Vol. 38, No. 12           December 2007

    Most evangelical believers know there are five warning passages in the book of Hebrews: 2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 5:11-6:12; 10:19-39 and 12:14-29. However, not all evangelicals agree on how these passages should be interpreted. One of the most basic issues of debate concerns the New Testament teaching on apostasy and the possibility of believers “falling away” from the faith, either intentionally or unintentionally.

    In many passages Paul encouraged the believers to whom he was writing to “stand” (histemi) firm in their faith (1 Cor. 15:58; 16:13; 2 Cor. 1:21, 24; Gal. 5:1; Eph. 6:14; Phil. 1:27; 4:1; Col. 4:12; 2 Thess. 2:15), as did James (5:8). Peter encouraged those to whom he wrote to “stand fast” in God’s grace (1 Peter 5:12; cf. Rom. 11:20). Paul encouraged believers to “stand” in God’s grace in Romans 5:2, to “stand” in the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1; and “stand against” the trickery and deceitfulness of the devil in Ephesians 6:11ff.

    One verb used for the opposite of this effort to “stand” firm is aphistemi, which comes from the most common New Testament term meaning “to stand” (histemi), with a negative prefix. Aphistemi has the meaning of “draw away” or “depart” in most of its fifteen occurrences in the New Testament. In Luke 8:13, in Jesus’ explanation of His “Parable of the Soils/Seed,” it is used to refer to those who hear the word of God with initial eagerness and joy, but then “fall away” from the faith in time of temptation. Were they ever believers?

    It is tempting here to be drawn into the debate about whether the warnings passages in Hebrews shed any light on the idea that genuine believers cannot fall away. Those who wish to pursue that discussion should read Four Views on the Warning Passages in Hebrews (Kregel, 2007), edited by Herbert W. Bateman IV, which is the result of the discussions of the Hebrew Study Group during the 56^th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (November 17-19, 2004). One reason it is tempting is because the perseverance of believers was the focus of my M.A. thesis, in which I concluded there is a measure of biblical truth in the idea of “once saved always saved.” My position then, and today, is that, on the one hand, believers do not routinely move in and out of grace or a saving relationship with Christ, which some Armenians seem to imply, but the New Testament does not. On the other hand, when one looks at the whole of the New Testament, it is clear that God does not easily release His hold on believers (cf. Rom. 8:35-39). This is essentially the view put forward by I. Howard Marshall. It is noteworthy that even John Calvin believed God does not save anyone against his or her will, a point which many of his theological heirs deny. My point here is that there is biblical truth in both the Calvinistic and the Arminian position concerning the subject of eternal security. It is regrettable that the tendency of both sides is generally not to recognize anything of value in the other’s position.

Vol. 38, No. 11       November  2007

    Have you ever been reading along in the Hebrew of the St. Petersburg Codex of A.D. 916, and glanced over at the Masorah Parva and noticed a reference to the tiqqune sopherim and wondered what that was all about? Probably not, which is why this is the focus of this Bulletin. As we proceed, we will do our best to explain the meaning of the Hebrew terminology and take note of why this subject deserves your attention.

    The tiqqune sopherim are the eighteen “decrees” or “emendations of the scribes” (tiqqune = “corrections”) which altered the given or traditional Masoretic text of the Old Testament to eliminate so-called anthropomorphisms or “indelicate expressions” in the text (see Gleason Archer, Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Moody, 1994, updated and revised edition, 69; and Ellis R. Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism, Baker, 1994, 54-55). Apparently these arose due to a scribe’s hesitancy to let a disrespectful statement about God, or seemingly poor theology, stand unchanged. These changes do not imply the untrustworthiness of the critical (including variant readings and scholarly emendations) Hebrew text of the Old Testament.

    The sopherim were an influential group of Hebrew teachers and interpreters of the Law who arose between about 500 B.C. and A.D. 100 to preserve Israel’s sacred writings. The Babylonian Talmud says these “scholars” were called sopherim because they “counted” all the letters in the Torah (from the Hebrew saphar, to count). The work of the sopherim began long before the Masoretes (A.D. 500-1,000) became the authorized custodians, their purpose also being to preserve and safeguard the text, which is why some writers refer to a pre-Masoretic period, during which the sopherim were working to secure the biblical text in a definitive form.

Vol. 38, No. 10  October 2007

Reading Jonathan Bonk’s revised and expanded Missions and Money (Orbis, 1991, 2006) is a revealing experience to those not familiar with the problems Western missionaries face overseas, but it is also essential reading not only for missionaries and missions executives, but for all believers. Bonk, a Canadian Mennonite, focuses on a problem that has long-plagued missionaries sent out from America: the potential of money and affluence to corrupt the inculturation of the gospel message.

 If you as a believer are not familiar with this subject, you should be. Often, in the year-long preparation many short-term mission groups undergo, as well as in the weeks of debriefing most groups undergo after coming back home (youth, in particular, see Terrence Linhart, “Planting Seeds: The Curricula Hope of Short Term Mission Experiences in Youth Ministry,” Christian Education Journal, 2:2, Fall 2005), this subject is repeatedly addressed. In such preplanning and post-planning contexts, Jesus’ mandate to those He sent out is often discussed (Luke 9:1-6; 10:1-9), particularly Luke 9:3: “And he said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.’” One can easily imagine the questions that might be raised by both youth and adults today before setting out on a mission trip or after coming back from a short-term mission trip: “Does this passage apply to us? Is there a principle here that we are not seeing? In what ways did our affluent lifestyle negatively impact those to whom we sought to minister?” Down through church history, the “ideal” of Luke 9:3 was viewed as essential, and, Bonk notes, it was often physically duplicated, even in contexts where those being sent were not measurably more wealthy or more powerful than those to whom they were sent (see Bonk, xiii).

