The more I've explored these "four views on" type books, the more I've enjoyed them. They are informative, the back-and-forth format does a great job sharpening the strengths and examining the flaws of each view, and not matter what I believe coming in or going out of the book, I've found nuggets of truth from every writer.
Thankfully, I'm not alone in that, if the recent proliferation of these kinds of books is any indication. While the most well known are perhaps Zondervan's "Counterpoints" books, this particular volume is not one of them! Instead, Baker Academic decided to get into the game and boy did they do a great job!
Included in this book are four views on interpretation and application of biblical passages. As self-proclaimed "People of the Book," no other subject can be as life-changing and impactful as this. To live by the book means to rightly apply the book, to rightly apply the book necessitates rightly interpreting the book, to rightly interpret the book means to rightly understand it. The best method of examining that journey, from 2,000 year of text to modern living, is paramount to everything we hold dear.
As such, the editor chose four heavy hitters in the field of homiletics.
THE WRITERS
Abraham Kuruvilla and Bryan Chappell have both written preaching books that already belong in my library. A Vision for Preaching and Christ-Centered Preaching came highly recommended to me, and for good reason. Paul Scott Wilson has written several books on the subject, though his The Four Pages of the Sermon is probably the most well known. Kenneth Langley, while not an author, does serve as president of the Evangelical Homiletics Society, has a Doctorate of Ministry in Preaching, and serves as the senior pastor of
Christ Community Church in Zion, Illinois.
The book format, if you are unfamiliar with it, is as follows: A generic introduction is written to highlight the importance of the selected subject. Each of the authors was selected to represent and defend his unique views, thus insuring each position is properly represented and ably defended. The first author presents his essay, and each of the others pen a direct response. Then, the second presents, and the others all respond to him. This continues until each author has made his main case and has had the chance to respond to the presentations of the others.
In the case of this book, the four views are, in their author's own words, presented below.
Sadly, none of the four presented a concise, highlighted definition of their view, so the following are more like summaries than single-sentence definitions.
Redemptive-Historic View, by Bryan Chapell
"In its context, every passage possesses one or more of four redemptive foci (that we need not keep strictly segregated for our understanding). The text may be predictive of the work of Christ preparatory for the work of Christ resultant from the work of Christ, and/or reflective of the work of Christ."
"The Bible teaches that our relationship with God is not based on what we do, but on what Christ has done—our faith is in his work, not ours (Gal. 2:20). Thus, a textually accurate description of biblical commands and ethical conduct does not guarantee Christian orthodoxy. Exhortations for moral behavior apart from the work of the Savior degenerate into mere Pharisaism, even if preachers advocate the actions with selected biblical evidence and good intent. Spirituality solely based on personal conduct cannot escape its human-centered orbit though it aspires to lift one to the divine."
Christiconic View, by Abraham Kuruvilla
"Thus, in texts, a view of life, a world in front of the text, is portrayed, and an invitation to that world is extended. Lives are changed as listeners respond by inhabiting that world, abiding by its values. That is, a text’s projected world-vision enables subsequent application. Therefore, the interpretation of Scripture cannot cease with the elucidation of its linguistic, grammatical, and syntactical elements: what the author is saying (semantics). It must proceed further to discern the world in front of the text: what the author is doing (pragmatics)."
"The biblical canon as a whole projects a world in front of the text—God’s ideal world, individual segments of which are portrayed by individual pericopes. Taken together, the integrated composite of all such segments is the canonical projection of God’s ideal world in front of the text—the plenary ideal world."
"This is the heart of the preaching endeavor: to recognize the function of Scripture and to bring to bear, pericope by pericope, divine guidelines for life from the Word of God upon the people of God, to align them to the will of God by the power of the Spirit of God, into the image of the Son of God for the glory of God. Through believers’ Spirit-powered obedience, facilitated by preaching, God is glorified as his people display the attributes of their holy God and manifest Christlikeness (Matt. 5:16; 1 Pet. 2:12): a christiconic undertaking."
Theocentric View, by Kenneth Langley
"Preaching should be God centered because God is God centered and wants us to be God centered in everything we do."
"This theocentric emphasis is not more narrowly christocentric. Though some Old Testament prophecies anticipate the Messiah, the effort of some preachers to find the second person of the Trinity in every prophetic pericope is misguided. Peter said that all the prophets testified about Christ (Acts 10:43; cf. 1 Pet. 1:21); but it’s one thing to say the prophets point to Christ, another to say every word they wrote is about Christ. One theological commentary claims, “The book of Jonah is all about Christ.” No, the book of Jonah is all about God."
