At the center of covenantal hermeneutics is the distinction between Law and Gospel. If a dispensationalist cannot explain his hermeneutics without using the phrase “literal, historical, and grammatical,” a covenentalist cannot explain his hermeneutics without describing the Law/Gospel distinction.

These two hermeneutical grids are not mutually exclusive. Obviously, both are largely true. This post is not going to pit them against each other, as much as it will explain what is meant by the Law/Gospel hermeneutic. Understanding this approach to scripture is extremely beneficial, because at its core is a constant reminder about the power of the gospel. When the Law/Gospel distinction is appreciated, it is a powerful aide to sanctification.     Continue Reading…

In Luke 24, the resurrected Jesus engaged in a fascinating conversation with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. During this dialogue, “beginning with Moses, and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Later, Jesus told the Eleven that “all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44).

For many today who believe that the Old Testament must be read in light of the New Testament, Luke 24 justifies a “Christological Hermeneutic” for interpreting the Hebrew Bible. For some, this means an allegorical method of interpretation which sees pictures of Jesus and His work of redemption hidden throughout the Old Testament. For example:    Continue Reading…

Who wants to quibble with the “Gospel-Centered” movement? Certainly, the deck is already stacked in favor of the guy whose position is described as being centered on the Gospel! Yet, with all the real and true good coming from many organizations, conferences, teachers, pastors, and churches who might be aligned with this more recent call to be centered on the Gospel, I nonetheless remain charitably concerned. Concerned, that is, that “Gospel-centered” really means “Gospel-reductionist.”

Kevin DeYoung hit the nail on the head, for me, in his rejoinder to a recent (and somewhat disconcerting review) to his new book, The Hole in Our Holiness:      Continue Reading…

Besides the banally predictable objections–undead, demonic, murderous cannibalism–there are hermeneutical considerations for not being a vampire that are worthy of investigation. The reason, for example, that there are no Jewish vampires is entirely different from the objection Jehovah’s Witnesses harbor. They both claim the same verse of the OT (Gen 9:4, Lev 17:11 inter alia) but for vastly disparate reasons.

Why there are no bloodsucking JWs.

In November 2007, a fourteen year old boy, Dennis Lindberg refused the blood transfusion needed to save his life. After chemotherapy for leukemia had destroyed his red blood cells, the available blood transfusion from a donor was the simple, and only way to save the boy’s life.

Doctors explained to him that with the transfusion he had a 70% chance of living to age of 19, but without it he would be dead within days. Dennis was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. This religious group does not normally refuse medical treatment, but in the case of blood transfusions they typically teach that it is against Jehovah’s will to allow another person’s blood into your body. Since the blood is believed to contain the soul of the human, mixing blood would leave the person unclean and unacceptable to God.

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A father has two children. His boy is 8, we’ll call him Judah; his little girl is 2, we’ll call her Rahab. The father decides to give Judah the coolest toy imaginable: a remote control car. However, in the moment he is about to hand him the wrapped present, Judah throws a terrible tantrum, hits his sister, and angrily throws himself on the floor.

The father wants his son Judah to enjoy the present, and so, in an unexpected twist, he hands it to little Rahab, hoping to provoke Judah to obedience. She opens it up joyfully, chews on the wrapping paper a bit, gets the car out of the package and begins to roll it around. Of course, little Judah is fuming by this point… mainly because he is wicked, but also because he knows what the car is capable of: “Rahab isn’t doing it justice”, he’s thinking, “If she’d just put the batteries in, if she’d just…” but then he remembers how mad he is at his dad, and storms off with a frown.

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Unfortunately, when discussing Biblical interpretation, we often spend much of our time making philosophical statements instead of explicitly biblical ones. Having interpreted the Bible symbolically for most of my life, I remember the first time I was forced to ask myself: How does God tell me to interpret His Word?

Though my first conclusion was: “Symbolically, of course, that’s how the New Testament authors interpret the Old…” not being an inspired author myself, I began to question how legitimate it was for me to be coming to such subjective conclusions. I wondered: “Can one text really mean one thing ‘to me’ and a different thing ‘to you’, and don’t we rather want to believe what it means ‘to Him’”? Then Isaiah 40-44 brought clarity.

I now take the Bible ‘literally’ because according to YHWH, if His Word is not fulfilled in the normal way that the original audience should have expected it to be fulfilled, then He, by His own definition of divinity, is no better than a teetering log (Isa. 40:20).

How did I make that logical leap you ask? Three quick steps from Isaiah 42-44:

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