We do not exaggerate when we say that this is the greatest threat to religious freedom in our lifetime. We cannot help but think of the words attributed to German pastor Martin Niemoeller, reflecting on the Nazi terror:

First they came for the Socialists, and I
did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did
not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was
no one left to speak for me.

I’m not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure [...]

I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29.

By the way, anyone who thinks that this is just a Catholic issue is sadly mistaken. Protestants have universities and hospitals that will be required by law to pay for abortions for their employees. Thus, evangelical Protestants are facing the same threat to religious freedom that the Catholics are.

(HT: Jim Smith)

Friends, I think I’ve shown that for every skeptical argument Bart Ehrman advances, there is a reasonable response that shows the Bible to be more reliable than he makes it out to be. But in the end, how many of us believe in the Bible because of text criticism, or the number of manuscripts, or differences in the variants? The bigger questions, I submit to you, are these: Is Christianity true? Is Jesus divine? Did Jesus die on the cross for our sins? Did he rise from the dead? Is Jesus the only way? What is the gospel? Will you and I believe? There are many believers in this audience who have become convinced that the Bible is true and that Jesus is real. We’ll continue to advance arguments and counter-arguments on the minutiae of textual matters, and those matter, but let’s not forget the bigger picture. The Bible is trustworthy, and Christianity is true. Hopefully, we can all agree on that. Thank you very much.

Debates like this one are fascinating, and they serve a definite apologetic purpose. But Köstenberger is correct. No erudite argument defending the integrity of the New Testament text will by itself bring someone to faith. Arguments about textual criticism can remove some barriers, but not all barriers to faith. There is a “bigger picture,” as Köstenberger has it. There may be evidence that demands a verdict, but fallen sinners universally make the wrong judgment apart from grace—no matter how much evidence is adduced. Read the rest here.

Dan Wallace is doing great and valuable work at The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. You can check out their work here.

I’m not at all convinced Jakes understands or affirms orthodox Trinitarianism. But even if he meant to do so at the Elephant Room, the issue was not pressed far enough. Saying yes to the right formulations is one thing, but on something as fundamental as the Trinity, we ought to be concerned that a pastor celebrates and promotes the doctrine with passion and joy. We want to know that these core doctrines animate, infuse, and inform our pastoral ministry. We want to see that brothers understand the negation of what they affirm and are willing to guard the flock against these errors. And if someone is espousing a new position or a fuller understanding of the truth, it’s fair to know how they intend to correct previous mistakes and how their ministry will change as a result. These aren’t egghead, nitpicking questions. They get to the heart of the Christian faith and the essence of pastoral ministry.

Kevin also talks about his hesitation to speak out. He writes,

Looking back, I regret that I did not do more to speak more directly about the Elephant Room and the serious mistake in inviting T.D Jakes to share the platform in this way.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the reasons he gives for waiting until now. We should all have such “hesitations” about controversy among brothers.

Read the rest here.

Still, let us go back to the fourth century and see how the `middle aged white guy’ critique measures up.  Well, at the Council of Nicea in 325, many of the participants were no doubt middle aged — which Paul in the Pastorals would actually seem to think is quite a good thing in a church leader.  But white?    I suspect they were ethnically more akin to modern day Turks or south eastern Europeans, not that racial categories really meant anything then.  The key category in the fourth century was that of Roman citizenship, not skin colour.

More significantly, of course, had you been there yourself and looked around the council, you would have seen that many of the delegates had body parts missing – an arm here, a leg there, an occasional eye – because they were survivors of the terrible persecutions under Diocletian and Galerius.  Indeed, many had probably lost close friends and family members too.  Thus, the foundations for the creedal doctrine of the Trinity were laid by men who thought doctrine was something for which it was actually worth suffering and dying.

But hey, if a bunch of middle-aged American pastors in the Elephant Room tell you Nicea and its delegates — and all the Christians who have suffered and died to maintain its truth over the centuries — are irrelevant, who am I to question them?  To do so would surely be the height of arrogance.  Ahem.

Read the rest here.

Tony Perkins appeared on Fox News this morning to discuss Bella Santorum. He gives an update on her condition and discusses the role that Bella and the rest of the family play in Rick Santorum’s public life.

^{NIV 1984 “}I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man.”

^{NIV 2011 “}I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man.”

For whatever reason, the translators decided to change the interpretation. The difference is subtle but very important to the discussion of women in ministry. On the one hand, the 1984 interpretation prohibits women from exercising authority or serving as pastor/elder. On the other hand, the 2011 interpretation does not. The 2011 edition prohibits narrowly taking up authority to oneself. The former prohibition is generic, and the latter specific. Thus the 2011 translation can be interpreted merely as a limitation on women taking up undelegated authority to themselves. They can “have authority” over men and be pastors so long as that authority is properly delegated to them. It is no surprise, then, that Egalitarians such as Philip Payne favor the translation “assume authority.”

The issue comes down to the proper interpretation of a single Greek word—authentein. Does it mean “have authority” or “assume authority”? I have argued elsewhere that the distinction is significant and that this particular translation represents an egalitarian drift in the text of the NIV.

Commentators have difficulty deciding the question in part because the word is so rare. It only appears one time in all of biblical Greek, and only a handful of times outside biblical Greek before the end of the first century. Which brings me to the point of this post.

