SEPTEMBER 2017

In this edition . . .

Welcome to the September 2017 edition of The Eclectic Kasper!

This edition, we look at some of the clearest verses in the New Testament about the deity of Christ, and we continue our verse-by-verse study through Romans. We have an article about the significance about the German Peasants’ War of 1525, an “eclectic flashback” to an article called “The Difficulty with Diversity,” and much more!

We would love to hear from you: What do you think about our articles? What would you like to see us write about or discuss in the future? Send your responses, thoughts and ideas to feedback@eclectickasper.com.

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Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic!

DEITY OF CHRIST: “Our God and Savior,” Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1

We’ve been pretty patient in this series, carefully explaining verses and concepts in the Bible that clearly affirm the deity of Christ (you can see all of these articles here). As we said at the end of the last article in this series, “No matter what your theological background or exegetical expertise, it is academically dishonest to assert that passages in John 1, Philippians 2, and here in Colossians 1 do not firmly and fully teach the unqualified deity of Jesus Christ.”

Again, we’re not really interested in proving the deity of Christ any more than we are in proving that Christ resurrected from the dead or that God created the earth in six literal days; we adhere to these affirmations by faith, although any evidence that can be used to support these affirmations is helpful.

We’re not trying to prove those beliefs themselves, but rather, we’re trying to prove that the Bible affirms those beliefs. Therefore, if anyone claims to believe in the Bible, as many do, she or he must have the intellectual and interpretive integrity to affirm that the Bible is clear about most of what it asserts, such as the affirmation that God created the earth in six literal days, or that Christ actually rose from the dead, or that Christ is completely and fully God.

It is difficult to get more clear about the affirmation that Christ is fully God than the phrase that is applied to Him by two different New Testament writers, and that phrase is “Our God and Savior,” used in Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1.

The question in both of these verses is whether the two titles are referring to one individual or two. If two, then the author is addressing the Father and the Son. If one, then this would be a clear, unambiguous statement of the deity of Christ.

Normally, a NT author will distinguish between the Father and the Son, such as in 1 Timothy 1:1 or James 1:1. Could it be that in Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 Paul and Peter are referring to God the Father and Christ the Savior?

The question is an unambiguous “no,” and we can be confident about that conclusion thanks to an obscure but reliable principle in Greek grammar. This problem was cleared up by something called the Granville Sharp Rule, or simply, Sharp’s Rule. This is a bit technical so I’ll try to be concise, though if you want more, I would start with a two-page explanation in Dan Wallace’s Exegetical Syntax (271-272).

The rule deals with a construction known as the TSKS construction, meaning, there is an article (“the”), a noun or “substantive,” the word kai which is the Greek word for “and,” followed by another substantive. The Granville Sharp principle notes that in a TSKS construction, the two substantives refer to the same noun when neither is impersonal, plural nor a proper name. There are 80 clear examples of the Granville Sharp construction in the NT that satisfy these conditions and demonstrate that the two nouns or titles refer to one person, though not all of these 80 examples are exegetically significant.

Titus 2:13 mentions the “appearing,” but are we looking for the “appearing” of two Persons of the Godhead, Father and Son, or to just one? The Granville Sharp Rule recognizes the pattern in similar grammatical constructions in the NT and strongly suggests that we should interpret this verse as applying both titles “God” and “Savior” to Christ.

It is also noteworthy that the NT contains no references to God the Father “appearing” or visibly returning to earth with Christ. In fact, the NT refers to the Father as invisible (1 Tim 1:17) and as eternally unseen by man (John 1:18). Also, the words “God” and “Savior” are connected in Isaiah 43:3, 45:15, Luke 1:47 and 1 Timothy 4:10, and in those verses, the term clearly refers to one Person, or, more precisely, one Person of the Godhead. Thus, in Titus 2:13, the two terms “our great God” and “Savior” both apply to Jesus Christ.

This same construction and phrase is seen in 2 Peter 1:1, except that it lacks the word “great” it its version. It is worth noting that the deity of Christ was so important to Peter, that he begins this second epistle by asserting it right there in the introduction.

A few other things to note: a similar grammatical construction, “Lord and Savior” is used in 2 Peter 1:11, 2:20 and 3:18. Do these phrases refer to one person or two? They clearly refer to one individual, Jesus Christ, who is both Lord and Savior. Why then shouldn’t we affirm that the two titles in the phrase “God and Savior” in 2 Peter 1:1 also both refer to one individual? Additionally, when Peter wants to distinguish between the Persons of the Godhead, he does so, as he did previously in 2 Peter 1:2 or as he did in 1 Peter 1:2-3.