As is the case with many teachings in “evangelical” churches, here, too, there is debate, often because of a lack of insight, and perhaps due to the general unwillingness, if not inability, we Westerners have toward giving up our “wealth.” One of the frequent topics discussed in many missiological journals is why missionaries, short or long-term, should live at the same “material level” of the people to whom they were sent. Anyone familiar with the history of missions knows that many European and North American missionaries in the past, and still today, have found themselves unable, if not unwilling, to do this. Indeed, this inability and unwillingness to share totally as equals in the life of the people was, in large measure, what led to the creation of the so-called mission “station,” which was a mini-cultural center in the midst of a foreign people and culture, where missionary wives, children, and support staff maintained a standard of living that, while not equal to that of their homeland, was often luxurious when compared to the standards of the surrounding people (see Bonk, xiii). The idea was, the missionaries had made a great sacrifice in just “going there,” and they did not need to completely give up the cultural standards of luxury to which they had grown accustomed. As Bonk observes,

But it was probably very seldom considered that if the missionary could not do so, that incapacity might cause serious disturbances in the evangelization and inculturation process (Bonk, xiii).

Vol. 38, No. 9   September 2007
by Charles W. Martin

    Jim Henderson’s and Matt Casper’s Jim & Casper Go To Church is subtitled “Frank conversations about faith, churches, and well-meaning Christians.” The 2007 book is printed by BarnaBooks, an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers. Jim Henderson, also author of Evangelism without Additives (WaterBrook Press, 2007), is cofounder and executive director of Off the Map, a nonprofit organization focusing on reinventing evangelism by encouraging Christians to connect with people (nonbelievers) in small, ordinary, and doable ways. Jim describes his theological background as Pentecostal (xv).

                   Matt Casper is a marketing copywriter, a freelance writer, a guitar slinger/rock singer, an avid reader, a halfway decent cook, and an atheist. That’s right, an atheist, but an open-minded atheist. As the back of the book explains, in 2006 Henderson hired Casper to join him in visiting twelve of America’s best-known and least-known churches, including Rick Warren’s Saddleback, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood, and Bill Hybel’s Willow Creek. In Jim and Casper Go To Church, the two document their experiences at and reactions to attending a worship service at each church.

    Basically, Jim and Casper Go To Church is about the first impressions visitors might have to a particular church. In his foreword, George Barna points out every church today in America must deal with a changing environment, specifically, postmodern thinking. Barna avoids talking about the temptation to change, disguise, or play down biblical teaching and theology in order not to “impose” those things on other people. However, he does say it is important that people be “able to have whatever faith-oriented experiences they desire” (xi, my emphasis) and, a few sentences later, he observes “even the church world now offers people a veritable menu from which to select the best or most appealing option” (xi). Although these statements have huge theological implications, they are not discussed by Barna, nor, for that matter, by Jim and Casper. For example, where does one draw the line between what can legitimately be changed or shifted from church to church and what cannot? As many evangelicals are aware, there remains some debate about exactly what forms our worship of God may and may not take. Many evangelicals deny there are any unchanging principles found in Scripture concerning worship, Even so, there remains much discussion in some quarters about how and in what manner we may “appropriately” approach and worship the sovereign Lord of the universe.

Vol. 38, No. 8   August 2007
by Charles W. Martin

    In 1985 Dennis Kinlaw’s book, Preaching in the Spirit, was released. The book’s core is a series of lectures given by Kinlaw at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. The theme of the book is that preparing to preach each Sunday involves more than simply the exegetical and inductive study of God’s Word, or the use of memorable illustrations. Rather, the essential ingredient in preparing to preach is something that human intellect and energy alone cannot provide. That something is the anointing of the Holy Spirit, or, to use Kinlaw’s words, being “immersed in the Holy Spirit.” His book describes how a preacher can become more open to the Spirit and, conversely, how a preacher’s negligence can impede the Spirit’s work. As books on preaching go, it is a rather small book (128 pages), but it almost stands alone in terms of a Wesleyan-oriented perspective of what biblical preaching is all about.

    There is much in Preaching in the Spirit that is also appli-cable to teaching in the local church, or what might be termed “teaching in the Spirit.” But in recent years, the idea of Spirit-anointed teaching has been little discussed, and it is yet little emphasized in most monographs that focus in one way or another on Christian education or teaching in the church. There are exceptions, including John Westerhoff’s Spiritual Life: The Foundation for Preaching and Teaching (Westminster -John Knox, 1997) and Roy Zuck’s Spirit-Filled Teaching: The Power of the Holy Spirit in Your Ministry (W. Publishing Group, 2002, a reworking of Zuck’s 1993 book, Teaching with Spiritual Power, Kregel).

    A. W. Tozer believed many modern believers are guilty of having grieved the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit’s anointing has been withdrawn from many believers in general, including Christian leaders. In Mystery of the Holy Spirit, edited by James Synder, Tozer explained:

This Spirit wants to be Lord of your life, and He wants to possess you so that you no longer are in command of the little vessel in which you sail. You are a passenger on board or one of the crew, but you are definitely not in charge. Somebody else is in charge of the vessel.