Living Wittily

Of the reading of Biblical Commentaries - Well, Why Would You?

It started with John Stott's Only One Way, his exposition of Galatians. It was 1972, in Crieff, while on Summer Mission, leading a three week party in the park for a couple of hundred children. The Summer Mission Team met after breakfast for bible study - we used Stott's book. A month later it was Frances Foulkes on Ephesians, then John Stott again this time on the Epistles of John, the best Tyndale NT Commentary of them all, I think.

So I was started on reading commentaries. Derek Kidner on the Psalms, JL Mays on Amos, Derek Nineham on Mark - oops, my first encounter with liberal critical biblical scholarship - but that Pelican Commentary woke me up to the diversity of opinion and approaches to New Testament interpretation. By the time I was in College, Barrett on John, Cranfield on Romans, Childs on Exodus and so my own 40 year wanderings began, but not in the wilderness, in the orchards and vine groves of biblical exegesis, the fruit fields of text and context, and the wide harvest fields of Bible study where living bread is to be found, shared and enjoyed as food for the soul.

I am in the process of rationalising my library, reducing it to fit into our house, more or less. There isn't much surplus in a library I've culled most years, not much that is no longer needed, or unlikely to be read again, or outdated and superceded. But yes, there will be some boxes of discarded, withdrawn, - to be sold, given away, or consigned to the charity shops. Commentaries are, more than many books, likely to date as scholarly fashions change, or more importantly new knowledge and fresh insights compel revision of thought. So yes, commentaries I once valued hugely have been superceded by new and more informed scholarship; reliable guides for one generation may be just as useful and dependable to the next generation. But in fact I've always kept the biblical section as current as I could afford, with the progressions of biblical studies

Amongst the interesting items in second hand bookshops are old ordinance survey maps; the one for the Cairngorms from the 1950's will still serve as a reliable map of the mountains; but the one for East Kilbride takes no account of the new town, the expanding connurbation of Glasgow, the motorway network and the many other changes to topography that must always be reflected in good cartography. Likewise with commentaries. Think of the commentary writer as a cartographer of the text, someone whose task is to convey as clearly and accurately as possible, the lie of the land, the notable features, the network of connections. Which brings me to the reason for this long preamble in a post where, if you're not into commentaries you may have already clicked to go elsewhere!

Which would be a pity, because, this post already being long enough, you will have missed the promise to finish this story tomorrow :) That post will be about exegetical integrity, or to put it in biblical language, 'rightly handling the word of truth', that Word which brings us into living relationship with the God made known to us in Jesus Christ, living and present in the church and the world by the Holy Spirit.

For now here's Ched Meyers in his commentary on Mark, a book that is both more than a commentary, or maybe less than a commentary and more like a serious talking to by a coach who calls us to account for lack of commitment, under-performing and messing about when we should be focused on what our life is about.

"In the continuous ideological struggle within the church  over christology, Mark stands  as the first attempt to assert a definitive "history" of Jesus. This story calls the reader back to the messianic practice that Jesus embodied, and which he enjoins on his followers in every age. Above all, the Gospel asserts the primacy of practice over speculative, cognitive faith. In the symbolic discourse of Mark, Jesus refuses to give a heavenly sign to his critics (8:12). The "sign" will appear only in the world and in history; the concrete practice of discipleship and the way of the cross.

(Meyers, Binding the Strong Man, 2008, page 109)

The tapestry is of the beautiful Hebrew word Hesed, variously lovingkindness, faithfulness, longsuffering, mercy. Myers would want these lovely abstract words concretised, because that's what following Jesus means - acting in a Hesed way.

FF Bruce and the Epistle to the Hebrews - A Test Case for Evangelical Critical Scholarship Half a Century Ago.

Eerdmans have announced a new commentary on Hebrews. It's a new entry to the New International Commentary on the New Testament and it will replace the commentary of F F Bruce which anyone interested in evangelical New Testament scholarship reveres as a fine combination of historical exposition, textual exposition and theological exegesis. At a time when others were defensively negative about historical critical study of the New Testament, F F Bruce personified the confessional integrity of a man of thoughtful and committed Christian faith, unafraid of critical questions and warmly responsive to the spiritual message of the New Testament.

There are several reasons why Bruce was an ideal commentator on Hebrews for a commentary series launching into the market unsure of its credibility beyond evangelicalism. Bruce was a member of the Christian Brethren, a moderately conservative evangelical (how he tired of these carefully worded theological categories), and there are few traditions more theologically sympathetic to the rich symbolism and typology and the book of Hebrews. He was also a first rate historian, an erudite and meticulous scholar, and with an intellect weighted with  both intelligence and integrity.

His commentary was commissioned in 1954, published in 1963 and revised in 1990, the year of his death. From the start Bruce on Hebrews was recognised as a lucid, historically thoughtful and theologically sensitive commentary which has enabled generations of readers to make sense of a book that is enigmatic, mysterious and for some downright perplexing in places. Melchizedek was as puzzling to readers in the 1960's as any complex theory of Derridean postmodern hermeneutics!

