Luther and Preaching

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Carl Trueman’s inaugural lecture as the Paul Woolley Chair of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary (March 20, a good grasp of the technical skills necessary: ability to handle the biblical text, to communicate well and to speak with conviction on things that count. But it also depends upon a second, equally important but often neglected point: the need to understand preaching as a theological act. Only when this is done, when the preacher accurately understands what he is doing will he really do so well and with the confidence necessary.

And what better way to reflect upon preaching in Protestant context than to spend a few moments thinking about how Luther, the founder of the Protestant preaching feast, understood preaching as a theological act?

Paul Woolley Chair of Church History from Westminster Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

HT: JT

Concerning Rome’s ‘Gospel’

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On March 14, 2013, Dr. John Piper wrote this ‘clarification’ has only brought further confusion.

Dr. James White responded to Dr. Piper on the Dividing Line program today and I have transcribed part of his response below:

“I do not believe that the Bishop of Rome is a teacher of the Church. That’s not my Church. I do not recognize the Bishop of Rome as a valid Christian leader in any way, shape or form. I cannot recognize anyone who is called ‘Holy Father,’ ‘the Vicar of Christ,’ and an ‘alter Christus’ as a teacher in the Christian Church. So why is John Piper saying he is? That I don’t get.

But the real thing that bothers me here is that it seems that Dr. Piper, along with many others, don’t see the consistency of Roman Catholic teaching and think you can somehow separate out Rome’s doctrine of justification and put it on a plate over here, separate from all the rest of ‘that stuff’ and analyze it in that way and say ‘well, you know….” Now if all he is saying is ‘there are Christians within Roman Catholicism,” I’ve said that for years. But they are what they are not because of Rome but in spite of Rome – they’re the simple people who have put their faith fully in Jesus Christ and they don’t know the rest of this gobbledygook and they think they’re just following Him. I don’t think there are many of them but God’s grace is big. But they are what they are in spite of Rome’s gospel. Rome’s gospel cannot save; it cannot give peace; it is not the Gospel; it is under the anathema of Galatians Chapter 1, and I think a lot of folks just don’t recognize what Rome itself teaches on this. Rome itself teaches that the sacrifice of the mass is propitiatory, and that it is the central aspect of the Roman faith and the worship of God.

If you try to construct a doctrine of justification in Roman Catholicism without recognizing that it takes its form and shape first and foremost within the sacramental system of Rome and with the queen of the sacraments being the doctrine of the mass, the eucharistic sacrifice, then you do not understand Roman Catholic theology and you have not read enough of it. And I think a lot of my dear brothers in the Lord just haven’t listened to enough of what Roman Catholics say to Roman Catholics.

.. and so here’s the problem…

Dr. Piper writes an entire book against N. T. Wright – well N. T. Wright is a whole lot more closer than Rome is. He is not talking about a propitiatory sacrifice in the mass through the transubstantiation. The whole basis of Rome’s concept of justification is completely different – and they are all intertwined – they cannot be separated from one another.

So, the question is not ‘does any one of us have a comprehensive or perfect grasp of the Gospel?’ The question is not ‘can someone be saved with a partial knowledge or grasp of the gospel?’ The question is ‘can you be saved by a false gospel – that which was specifically designed, framed and promulgated as a response to and denial of the true gospel?’

Could you be saved by the Judaizer’s gospel? … and that’s why I read Galatians 5 first… because there would be a lot of people who would say, ‘well, yeah, sure…’

No, Paul said ‘Christ will be of no benefit to you,’ and I say to the Roman Catholic who understands what Rome teaches, understands the propitiatory nature of the sacrifice of the mass, ‘Christ will be of no benefit to you. You have fallen from grace. You have been severed from Christ.'”

Dr. James White: Transcript excerpt from the Dividing Line broadcast, 3/19/2013, found here.

Inspiration

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Dr. R. C. Sproul explains what Paul meant by “inspiration” in 2 Timothy 3:16.

What Does “Inspiration” Mean in 2 Timothy 3:16? from uses the term inspiration. But I think that we must make a distinction between the use of the term inspiration here, and the way it’s used theologically in the history of the church. Because, as Dr. B.B. Warfield once pointed out so eloquently, the real meaning of this text here in 2 Timothy 3:16 has to do not so much with the way in which God communicated His information to us through the human writers, but rather the emphasis in this text is on the source of that information. What Paul is saying, he uses the word Theopneust (I’ll write that out in English) in the Greek here when he says “all scripture is given by inspiration.” Literally what this word means is God-breathed. And it means that which God has breathed out, rather than that which God has breathed in.

Now, I was just ready to give my next sentence after finishing that sentence and I noticed that in between that last sentence and the next sentence I had to pause…and take a breath. Because in order for me to speak I have to have breath in my lungs, and while I’m speaking, if I continue to speak and don’t take a breath while I continue to speak pretty soon I start squeaking like a mouse and I run out of breath…I have to breath, because when I speak I’m breathing out, and in order to breath out I must first breath in. Now the force of what Paul is saying here is that he is saying that all of scripture is breathed out from God.

Now when we breath out that means we are involved in expiration, not in the sense of dying, but we expire at death because we breath out for the last time, and we don’t breath in anymore. But to breath out is expiration, whereas to breath in is inspiration. So really, if we were getting real technical here, we should translate this phrase that all scripture is given by expiration.

Now, so what? What’s the difference between an expiration and inspiration here? Again, the point that I’m jealous to make here, is that what Paul is saying when he insists that all of the scripture has been breathed out by God, he is saying that it’s ultimate origin is in Him. It is His word. It is His speech. He is the One who is the source of these writings. And so when we talk about the doctrine of inspiration, we’re talking about the way in which God superintends the writing of sacred Scripture. That God does not just act, and let people respond with their own insight, and their own imagination to set forth their view of what God has done, but that God is working by the Holy Spirit to superintend that record to make sure that the record that is written is His Word.