Law–Gospel View, by Paul Scott Wilson
"The hermeneutic I use in preaching is law and gospel, or, to use somewhat less contentious words, trouble and grace. I assume that the Word of God is dual edged: it both condemns and liberates, binds and frees. The same Word does both. I also assume that the purpose of preaching is to proclaim the gospel, which I define as God’s saving actions recorded anywhere in the Bible that have greatest clarity in Jesus Christ. This purpose is larger than preaching any individual biblical text. Bible texts are treasures in themselves, yet they also provide windows or portals through which we may view the larger faith story."
THE CONTENT
Delightfully, the first three authors are united in their desire to read the text in context and read it as the authors intended. Each one is unrepentantly vocal about that, and while each has their own particular view on exactly how to do that, the underlying mindset is the same. Though there were points of disagreement, I generally found all three to be incredibly helpful and insightful. Each desires for the individual passage of scripture to affect the way they live and how they form their collective theology of the Bible.
The final author, Wilson, takes a very different approach. He not only participates in, but actively encourages, looking at the Bible through your personal lens of experience and desires, then allowing your overarching theology to affect the interpretation of the individual passage. Several dangers are present in that approach. First, he shows little to no regard for what the biblical author was trying to say by what he said. Second, blatant, extreme subjectivity in interpretation leads only to a diversity of contradictory opinions that confuse and puzzle, rather than change our sinful and subject thoughts with the unchanging Bible, he supports shifting the Bible's timeless words according to the whims and cares of any who may happen to pick it up. This does not allow a firm foundation, nor an objective interpretation, not even an authoritative one. While he fails to see this, his view leads to wild ideas and incoherent messes.
For example, he claims one lesson that might be learned from Genesis 22 is that Isaac is never recorded as speaking to his father again, so their relationship was broken by those events, no matter the divine outcome. Though Abraham may be able to trust God, Isaac can never trust his father again. However, Isaac never seems to resist his father during the encounter, and later follows faithfully the God that had previously ordered his death. No signs of bitterness are seen afterward, rendering Wilson's view unsupported and his point subject to doubt.
While his desire to connect with and apply to the lives of his listeners is very valuable, he does so at the cost of actually knowing the scriptures for what they are. His response to Kuruvilla's chapter, for example, strayed little from the argument that Kuruvilla's view was too limiting and distant from modern people, their problems, and their mindsets. He sets in contrast the ideas of being a "preacher" and a "pastor," claiming that slavish devotion to the text does not display the personal love and care of a pastor. He says that scriptural application needs to be tailored to all kinds of mindsets, rather than ask our diverse mindsets to submit to Scripture. In his own essay, he wrote the following:
"In sum, a preacher can preach the Bible and not arrive at God’s Word, or can preach God’s Word as law and not arrive at the gospel. Preaching often puts the burden on humanity, as though Christ’s life, death, and resurrection make no difference to the present day." While he is correct that some preaching lacks application, that is no fault of the text, which was designed for application, (2 Timothy 3:16) but rather, a fault of the preacher. Additionally, setting in contrast the ideas of "the Bible" and "The Word of God" is inexplicable and puzzling. He completely misses that "trouble/law" texts that demand a moral response by hearers do in fact display the grace of God in his opening the way to them, giving them the strength to obey, and even their place in his flock that they may hear his words and respond to him.
He also says "The trouble-to-grace paradigm is not to be confused with problem/solution. We would never speak of the movement from Good Friday to Easter as problem/solution. The move is from trouble to a restored relationship with God in Christ." yet forgets that an unrestored relationship with God is a problem that needs a solution.
However, his view does communicate the necessity to remember direct application in sermons, and I can appreciate the singular focus behind his “TTDNIM” acronym, though that process, as nice as it is to write out each thing, is unnecessary when one actually follows one of the other views of interpretation, for those singular messages and themes would then come naturally.
Chappell's christocentric view takes a high view of Christ and his redemption, and rightly so. His sees the motivation for all our actions to be found in Christ's redemption for us. Weakness, however, are that his focus on Christ's finished work can drown out the need to look also to the work before us in serving him. Also, as he himself says, making every text point to Christ in some way can easily lead to undue and frankly wild and outlandish allegorical fantasies when not kept in check and thankfully writes about limits and cautions to avoid that. His "Fallen Condition Focus" is an incredibly helpful tool that aids preachers of all styles in identifying the tenancy towards sin in man, but the response of God to that.
