Round the Sphere Again

Bible Study
Thabiti Anyabwile on putting “what it means to me” in its proper place.

A premature “what it means to me” takes the pen out of God’s hand and dips it in the ink of our puny intellectual, emotional, social, psychological and usually idolatrous wells.

There’s more and you should read it. (Pure Church)

What to Read
Speaking of idolatry: I read Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods back in November. I didn’t review it here, not because I didn’t like it (I did!), but because I can’t review a book unless I make my many marks in it, and this copy belonged to my church library. But not to worry: I agree with everything in this review by Erik Raymond. Says he, “I highly recommend this book for Christians of all stages.” Me too, although the picture it’ll paint of your own heart probably won’t be pretty. (Irish Calvinist)

Michael Haykin has compiled love letters from 12 couples from church history. The Christian Lover “is a celebration of marriage, an intimate window into the thoughts of men and women who were deeply in love with both God and one another.” You can read the introduction and two witty letters from Martin Luther to his wife Katharina here (.pdf). (Just think, if they’d had phones and email 500 years ago we wouldn’t have these little glimpses into Luther’s heart.)

Defining our Mission
It’s popular to put all the virtuous deeds that Christians do in the category of mission, but is that right? (Kevin DeYoung)

Doctrine and Life
“[T]here is an evangelical impatience with theory, doctrine, intellect, anything that seems academic, for fear that it encourages mere speculation and proves to be unrelated to life,” says Martin Downes. But “the cry for application is, in reality, just a sound, unless there is something to apply. And for that we need truth, doctrine, knowledge.” Read the rest at Against Heresies.

Sew It Up
If I had a grandson I’d sew up a pair of these boy pants. If I had a granddaughter, I’d just change the lining print to make them little girly. (ikat bag)

Sun Shots
They call it “the best eclipse photo ever.” It is pretty cool, don’t you think? (mental_floss Blog)

We had 3 hours more daylight today (8h 41m) than we had on December 21 (5h 37m), and we’re gaining 5.5m per day. I considered saving this tidbit for my Thankful Thursday post, but I do occasionally have things other than warm weather and more sunshine to be thankful for. Just the same, the upside of darkness is a blessed place to be.

Theological Term of the Week

autographs
The original writings of the Biblical authors; the documents of scripture that came from the pens of the sacred writers; also called autographa.

• From scripture:

  I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. (Romans 16:22 ESV)

  I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine; it is the way I write. (2 Thessalonians 3:17 ESV)

  Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4 ESV)

• From The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, Article X:

  We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.

  We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.

• From Salvation Belongs to the Lord by John Frame: 

  We use the term autographa, or autographs, to refer to the original, authoritative manuscripts of Bible books. Now, there is no promise in Scripture that when people make copies of these books, they will be perfect copies. Try it yourself: write out a copy of, say, Leviticus. Chances are, you’ll make some mistakes. This is why we say that only the autographs are perfectly authoritative.

  Some critics of our position say that this destroys our whole view of biblical authority; for if only the autographs are fully authoritative, and we don’t have the autographs, then for all practical purposes we don’t have a infallible, authoritative Bible. But take the following points into account:

  • Though we don’t have the actual autographs, we have access to the original text through the science of textual criticism, which compares various manuscript readings to determine the original. The important thing is to have the text, not to have the manuscript. 
  • Some textual problems remain unsolved; but these are very minor, for the most part, and they never affect any doctrine.

Learn more:

1. Paul Mizzi: The Autographs of Scripture
2. Frederic G. Kenyon: How the Books of the New Testament Were Written
3. Michael Kruger: The Difference Between Original Autographs and Original Texts

Related terms:

• inerrancy of scripture
• inspiration of scripture
• manuscripts
• textual criticism

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

A Sidebar

about the sidebar.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I’ve been going through an old series of posts from the old blog—the ones on the people of faith in Hebrews 11—and editting and moving them over here to this blog. I’ve been linking them as favorite posts way over there on the right below the photo.

I hope to get the more substantial posts from the old and ugly Blogger blog moved over—within my lifetime, if I live long enough—but rather than have too many reposts right up front here, I’m dating most of them with their original dates so they’ll be way back there in the archives. But for those who might be interested, I’ll link each one over there in the favorite posts when I transfer it.

Okay now. Back to work. Class dismissed. As you were. Return to sender.