For grammatical reasons and theological reasons, both Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 are clear, unambiguous affirmations of Christ’s deity. In fact, I would put these with John 1:1 as the top three proof texts of the deity of Christ by three different NT apostles.

So again, many people don’t believe the Bible at all and don’t care what it asserts or how it asserts it. However, if you claim to be a believer in the Bible but you don’t affirm the deity of Christ, you are living in a world of intellectual dishonesty and self-deception.

HISTORY: A Reformation Revolution in 1525

When we think today about major revolutions, we tend to think of the America Revolution in 1776 or the French revolution begun in 1789. Other revolutions of varying levels of success pepper the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, as well; the July Revolution of 1830 (the subject of the musical Les Misérables) or the more widespread workers revolutions of 1848 come to mind.

But most people know very little of a revolution that preceded these others by several centuries. That revolution is the German Peasant’s Revolt of 1525. Some of my own doctoral research has revolved around this event. What is especially interesting is the interplay between what the reformers were saying and what the peasants heard or thought that they heard, and how they translated reformed doctrines into social action. The peasant grievance documents that were written by or for the peasants before the revolt are also fascinating. They are clear, well-written, and include several citations to Biblical passages in their texts, providing an atypical glimpse into the mindset of masses during this time.

This is the revolution the most educators today don’t want you to know about. Much of our educational system is based on principles from the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century; there is a subtle assumption that people who lived before 1750 were generally not as smart or Enlightened as us, and don’t have much to offer to us today. While that may sound like an overstatement, my own time in secular academia confirms that it is not.

Also, many educators and historians don’t want us to know that people had a clear sense of class conscious and self-awareness well before Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto. Individuals in the late medieval and early modern periods may not have been as educated as we are today, but many were actually smarter and more resourceful than we have been led to believe.

How Important is the Deity of Christ?

We’ll, it’s important enough that we’ve devoted a whole series of articles to the Biblical arguments for Christ’s deity, which you can access here. Also, don’t forget to swing over and give our The Eclectic Kasper Facebook page a “like”!

The German Peasants’ Revolt took place between 1524 and 1526. This was, of course, just a few years after Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses in 1517, an event commonly seen as the initiation of the German Protestant Reformation. The military activity of the revolt occurred in south and central German lands mainly during the first half of 1525. Thomas Brady calculates that “the rebel armies took part in at least 60 military engagements: 13 pitched battles, 19 skirmishes, 11 raids and ambushes, 6 sieges, 7 storms of walled places, and 4 bombardments” (Brady, German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400-1650, 187).

The Peasants’ Revolt was especially indebted to the theological emphases of the German Protestant Reformation and its key leaders like Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and Thomas Müntzer. In fact, this differentiates the Peasants’ Revolt of 1525 from those that preceded. The revolt of 1476 in Nilkashausen, for instance, was based on Hans Böhm’s visions of the Virgin Mary. The Bundschuh uprising in 1493 and the Poor Conrad Revolt of 1514 also reflected religious overtones and swelling anticiclericalism, that is, hostility to the Roman Catholic priests and bishops.

However, by the mid 1520s, the Reformation had provided to the peasants a doctrinal self-awareness as well as specific vocabulary and concepts—universal priesthood, dichotomy between heavenly and secular authority, and Biblical exegesis—which were lacking in previous revolts. Rebellions during the early phase of the Reformation strove to implement practical ramifications of Christian doctrine in specific social contexts.

The peasants not only leveraged Reformation principles and methodology, but also Luther’s personality as the consummate rebel. The deluge of Luther’s popular pamphlets portrayed him as subversive against previously-revered church and state power structures. Luther seemed to have no authority except God and Scripture, and the peasants felt that they, too, should no longer be dominated by any exploitive ecclesiastical or civic hierarchies. In the 1521 Edict of Worms, the Catholic church had anathematized Luther and implicitly instructed the rulers to shun the Reformers, their followers and their teachings. Ironically, then, the peasants and burghers were more familiar with Reformation theology and tenets than were the educated and literate Catholic nobility, which never appreciated the theological implications of the peasants’ documents, but only perceived them as heretical and socially subversive. Historians identify a variety of intertwined and overlapping economic, religious, political and social reasons for the revolt, and this tends to divide those who write about it. Of course, as mentioned in the article “The Hunt for Understanding History” below, Marxist historians see that these insurrections were driven primarily by material and economic concerns. Peter Blickle, however, believes that this war was more of a revolution than merely a series of local insurrections: “Formulated negatively, [the war’s] objective was to destroy feudal structures; formulated positively, it sought to expand communal competency (all the way to autonomy) and extend the political rights of the individual” (“Social Protest and Reformation Theology,” Religion, Politics and Social Protest: Three Studies on Early Modern Germany, 17).