Al Wolters has a very important article in the most recent issue of The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. In this article, he highlights a long-overlooked instance of authentein in extra-biblical Greek. He shows that authentein is neither pejorative nor ingressive. In other words, extra-biblical sources confirm that authentein does not mean “assume authority” but “have authority.” For those of you who have been following the discussion about the meaning of authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12, you’ll want to make a note of this article.

Al Wolters, “An Early Parallel of authentein in 1 Tim 2:12″ JETS 54.4 (2011): 673-684.

This is the single most important verse in the discussion among evangelicals about gender roles and ministry, and the NIV reflects the wrong interpretation. This article from Wolters is another reason that the translators ought to consider changing it.

Hebrew Bible (TANAKH) for Kindle and Nook – $9.99

Septuagint (LXX) – $3.99

SBL Greek New Testament – $.99

There are a number of problems with this editorial, not the least of which is its unsatisfying interaction with the biblical issues at stake in this debate. The CT editorial relies almost entirely on William Webb’s trajectory hermeneutic—a way of interpreting the Bible that says modern readers sometimes need to move beyond the ethical instruction of scripture to an ethic that supercedes it.

Webb first applied this hermeneutic to the gender issue in his book Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. More recently, Webb has taken a similar approach to corporal punishment in his book Corporal Punishment in the Bible. In the first book, Webb argues that even though certain passage of the New Testament favor male headship, modern readers have to move beyond that teaching to a better ethic. Similarly, in the new book on spanking, Webb argues that even though certain passages of the Old Testament favor corporal punishment, Christians have to move beyond those passage as well to a non-violent position. It is the latter book that the editors of CT appeal to in their article.

Webb’s hermeneutic was widely criticized ten years ago because it allows specific biblical teaching to be nullified by the reader’s perception of redemption trajectories. In other words, this approach to reading the Bible presents a threat to the authority of scripture. In a 2004 article for JETS, I think Wayne Grudem highlights the difficulty best:

It nullifies in principle the moral authority of the entire NT and replaces it with the moral authority of a “better ethic,” an ethic that Webb claims to be able to discover through a complex hermeneutical process entirely foreign to the way God intended the Bible to be read, understood, believed, and obeyed. Because a denial in principle of the moral authority of the NT commands is at the heart of the whole system, and because the system denies the historical accuracy of the creation account, I do not believe Webb’s “redemptive-movement hermeneutic” should be accepted as a valid system for evangelicals today (p. 346).

Tom Schreiner notes that there are differences between Webb’s earlier book on the gender issue and the more recent one on corporal punishment. Nevertheless, Schreiner cautions:

One wonders, in considering Webb’s work as a whole, if he is prone to domesticating the Bible to fit modern conceptions. If Webb is correct, women can serve as pastors and children should be disciplined without any corporal punishment. What is next? … God’s Word does not necessarily fit the cultural mores and thought conventions of our day. In responding to some of the extremes of fundamentalism, Webb must beware that he does not land in the lap of liberalism.

The editors at CT appear to have embraced Webb’s hermeneutic as a legitimate way of reading the Bible. They should not be surprised, however, that there are many evangelicals who disagree.

For a better account of the Bible’s teaching on corporal punishment, I would recommend a short article by Paul Wegner titled, “Discipline in the Book of Proverbs: ‘To Spank or Not To Spank?’.” In this article, Wegner gives a better explanation of the Proverbial texts than the editors of CT. Wegner shows from scripture several different levels of discipline, one of which is corporal punishment (#6).

Level 1. Encourage proper behavior: A wise parent encourages a child to behave properly (Prov. 1:8-9; 2:2-5; 3:13-15; 4:7-8).

Level 2. Inform of improper behavior: A wise parent is proactive and addresses certain issues before the child might be confronted by them (Prov. 1:10-15; 3:31-32).

Level 3. Explain the negative consequences of sin: A wise parent points out the negative consequences that lie along the path of life (Prov. 1:18-19; 5:3-6).

Level 4. Gently exhort: Wise parents will, on an ongoing basis, advise and exhort their children against sin that can easily become a pattern and encourage them to use wisdom (Prov. 4:1-2, 14-16).

Level 5. Gently rebuke or reprove: The wise parent knows when to use rebuke properly (Prov. 3:12; 24:24-25).

Level 6. Corporal punishment that does not cause physical harm: A wise parent knows when to use corporal, non-abusive punishment (Prov. 19:18; 13:24; 23:13-14; 29:15).

Level 7. Corporal punishment that causes physical harm: The book of Proverbs does not suggest that parents use this technique for discipline, but that serious sin can lead to serious punishment (Prov. 20:30; 10:31).

Level 8. Death: The book of Proverbs also does not include this in the realm of parental discipline, but in the realm of consequences meted out by government or society’s leaders (Gen. 9:6; Prov. 19:18).

Wegner’s article does not say everything that needs to be said about physical discipline, but it does establish a biblical basis for it. Despite this editorial from CT, parents who love their children will make use of non-abusive physical discipline (Prov. 13:24). This is what the Bible teaches, and we should be vigilant not to let the Bible’s teaching to be nullified by an interpretive approach that is foreign to scripture.