What happened to exhortation?

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Preaching for a Verdict: Recovering the role of exhortation, by Josh Smith.  B & H Academic, 2019.

Truly biblical preaching does not just involve explanation, illustration and application.  It also seeks to persuade.  It presses for a verdict.  It involves exhortation.

Put another way, authentic preaching addresses the will, as well as the mind.

The recovery of exhortation is the burden of Josh Smith’s book.  What follows is based on:

Chapter 1 – What happened to exhortation?…

Luke 2:7 – Jesus was (probably) not born in a stable

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2:6 While they were [in Bethlehem], the time came for [Mary] to deliver her child. 2:7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

‘No room in the inn’ (along with a grumpy inn-keeper) is part of the fabric of the nativity story, as popularly told.  But the biblical text makes no mention of a stable, and the word commonly translated ‘inn’ may well mean something else.…

Rev 3:15-16 – ‘You are lukewarm’

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3:15 ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! 3:16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth!’

As popularly understood:

Cold = decidedly opposed to the things of God
Hot = enthusiastically committed to the things of God
Lukewarm = indifferent to the things of God

The implication would therefore be: better to be out and out against God than to sit on the fence.…

Young Earth Creationism and the problem of distant starlight

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One of the most stubborn problems for Young Earth Creationists (YEC’s) is that of distant starlight.

The light from our nearest neighbouring galaxy – the Andromeda Galaxy – has been traveling about 2.5 million years before it reaches the eye of an observer here on Earth.  And yet, according to YEC’s the entire cosmos is only a few thousand years old!

Various theories have been advanced in order to deal with this:

1. It has been suggested that light, when traveling vast distances, is able to take a ‘short cut’. …

We shall be surprised

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When Christ returns in glory, and ushers in the new Heavens and the new Earth, none of us will be able to say: “That’s exactly as I predicted!”

Richard Bewes writes:

‘In our fallenness, we can all to easily get it wrong, despite the clear signposts!

Few were ready for the birth at Bethlehem.

The disciples were demoralised at the death of Jesus – despite his predictions.

The resurrection, when it happened, was a bombshell among them.…

Everybody’s marriage affects everyone else’s

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‘You conservative Christians are welcome to your own views about marriage.  The fact that we support gay civil marriage doesn’t affect what you do at all.’

Derek Rishmawy comments on this view, expressed in the following way by David French:

‘For those who believe gay marriage is morally wrong for Biblical or other religious reasons, this decision changes nothing. Churches can still speak out against sexual immorality and can still choose not to perform gay weddings.

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Cross Vision 9 – Self-Punishing Sin

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A precis of chapter 10

A teenager likes loud music.  Supposing he steals records, and is severely punished by his father; that would be judicial punishment.  But supposing his penchant for loud music causes hearing loss; that would be organic punishment.

Divine punishment for sin is usually construed, in Scripture, as organic.  The destructive consequences of sin are built into the sin itself.

Except where it depicts God as violent, the Bible always describes punishment of sin in terms of divine abandonment. …

Lessons from John Newton on the slave trade

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It is well known that John Newton (author of ‘Amazing Grace’) was a converted slaved trader.  What is perhaps less well known is that his rejection of slavery post-dated his conversion to Christ by some decades.  It was only in later life that he renounced slavery and the slave trade, writing up his thoughts in the tract Thoughts on the African Slave Trade.

David Robertson draws a number of lessons from Newton’s experience.  What follows is mainly in Robertson’s (and Newton’s) own words.…

2 Jn 1:1 – ‘An elect lady and her children’

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1:1 From the elder, to an elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth (and not I alone, but also all those who know the truth), 1:2 because of the truth that resides in us and will be with us forever.

Does this refer to a person and her offspring, or to a church and its constituent members?  Although certainty is not possible, the latter option is to be preferred.

Some early writers were undecided. …

The Garden of Eden as a Temple

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Eden is not just a garden for humans, but the garden of God, Is 51:3; Ezek 28:13.  As Wenham explains,

‘The garden of Eden is not viewed by the author of Genesis simply as a piece of Mesopotamian farmland, but as an archetypal sanctuary, that is a place where God dwells and where man should worship him. Many of the features of the garden may also be found in later sanctuaries particularly the tabernacle or Jerusalem temple.

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