The christocentric and theocentric views are somewhat similar. One sees God as the center object of all, the one who sent Jesus and sent in motion the redemptive plan. The other sees Christ as the cornerstone on which all acts of goodness and mercy are either a result of or foretaste of, his salvation redemption for all to to whom all things point. While that is a big difference, the two views are otherwise incredibly similar.
Langley's Theocentric view loses the weakness of stretching the original meaning by forcing all texts to point to Christ himself. However, it also introduces the same weakness of resounding wonderful theology over and over, yet with such focus that one may not properly address the needed response and moral struggles of the people that is present in the text. Many of his interpretive questions deal with either the text, or the theology mined from it, yet tends to miss how we ought to respond to that text and it's theology.
Building up from there, and no doubt the most complex, yet most compelling view presented, is Kuruvilla's Christiconic View. He begins the chapter with a delightful example of how two paradoxical ideas can easily be taught from the same simple Bible story, then brings to light the giant, and oft unaddressed gap, between the study of a text and the forming of a sermon. His solution is to study what the biblical author was doing by what he was saying, and thus, he writes "It is only by discerning this theological thrust, the author’s doing, that valid application is possible." After wading through a couple examples, one begins to realize just how confusing this may be. Thankfully, Kuruvulla helpfully adds the following:
"Thus, in texts, a view of life, a world in front of the text, is portrayed, and an invitation to that world is extended. Lives are changed as listeners respond by inhabiting that world, abiding by its values. That is, a text’s projected world-vision enables subsequent application. Therefore, the interpretation of Scripture cannot cease with the elucidation of its linguistic, grammatical, and syntactical elements: what the author is saying (semantics). It must proceed further to discern the world in front of the text: what the author is doing (pragmatics). And this projected world forms the intermediary between text and application, enabling one to respond validly to the text."
While this did take me a time to mull over and finally understand, that's not the hardest part. Actually finding the theological thrust is. Even a cursory glance at his examples shows an understanding of the text far deeper and wider than a great many Christians, myself included. As such, this view is daunting to a beginning preacher, and fear of missing the point by missing a subtle textual clue is a valid concern.
That, however, does not explain the name, a point he gets to later.
"...Jesus Christ alone has comprehensively abided by the theology of every pericope of Scripture. Thus, each pericope of the Bible is actually portraying a characteristic of Christ (a facet of Christ’s image), showing us what it means to perfectly fulfill, as he did, the particular call of that pericope."
As a closing note he writes:
"I submit that Scripture was primarily intended to be used for application, so that God’s people, aligned to the Father’s will, might be conformed to the image (εἰκών, eikōn) of God’s Son in his perfect humanity, by the power of God’s Spirit: a christiconic goal (Rom. 8:29). Therefore, we must read and interpret Scripture for application unto Christlikeness."
WRITING:
Chappell's writing is straightforward and clear, making his view easy to understand and his logic easy to follow. His footnotes reveal an incredible depth of study and understanding and open a gold mine of resources to follow up on.
Kuruvilla's writing is dense and weighty, yet filled with a sparkling wit and wisdom. His liberal use of footnotes, 53 in his essay alone, is a great source for additional reading and study, as well as pockets of explanation and clarity that would not fit into the essay proper. Sadly, his seems to suffer the most from the short format.
Langley, however, wins the footnote war, with 64 separate references. His essay is packed with reasoning and quotes mined from all across history and denominational lines. Though, a side effect of that is that his essay feels less unique to him and readers do not get a good taste of his own writing. His feels more like the connective glue holding together the many quotes than a unique essay that contains many references.
Wilson seems apologetic in his word choices and often confusing, complaining about the "loaded terms" of Law/Grace, yet substituting them with the even more confusing "Trouble/Gospel." For a scholar, his mere 14 footnotes, seven of which were to his own works, is disappointing.
CONCLUSION:
The final conclusion, written by the editors, is far more extensive than one would expect. It is both longer and more detailed than any I've read before of this book style. It covers "compelling elements" as well as "matters for consideration" for each authors' Hermeneutics and Homiletics. Many of these come in the form of questions asking for more detail, specificity, or clarity, showing a keen eye for eye and a desire to fully understand each view.
In short, each author presents something unique. Kuruvilla's writing is dense and weighty, yet filled with wit and wisdom, Wilson's writing Each brings great advice and each brings something to be learned, even if readers disagree with their methods. It's a fairly technical book, perhaps a bit overwhelming for the average layman, but easily approachable by those with a decent understanding of homiletics.
5/5
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