My own research, however, suggests that there was a strong apocalyptic, or end times, motivation behind the actions and interactions of the Reformers and the German peasants in the first half of the 1520s. In fact, the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century was rife with apocalyptic and eschatological zeal. Though historians tend to disregard this, I believe that this theology and apocalypticism was much more of motivating force during this time period than historians have acknowledged.

Another fascinating aspect of this revolt was the interaction between some of the elite reformers, like Luther and Müntzer, and how they both perceived revolt. Their different responses may shock you, but we’ll save that for another edition.

EMERGENT CONCERNS: The Difficulty with Diversity

The following article is originally from the August 2011 edition of The Eclectic Kasper, and presented here with minor modifications.

Diversity may be beneficial in many instances. I have been encouraged to see churches that reflect a diversity in ethnicity and race, as well as those which incorporate a variety of age ranges and evangelical perspectives. Additionally, diversity of opinions that are held humbly, discussed profitably, and debated civilly should be welcome in church, as long as there is, as The Eclectic Kasper has strenuously argued, unity in the essentials of the faith.

However, unrestrained diversity can lead to dangerous divergence. In this article, I want to present the danger of unrestrained diversity in the Emergent movement and some of the dangerous divergences that are already popping up as a result.

The Emergent church not only embraces culture’s methods, as megachurches often do, but actually accepts culture’s, and specifically postmodern culture’s, way of thinking. They prize individual opinion, distrust absolute truth, and value diversity. Diversity is, of course, an increasingly adored virtue in an increasingly postmodern society. One who decries unbridled diversity and pluralism could be vilified as backwater, dogmatic, or exclusivistic. Ironically, postmodernism sometimes neuters free thought by both demanding that everyone has to be equally diverse and by exhibiting intolerance to those who are not.

However, I do not see anywhere in Scripture where theological diversity is held up as a virtue. Believers are not adjured to be creative with doctrine or innovative in their theologizing. Believers are to rally around apostolic doctrine as revealed in Scripture and to remain within the strictures of the Christian metanarrative (1 Cor 11:2; 16:13; 1 Thess 2:13; 2 Thess 2:15; Jude 1:3).

Do You Like Theology?

Theology is one of our specialties here at The Eclectic Kasper. You can see a whole host of theological topics here in our “Eclectic Archive,” including a series about the “essentials” of Christianity, some concerns about the emerging church movement, a series about charismatic churches, and several articles about Martin Luther.

The Emergent movement represents a dangerous diversity of theological opinion. There is not a singular cohesive voice that represents Emergent beliefs, but an unmanageably diverse range of Emergent prophets. By their own admission they often utilize exaggeration (Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” Christianity Today, February 2007, p. 36), especially in terms of criticizing mainline evangelicalism. One of their own declares: “The rhetoric of emerging Christians can be shocking, alarming and hyperbolic. They are frequently given to dramatic overstatement” (Kevin Corcoran, Church in the Present Tense, p. xiv.). Several concede that this is a problem and that such Emergent rhetoric, “Can be sloppy, unnecessarily misleading, obnoxiously jargon laden, and incoherent” (ibid.). David Kowalski’s illustration of the diversity of thought in the Emergent movement is helpful: “If we think of this distinctive essence of Emergent as a lake, we can observe that some people, such as Brian McLaren, are swimming in its deepest spot, while others, such as Scott McKnight, are wading in the lake at a shallower depth. Still others (perhaps John Ortberg and Rick Warren fit this description), seem to enjoy boating on the lake and occasionally drinking its water, enjoying friendship with the movement while maintaining a distinctly Evangelical identity (David Kowalski, “Appropriate Response to the Emerging Church Movement,” http://www.apologeticsindex.org/290-emerging-church).

