Reading Elliot Johnson's Expository Hermeneutics reminded me of of an old truth (as if there is any other kind) by means of a particularly clear statement.
In [Paul's] later affirmation "not all who are descended from Israel are Israel (Rom. 9:6), Paul emphasizes that "physical is not sufficient"—which is quite different from saying "physical is not necessary or essential" (p. 48).
Too many people are saying the latter. We should be affirming the former.
1. A Good Hermeneutic ... since you have to have a framework for intelligible communication.
2. A Good Systematic Theology ... because the Bible only has one system of truth (though it may at times be confusing to our human finitude) and every text has to fit with every other.
3. A Good Understanding of the Text ... because you have to know what God said and what he meant when he said it.
4. A Good Understanding of Your Audience ... because you have to know where they live in order to communicate the meaning of the text in its theological context in a way that they will understand it.
5. The Ability to Communicate ... so that your audience will be able to grasp God's word for their lives and be challenged to live by it.
Sloth doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing nothing. Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done — like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions. (Richard Exley, Mark Galli and John Ortberg, Dangers, Toils & Snares : Resisting the Hidden Temptations of Ministry (Sisters, Or.: Multnomah Books, 1994), 52).
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(I had to think about the kamikaze line for a moment. Did you?)
The prophecy of Gabriel to Mary in Luke 1:30-33 is an interesting one for amillennialists.
The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end."
Every evangelical amillennialist takes the first part of this prophecy literally. They believe that a literal young lady will literally become pregnant and will have an literal son, who will literally be named Jesus. (If you deny this, you are not an evangelical.)
But then these same evangelical amillennialists take a strange turn when they deny that this literal son literally named Jesus born to a literal young woman will literally rule on the throne of David over the house of Jacob.
They suddenly resort to a spiritual interpretation that the throne of David (which historically was in Jerusalem) is now found in the heart of believers everywhere, and that that house of Jacob (which in the Old Testament was unquestionably a reference to the ethnic descendants of Jacob) is now an amalgamation of people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
The only thing I cannot figure out is why they make this sudden change in hermeneutics. There is no textual reason to make a change, and no necessary theological reason. Mary certainly would not have understood some type of spiritual kingdom.
This sudden switch, as best as I can tell, arises, not from the text, but from a precommitment to not having a literal fulfillment of this prophecy.
But why this precommitment? That is what I have never understood.
I am sitting here writing a lesson on the Tribulation and listening to a mother down a few tables yell at correct her children. It reminds me that children and tribulation (not the Tribulation) have much in common.
I have always been an expert on raising children. Well, that is, until two years ago when my own son was born. (Here he is with the remnants of his first piece of his Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake on his lips.)
I have listened to parents correct children for years, and have been convinced that many times, parents correct children out of their own frustration rather than out of a desire to raise up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Then I hear myself do it, and am even more convinced that I often do it out of frustration because I am inconvenienced. Certainly he is wrong in disobedience. But when I allow my own frustration to rule correction, I am also wrong.
As parents, perhaps our tempers too easily flare. Our voices too easily raise. We are upset, not because the child is living in gross open sin, but because their shenanigans inconvenience us. When we correct people (whether children or those whom the Lord has committed to us for ministry and discipleship) out of our own frustration, we have ceased to make disciples of Christ. We have simply started making our own disciples--people who do not inconvenience us or bring shame to us, rather than making disciples of Christ--people who do not inconvenience him, his gospel, or bring shame to his name.
Disciplining our children must be viewed as a disciple making opportunity, an opportunity to teach them what pleases God and what does not. While we cannot be sure of their spiritual state, we can take seriously the need to teach them the ways of the Lord.
The job of a parent is not to raise decent, upstanding citizens of an earthly kingdom. It is raise children whose citizenship is in another world, who are disciples of the King, and who live like it in this world.
