tempted elites to talk as if credentials equal intelligence, to boot. (I think of Matthew Crawford's Shopclass as Soulcraft, an excellent book, which showed the intellectual challenges inherent in much manual work.)
Aristocracy may keep the peasants and serfs down, but at least they can say to themselves, "I have the talent to rise." They are less likely to conclude, "I am a loser." And aristocracy can produce a noblesse oblige on the part of the aristocrats: they know they don't deserve their privilege, so they share their wealth.
This again, is where I say, "Then what?!" Because I just don't see the West moving back to aristocracy, not on purpose. And if I'm stuck behind Rawls' pre-birth curtain, I'd still choose the meritocratic society and its opportunity over the aristocratic one and its stratified classes. (Though I admit I was shocked to discover that upward mobility in America is actually noticeably lower than it is in a number of European countries.)
So I appreciated Sandel's practical suggestions for toning down the worst elements of meritocracy. And there was a huge irony in one of his key suggestions. Follow me… Sandel critiqued Puritanism as if it were straight up Pelagianism. There was one key line that was just so egregiously wrong—and yet, in a way, perfectly right. He said that the Puritan emphasis on God's grace in election got twisted into self-congratulation for being elect. That is so, so wrong, because Puritans of all people knew that they humbly had no purchase on God's grace, nothing in them to merit it. And yet they would be the first to point out that the human heart is so fallen that it can turn God's grace into a badge of pride. Instead of a critique of the Puritans, I heard in Sandel a critique of human nature. Sandel knows from long labor, I will hazard, that secularism and classical liberalism don't offer serious moral philosophies, so he takes theology seriously, something for which I was grateful. And here I come back to the irony. He proved to me that meritocracy on elite campuses—like the Harvard where he has taught for four decades—is terribly harmful, to the meritocrats and the basket of deplorables alike. He persuaded me that a lottery system would be a much better way for Harvard to select applicants. But by doing this he is, to my mind, implicitly arguing for the grace of God. The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.
Sandel also argued that one way to valorize work rightly would be to legally curtail the money markets, the complex financial instruments that can net millions for the right bettors without actually doing much of anything to invest in business or produce any goods and services of value. This I found persuasive, too.
Biblical theology teaches from its very first page that work is a God-given good. God told Adam to "work and keep" the garden even before the fall. But by page 3, human work has been deeply frustrated by the fall: we've got thorns and thistles everywhere. Sandel's calls to valorize all good work rang biblically true for me.
So did his critiques of meritocracy. One of the most important parables in my theology is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. It shows that no one will get less good than he deserves for his work, but that the Master is generous and sometimes spills out amazing blessing on some and not others. All good I enjoy is by God's grace. There's a reason that conservative evangelical Christians keep saying this to one another. We both believe it and are, by that phrase, asking that Master to help our unbelief. To diminish our pride, our tendency to hoard moral merit in our hearts.
Sandel's book gives me some intellectual tools, tools of careful moral philosophy and of assiduous and wise observation of our world, to help me trust more to God's grace and to be humble and grateful....more
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