The most radical Emergents, who also tend to be the most published (such as Brian McLaren and Rob Bell), express the Emergent diversity of thought by questioning or minimizing fundamental tenets of Christianity, such as the authority of the Bible, the Trinity, and the substitutionary atonement. Rob Bell takes a slap at the one of the “Fundamentals” of the faith, specifically, the virgin birth of Christ, when he hypothesizes: “What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archaeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in . . . . Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart? (Velvet Elvis, pp. 26-27). Though he personally affirms the truth of the virgin birth himself, Bell’s insinuation is that Christianity can survive without the virgin birth, and an individual can find meaning in the Christian faith without it. Of course, historic Christianity would emphatically disagree with Bell’s minimizing of this crucial doctrine and its implications, especially its implications on the deity of Christ.

Bell takes a more distressing blast at the historic evangelical perception of the Bible: “This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that ‘Scripture alone’ is our guide. It sounds nice, but it is not true. In reaction to abuses by the church, a group of believers during a time called the Reformation claimed that we only need the authority of the Bible. But the problem is that we got the Bible from the church voting on what the Bible even is. . . . When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true” (Velvet Elvis, pp. 67-68). This kind of de-emphasis on the centrality of Scripture feeds a mystical (and imprecise) sense of ongoing revelation: “Emerging Christians believe God is still revealing himself in the ordinary and earthly” (Corcoran, p. xv.).

Worse yet, under the guise of diversity, some of the most high profile Emergent leaders encourage inter-religious dialogue that minimizes the exclusivity of Biblical Christianity. McLaren comments, “Jesus did not come to create another exclusive religion” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 109). This is again where one sees their rejection of an exclusively Christian metanarrative: “Complex understandings meant for all people, in all places, for all times, are simply not possible” (Doug Pagitt, “The Emerging Church and Embodied Theology,” Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, ed. Robert Webber, p. 137).

This acceptance of diversity affects how the Emergent movement explains theology relative to evangelism and global missions. Again, McLaren: “I must add, though, that I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 260). Some even strongly recommend not just reading, but, apparently, meditating on literature from other religions. Rob Bell suggests: “For a mind blowing introduction to emergence theory and divine creativity, set aside three months and read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything” (Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, p. 192, note 143). Ken Wilber is an expert in eastern mystical (especially Buddhist) philosophies, yet hailed here by Bell as though he were a revolutionary evangelical. However, there is little room for religious tolerance in Scripture (Ex 34:14; Deut 6:13; Acts 4:12; Rev 2:14-16), and, as Mark Driscoll asserts, “To bring all religions together, Emergent Liberals will need to compromise the doctrinal truths of Christianity even further” (Mark Driscoll, “Navigating the Emerging Church Highway,” Christian Research Journal, Volume 31, No. 04, p. 20).

Religious diversity and tolerance slide fretfully close to universalism. McLaren suggests that “Jesus’ message could provide a unique space or common ground for urgently needed religious dialogue . . . . the future of our planet may depend on such dialog” (Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, p. 7). Rob Bell has frequently been accused of flirting with universalism by chastising Christianity for its emphasis on the affirmation of Heaven and Hell: “A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear” (Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, p. viii).

The distinctiveness of Christianity ridicules the craze of diversity. In the OT, worship of the one true God was a system of exclusivity; no divine competition, even if imaginary, nor any form of allegiance to such was tolerated (Ex 20:3-5; Deut 6:14; 32:39; 2 Kings 17:35; Is 45:5-6; 47:8, 10; Jer 25:6). Christianity takes its cue from the OT and emphasizes the exclusivity of Christ for salvation (John 10:9; 14:6; Acts 4:12; 10:43; Eph 2:18; 3:12; 1 Tim 2:5).

It is hard to argue for the validity of a diversity of thought systems in light of these texts. After all, if one has the truth, anything else would be a dilution or abandonment of that truth.

MUSIC: Three Eclectic Classical CDs

I have purchased several classical CDs over the last several months. Three of these have floated to the top in terms of their substance and quality. These classical CDs characterize three important phases of what is broadly called classical music.

The earliest of these CDs is of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, by Infinity Digital/ Sony Music Entertainment (1994), representing the period in music known as the Baroque period (from roughly 1600 to 1750).

Honestly, I sometimes have a hard time listening to Johann Sebastian Bach, who is doubtlessly the most famous and prolific Baroque composer; yet, much of his work often sounds, in my opinion, fairly redundant. I sometimes find Frederick Handel only slightly less so. Baroque music, for all its flourishes can sound mechanical and pedantic and sometimes downright boring. Sometimes it seems more about the mechanical and academic approach to the music than about finding a genuinely great melody. This is where music from the “Classical” period (about 1750 – 1800, which we’ll look at next) puts more emphasis on a simple melody over all of the coloratura.

