Part Three This is the fourth and last installment of my reply to some NCT’s who did a critique of my Forty Reasons For Not Reinterpreting the OT with the NT. (link, link) I believe I have probably given their podcast more attention than it deserved; not because it criticizes me (which is fine), but because of the sloppy and frankly facetious way the criticism was done. At the end of the last post I mentioned their reference to Galatians …
Category: Biblical Studies
Part Two Continuing with the theme of Reason 3 about changing referents (e.g. Israel, land, king, throne, priesthood, temple, Jerusalem, Zion, etc.), we were redirected to Waldo World. Meanwhile, the referents themselves were simply ignored. This way of (not) reading the OT is common among those who believe they are justified in reading the Hebrew Bible through NT lenses (although it is crucial to add that the lenses are actually their interpretation of the NT). As I have started to …
Part One Any Old Port in A Storm We’re still on the ‘Conversations on the Porch’ objection to the first of my Forty Reasons why the OT is not reinterpreted by the NT, since according to my three protagonists, if this first one falls, they all fall. There are always stock passages that are referred to by proponents of reinterpretation. For example, 1 Peter 1:10-12 says this: Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of …
A little while back Fred Butler told me that he had passed on my Forty Reasons article to a group of brethren connected with a network called Bible Thumping Wingnut. These men are proponents of New Covenant Theology and host a podcast called ‘Conversations on the Porch.’ They decided to spend some time on a critique of my article. This series of posts is my belated rejoinder to what they had to say. First off, I have to admit …
I have been made aware that a group of New covenant theologians have discussed some my list of forty arguments for not reading the New Testament back into the Old Testament. I intend to write a Response soon. But I thought it worthwhile to repost the original list. I have yet to encounter a serious attempt to refute these Reasons. Introduction It seems to be almost an axiom within contemporary, evangelical Bible interpretation that the New Testament must be allowed …
I am in the middle of several things right now, but I had the idea of rehearsing a recent interchange with some CT’s and adding a few reflections. I think it typifies what I tend to run into when trying to communicate my reservations about CT. I kick it off with a remark made by my main interlocutor about God’s way of communicating. He declared that, God may do other than what the original audience understood. God’s promises will …
Part Eight This is the final post in this series, the purpose of which has been to ask whether “replacement theology” and “supercessionism” correctly describe what some theologies, covenant theology especially, do with the nation of Israel and its OT promises in teaching fulfillment through “transformation” into Christ and the church. I am not saying that every CT (or NCT) will want to see themselves undercover of these names, only that the names fairly describe this aspect of the way …
Part Seven My stated intention in these posts is to try to settle whether or not it is proper to speak in terms of theologies of supercessionism or replacement theology. It is not my design to argue for the opposite view (which I have done many times before). I am coming towards the end of my article, with probably one post left to go. I said that I wanted to take a look at two OT passages to discover how …
Part Six Gary Burge: Replacement Theologian The name of Gary Burge of Wheaton College is familiar to many Christians who teach eschatology that includes the restoration of the remnant of the nation of Israel, but not for positive reasons. His positions on Israel, fueled in large part by his associations with the anti-Israel group Kairos USA, Naim Ateek, Stephen Sizer, and Pro-Palestinianism in general, hardly encourage fuzzy feelings. On the theological front, Burge freely speaks of spiritualizing and reinterpreting Scripture. Not …
Part Five I finished the last installment by stating that in viewing the Bible from a certain redemptive-historical perspective (a common one I might add), the only conclusion that one can come to is that the church has always existed, and that therefore elect Israel in the OT was the church of the OT to which now the Gentiles have been added in the NT era. Remember these words from Sam Storms: [Paul] clearly states that there is but one …
