Irenaeus on the Old Testament

Leon Sim (sometime commenter here) has written a cracker of an essay on Irenaeus’s understanding of the Old Testament.  Of course that understanding is explicitly christocentric and Trinitarian.
Here are a couple of great quotes from the essay:
Not only does Irenaeus see Christ and the Trinitarian God to be the object of revelation, but he also [...]

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Beating importunately on Scripture

A friend preached a wonderful sermon on the bible last Sunday.  He spoke, among other things, of Luther’s attitude to the bible:
The whole reformation was birthed by a tenacious asking, seeking and knocking at the door of Scripture:
I beat importunately upon Paul at that place (Rom 1:17), most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul [...]

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Reading Scripture trinitarianly

. . . There is no such thing as a non-dogmatic or non-theological engagement of the biblical text, or of any text or language for that matter. Moreover, anti-Trinitarian frames of reference lead to fundamental problems for approaching the Bible and revelation. To illustrate by way of a historical parallel, the early Socinians, whose orientation [...]

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Are you a bible nut??

Take the Christ the Truth patented quiz:
What is your response to the following Scriptures?
 
Scripture 1: Josh 10:12-15 - the sun stays up for a whole extra day
A) What a rich and enigmatic text! The main thing we glean is that the LORD can be trusted in difficult circumstances.
B) [Muffled] I suppose something quite strange happened here.  [...]

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My new favourite word…

…Are you ready?  It’s really particularly awesome.  Here it is:
exeJesus
How cool is that?
What do we want from our exegesis?  ExeJesus that’s what!
Nice one Dave Ingland.
.
 

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Servant Songs help

Isaiah’s servant songs are:

Isaiah 42:1-7
Isaiah 49:1-6
Isaiah 50:4-9
Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Now in the songs, the servant is clearly a figure who acts on behalf of the people.  He is a covenant for the people (42:6).  He will bring Jacob and Israel back to the LORD (49:5,6).  His word is the word the people should fear (50:10). He is rejected [...]

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The literal IS the christocentric

I recently re-read Nathan Pitchford’s excellent short article on the reformers’ hermeneutic.
His basic point is that Sola Scriptura always leads to Solus Christus.  The literal reading simply is the christocentric reading.
For Luther, the grammatical-historical hermeneutic was simply the interpretation of scripture that “drives home Christ.” As he once expressed it, “He who would read the [...]

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All interpretation is theological

This is a repost of Theology – the end of the process??
Is “systematic theology… the end process of exegesis and biblical theology”??  Ben Myers writes brilliantly against such a conception.  To imagine that a pure biblical scholar can dispassionately read off the meaning of the Bible through the use of objective interpretive tools is ludicrous.  To [...]

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Tricky verses

Kyle has asked about this verse from Genesis 4:
23 Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. 24 If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
Thought it provided a good [...]

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NT use of OT

Justin Taylor points us to a very helpful book review by Andy Naselli, whose blog looks great!  What follows is taken straight from Andy’s blog – do check it out for yourself.
Three views on the New Testament use of the Old Testament outlines the following three positions:
Walter Kaiser Jr: “Single Meaning, Unified Referents: Accurate and [...]

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Barth on Jesus in the New Testament

“One can never say of a single part of the narrative, doctrine and proclamation of the New Testament, that in itself it is original or important or the object of the witness intended. Neither the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount nor the eschatology of Mk 13 and parallels, nor the healing of the [...]

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Jesus in the New Testament

These are a few scattered thoughts prompted by my recent mini-series on parables.
We all know Jesus’ rebuke regarding Old Testament understanding – John 5:39ff.  Yet I’m sure a rebuke remains for our appreciation of the New:
You diligently study the New Testament thinking that now you’re breathing the free air of apostolic Christianity and therefore, definitionally, have [...]

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Who’s the daddy?

Ok, no-one wants to touch Preaching Groups.  I respect that.
Let’s return to the parables. 
By now we know.  Jesus is the man who found treasure, the merchant looking for fine pearls and He’s the good samaritan.  So now we turn to the most famous parable.
And what shall we call it?  The prodigal son?  Of course not, [...]

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He saved my life and I don’t even know his name

Anyone else sick of the whole ‘Christ in the OT’ debate?  Man… some people just go on and on.
I’m announcing a new hobby horse – Christ in the NT.  In fact I think this is where you really see a preacher’s Christ-centredness.  We’ve had the rule drummed into us by now – Thou shalt ‘bridge [...]

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Who the man?

So what are these parables about?
Matthew 13:44-46: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, [...]

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Jesus is LORD – not Son of LORD. Some clarifications

Dave K has asked some excellent questions of my last post on this issue.  Here they are in full.  Afterwards is my attempt to address them. 
I’ve been musing on this post over the last day. This is what I have been wondering:
This is clearly right, in many passages NT writers read Jesus in OT passages [...]

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Christology and hermeneutics

It’s common to see a link between christology and our approach to the bible.  There are limits to this but also benefits.  Our approach to both Christ and the bible requires us to encounter something fully human which nonetheless is the Word of God.  Christology can therefore teach us a great deal about how the [...]

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Christ in the Old Testament 13

Ok, let’s continue with this issue of the NT’s handling of the Old. 
If we take the reformation cry of sola Scriptura at all seriously we must allow the Bible to interpret the Bible. Historical-grammatical hermeneutics, archaeology, even the most careful exegesis conducted by the best scholarship must all bow to God’s own word.  He determines [...]

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Christ in the Old Testament 12

By the way, I’m collecting all the posts in this series into one page – Christ in OT.
Now I’d like to share one more reason why I think this stuff matters . It’s this:
When we see that the OT is already a witness to Christ before and even without the NT then we see that [...]

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