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons stands out to me among other famous Baroque compositions for its diversity, for its precision, and for its great melodies. It reflects the measured and intentional exactitude of the Baroque period, and yet possesses the musical dynamism and passion that is more characteristic of the Romantic period (about 1800 – 1900).

This particular recording also features three fascinating Vivaldi Concertos (tracks #13-21). Another thing that I like about this CD is that I don’t know who is playing violin on it. That is, The Four Seasons tends to be a piece used by violin divas to show off their skills, which tends to make the end product uneven and not as enjoyable. This is not a CD about violin prima donnas, but rather, an album about staying true to Vivaldi’s works without tripping over virtuosos’ egos.

Another CD that I have enjoyed recently contains two string quartets by Joseph Haydn and one by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Philips Classical series). This CD is well within the “Classical” period (again, about 1750 – 1800). The two Haydn quartets are the “Emperor” and “Lark” Quartets, and the Mozart piece is the “Hunt” Quartet (K. 458).

In addition to the fact that one of these three pieces is by the always-delightful Mozart -- and he does not disappoint on this CD! -- two other aspects of this CD will interest various readers of The Eclectic Kasper. The first movement of the “Lark” (track #5 on this CD) was played in the Firefly episode “Shindig”; we noted this in our June 2016 article “More of What Made It To The ‘Verse.” Another note is that the second movement of the “Emperor” Quartet (track #2) lends its melody to two hymns: “Praise the Lord! Ye Heavens, Adore Him” and “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.” This is an extremely pleasant CD both to enjoy and study, but also as soothing background music.

What is the Emergent Church Movement?

What does it mean to be post-modern or emergent? We actually have a really interesting series of articles about the emergent or emerging church here in our “Eclectic Archive.”

A third CD is from Deutsche Grammophon and contains three works from Ottorino Respighi. The three pieces are called, “Pines of Rome,” “Roman Festivals” and “Roman Fountains,” written between 1916 and 1928, and all three have four movements. I have mixed feelings about this CD; the first movements of “Pines of Rome” and “Roman Festivals” (track #1 and #5) are dynamic, moving and vivid. The style vacillates between Igor Stravinsky and John Williams, and it is evocative of some of the epic movie soundtracks of the last few decades. The third piece, “Fountains of Rome” is interesting, but not quite as strong; it was allegedly a failure when it was first performed in 1916, and by the end of the first movement, the audience was hissing with disdain. The reason that I looked into this CD is that some of the music is featured in Disney’s Fantasia 2000, which is the sequel to the 1940 Fantasia. In fact, Fantasia 2000 has the distinction of being the sequel released longest after the original, a gap of 59 years between the two (Fantasia 2000 was actually released in 1999). Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” is the second orchestral piece of this film. The producers wisely decided to use movements 1, 3 and 4; the second movement, frankly, is childish, painful and doesn’t lend itself to any good animation. The fact that “Pines of Rome” is set to the choreography of flying whales (yes, you read that right . . . flying whales) shouldn’t detract from the beautiful cinematography and the very fitting musical backdrop that Respighi provides.

In all, this CD is not exactly great music for playing in the background of a formal party, but it is interesting and useful nonetheless.

What great CDs of any musical style have you listened to recently? Write a paragraph about it and send it in to feedback@eclectickasper.com and we’ll publish your thoughts or review in an upcoming edition of The Eclectic Kasper!

ROMANS: The Oracles of God, Romans 3:1-4

Paul had just spend the better part of Romans 2 arguing that the Jews are just as guilty before God as the gentiles. Nobody is in a position of being worthy of salvation or immune from God’s judgment just because of their heritage, religious upbringing, or, as he argues in vv. 25-29, because of circumcision.

In Romans 3:1, Paul asks rhetorical questions some in his audience may be wondering: What then is the benefit of being a Jew? What value was there in being circumcised? These questions drive home the point that the self-righteous Jew has no real advantage over the pagan. This realization launches Paul into the discussion of universal fallenness and depravity that consumes most of Romans 3.

The word “advantage” comes from the root word perissos, meaning “abundant.” One’s status and beliefs should place them at a distinct advantage relative to not having it. Paul has and will continue to challenge the notion that the individual Jew’s relationship to the Law places him in an abundantly advantageous position relative to not having that relationship.

After Romans 2, we expect Paul to answer his own question by suggesting that there is not much benefit for the Jew. Yet he surprises us by acknowledging that ideally, the law, and circumcision, and the Jewish heritage is a great advantage to the Jew, if they understand properly what they have (v. 2). The phrase “great in every way” describes ideally the advantages they have, again, if they understand, appreciate, and utilize them.

Leon Morris comically comments that the word “first” in v. 2 “leads us to expect a list, but Paul never gets past his first.” This is significant however, as Morris points out, that this one advantage of being entrusted with the Law “is the great, supreme privilege of the Jew” (Morris, The Epistle To The Romans, p. 153).

The word for “entrusted” is pisteuo, which usually means “to believe in,” when referring to a the trust an inferior places in a superior, such as man to man or man to God. In this context, however, it is clearly the opposite, specifically, the belief or faith that is exercised from a superior to an inferior. A similar aorist passive form is used by Paul of God entrusting him with apostleship and the gospel (1 Tim 1:11; Titus 1:3). Here in Romans 3:2, the aorist passive is used of God entrusting the Jews with the unique revelation of the Law.

That revelation is referred to as the “oracles” of God. The word logios, an obvious variant of logos, is an adjective meaning “eloquent” and “learned.” It is used to refer to divine oracles in Acts 7:38; Heb 5:12; 1 Pet 4:11. In the LXX 19 of its 35 uses occur in Psalm 119, a psalm that continually affirms the value of God’s Word and Law. The word logios, or “oracle” is perhaps intended to communicate a sense of ancient mystique and antique authority relative to laws of the Lord. The Word of God in the believer’s life is incredibly valuable.

We could perhaps ask a parallel question today: What do people gain for all their years in church as opposed to the person who makes a deathbed conversion? The answer is the Word of God; the churched individual has the Scriptures to nurture their spiritual life and give them spiritual direction. Also, we could ask a similar question about people who wander from the faith even though they were raised in church. What they gain from their exposure to the Word of God is the probability that they will veer back toward the faith; one’s proximity to the oracles of God early provides a framework for that person’s thinking and understanding that they often return to later.

Paul seeks an implication of this in v. 3: “What then?” He is not content to have an audience that does not think through the ramifications of their beliefs.

Paul mentions the “unbelief” of many in the Old Testament. Morris affirms that “it is equally possible that Paul has in mind Jewish unbelief, the failure to trust, despite the revelation God has given” (Morris, Romans, 154). That is, it is unnecessary to force this phrase to mean either they didn’t trust, or that they didn’t trust in God, or they didn’t respond appropriately to God’s revelation; all of these are essentially synonymous for rejecting God and not carrying out the Law.

Paul affirms that the unbelief of some of the Jews does not “nullify” the faithfulness of God. The word atargeo means “render ineffective, nullify, cancel; destroy, abolish, do away with,” and it is frequently used in Romans in connection with the Law (Rom 3:3, 31; 4:14; 6:6; 7:2, 6); Paul assures us that sin will not nullify the fidelity of God nor will faith nullify the value of the law. Instead, the faithfulness of God is stronger, and more elemental to His own redemption program than is the faith or faithlessness of some.

To the question in v. 3, Paul responds emphatically in v. 4 that the unfaithfulness of man will not thwart the faithfulness of God. The Greek phrase me genoito is a favorite strong phrase of negation used by Paul 14 of 15 times in the NT except once in Luke (Luke 20:16; Rom 3:4, 6, 31; 6:2, 15; 7:7, 13; 9:14; 11:1, 11; 1 Cor 6:15; Gal 2:17; 3:21; 6:14).

This verse really speaks to all the times people accuse God of being unjust, unfair, or untrue. He is perceived as unfair for not saving tribal peoples who have never heard the gospel, or unjust for allowing tragedies to happen, or monstrously unreasonable in electing some but not others. However, in the end, God will prove to prevail in truth and faithfulness while mankind is so steeped in delusion, lies and finitude; all of our mortal accusations against God will prove childishly and petulantly untrue.

To verify this, Paul quotes from David’s prayer of penitence in Psalm 51, specifically, the second half of Psalm 51:4. There, David admits that he is the one who is wrong; any notion that God has unjustly brought difficulty upon David is completely invalid. God generally promises good to those who are faithful and obedient, and pain and sorrow for those who disobey and sin. David acknowledges that God is faithful to His Word and that it was David who was wrong for trying to find satisfaction and joy outside of God’s standards.

This obscure passage provides a few poignant reminders. First, when people stray from God’s oracles, they find themselves outside of God’s will for their lives. Paul suggests that this is the fate for those who were entrusted with God’s words, and yet failed to obey them.

Second, this passage provides a dark warning: Not everyone who is close to the oracles of God believes in them. Many young people go through youth group, Awana, attend a good church or a Christian school, and yet for all their exposure to the oracles of God, they refuse to believe. Their life is one of compliance to standards, and jumping through religious hoops, but not a life of genuine faith, obedience, and discipleship.

Finally, and comfortingly, God is always right in what He does. It does not matter what opposition God and His people face now or ever: God and His Word are true, showing both now and in the last days that all antagonists will be nothing but liars. The oracles of God stand, even when every fact, philosophy or ideology of the world falls.

ON MY BOOKSHELF: The Hunt for Understanding History

Lynn Hunt’s book Writing History In the Global Era (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014) is valuable for laying out the history of historiography. Historiography describes how we understand historical events and the lens through which we interpret the past. In other words, history describes the past, historiography describes how we understand the past. There are more approaches to the interpretation than most people know.

I appreciated Hunt’s concise treatment and explanation of each of the major schools of history writing and analysis, or what are sometimes referred to as the different “paradigms” for history writing. None of these paradigms developed in a vacuum; some approaches to history writing built upon others, and, for that matter, certain approaches to historiography spring up in opposition to others. Sometimes, as she noted often, a school of history writing spawns its own greatest antagonists.

For all the contributions that the Marxist perspective has made to analyzing and writing history, it is helpful to see how others have recognized flaws and holes in this approach. Hunt notes, for instance, how Steward Hall believed that “traditional Marxism downplayed the importance of ideology and culture with its emphasis on the economics of production” (20). In my own research on early sixteenth-century German culture, I have noted how Friedrich Engels’ work on the German Peasants’ War of 1525 (in his 1850 work The Peasant War in Germany) placed far too much emphasis on factors such as economics, class, and means of production, especially in a cultural environment so replete with religious conflict and apocalyptic zeal. Of course, I, conversely, need to make sure that I am not placing disproportionate emphasis on the role of religion as a motivating factor for individuals in this time period.

Hunt’s emphasis on the historiography of society especially resonated with me. She notes two elements that contributed to the shift from a religion-oriented society to societies that were more secularized. There was a shift toward recognizing that societies were built on social relationships and not imposed by supernatural means: “Secularization in the West went hand in hand with the belief that society institutes itself” (84). The privatization of religion is another key, where “religion is relegated to the private sphere, to the realm of individual or family choice” (85). She notes that many of the paradigms that developed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the perspectives of Marx, Freud, and Foucault, were attempts to analyze and explain social dynamics (87-88). These paradigms strove to examine and understand society apart from religious moorings.

This raises a series of questions that continue to fascinate me: What effects did the shift from religious worldviews to secular worldviews have on individuals and on societies? To what extent did some agents attempt to engineer this shift or was the shift more unintentional or accidental? How much does religion factor into human agency at different points of time? Or were those agents, including those who claimed to be acting in the name of religion, actually, motivated more by class or economics than they realized?

Again, in the case of the German Peasants’ War, it is immensely difficult to untangle social and economic motivations for revolt from religious ones. Is there sufficient evidence—documentary or otherwise—to be able to determine the motives for the majority of the participants? Is religion a reliable axis of analysis for writing history? I appreciate Hunt’s reference to Wilfred Cantwell Smith, who insisted that religion needs to be more than just a cultural “add on” in historical studies (97). But do the prevailing paradigms provide enough room for or appreciation of the religious motivations of those in the past?

In the end, we need to be careful of being locked into a perspective or paradigm that rushes prematurely to conclusions that only affirm that particular paradigm or that lacks flexibility to accommodate a large array of data. As Hunt astutely observes, “Some scholars have concluded that paradigms themselves are of little value . . . since they inevitably shortchange the diversity of historical experiences” (120-121). While Hunt is quick to assert the value of paradigms, it is good to ask these questions of our paradigms and worldviews, nonetheless, to make sure that they are as pliable and as honest as possible.