The replacement volume will be twice the length of Bruce, and will reflect current approaches to hermeneutics and literary social approaches to the text, majoring on chiasmus as the hermeneutic key. It will have to sit alongside strong competition from Peter O'Brien's Pillar commentary which is becoming the preferred treatment for evangelicals, not forgetting Paul Ellingworth's NICGT volume which is a massive treatment now showing its own age, and the even more comprehensive and richly informed Word commentary by W Lane. Then there is L T Johnson's fine commentary in the New Testament Library series, and Craig Koester's Anchor volume, and Fred Craddocks elegant exegesis in the New Interpreter's Bible.

So it's interesting that Bruce's volume will remain in print as a stand alone treatment of Hebrews. Much of his exposition is not significantly qualified by more recent scholarship and it remains a responsible and spiritually rewarding companion. Old fashioned it may be, but fashions of hermeneutic theory and practice are not the only criteria for exegesis that is faithful to the text because arising from within the faith tradition of the documents that are that same faith's foundation charters. Anyway, Bruce's commentary has no use by date, and in my view no expiry date.

I mention the replacement of a commentary for two reasons.  First I own two copies of this commentary. It was one of the first commentaries I bought as a student minister and I read it through. my second copy was a gift from the library of the late Dr Eleanor Walker who died over a decade ago, before she could complete her studies for the Church of Scotland ministry.

Second, I have all the commentaries mentioned above, and I still go back to this veteran commentary by a veteran scholar who changed the opinion of the academy about the seriousness, creativity and integrity of evangelical critical scholarship. Bruce almost singlehandedly demonstrated the possibility that those three words could sit together without threatening oxymoron.

The Apostle Paul, the Leveson Enquiry and the Ethics of Communication

This morning I was reading Paul's Prison Epistles - Chrysostom describes Ephesians as "sublimely difficult", James Denney found in Colossians the Christ who is the "last reality of the universe", and Philippians, that masterpiece of pastoral diplomacy and theologically powered subversion of the spiritually overwrought ego!

Ever since I bought G B Caird's wee commentary on the Prison Epistles and worked through them guided by that concisely elegant and pastorally alert volume (which cost me £2.25 in 1975), I've gone back to these letters when I need to get my horizons stretched, my mind lifted above the mundanely essential concerns of getting on with life, and my conceptuality refurbished with dimensions that are eternal, transcendent, and regenerative of faith, hope and love.

The unsearchable riches of Christ in Ephesians, the mind that was in Christ Jesus in Philippians, the Christ who is the Head of all things and the Church in Colossians, and that crucified and risen Lord as the inspiration for the radical liberation of Philemon by Onesimus, - these are realities to place alongside the precarious Eurozone, the terror and brutality of Syria, the commercial hysteria of the Olympics which threaten the very integrity of Olympic ideals, the cynical dissolution of truth, human respect and social responsibility exposed serially in the circumstances giving rise to the Levenson enquiry.

One example - how to close a newspaper in 2012 -

"Finally, 

whatsoever things are true,

whatsoever things are honest,

whatsoever things are just,

whatsoever things are pure,

whatsoever things are lovely,

 whatsoever things are of good report;

if there be any virtue,

and if there be any praise,

think [report and write] on these things. (Philippians 4.8 - King James Bible)

Make that the basis of news reporting and perhaps then phone hacking, bribery, nepotism, corruption of office, invasion of privacy, exploitation of the vulnerable and much else would be disqualified. The irony is, the verse was carved in stone outside BBC House by Lord Reith. A first century exhortation, scratched on papyrus and sent to a tiny religious community in a Greco-Roman city, describing healthy mindedness that sustains community, serves as an ethical benchmark for one of the most respected broadcasting institutions in the world. Not bad Paul, not bad at all.....

What Paul could have achieved with an Ipad.....

 

The intellectual life of a highland cow

 
One of the first photos I took with my new camera.

The beast is looking at me with

 

puzzled perplexity thinking,

                                     "Why do these people bother?"

 

monumental boredom sighing,

                                      "You sad man. Get a life."

 

bovine compassion empathising,

                                     "Poor man. So little hair on his wee heid."

 

territorial aggression, calculating,

                                    "Can I get him before he reaches the fence?"

 

existential well concealed joy, ruminating,

                             "Grass, blue skies, celebrity status - I've got it all."

 

The Transformative Authority of the Bible

One of the finest spiritual writers in the Evangelical tradition is only read today in edited versions. Like the Puritans, Andrew Murray's writing could be 'prolix', and like a certain washing machine advert of some years ago, he could go on and on and on. But Andrew Murray (if you Google the name you're likely to encounter a tennis player!) was a profoundly influential teacher in the Holiness tradition in South Africa and in England through the Keswick movement. His commentary on Hebrews, The Holiest of All, was very warmly reviewed by no less than James Denney who didn't call geese swans. What Denney liked was the thoughtful application of evangelical truth to Christian sanctification and behaviour, and the centrality of Christ in all Murray's writings.

Murray wrote one of the best accounts of an Evangelical appropriation of the Bible. Rather than argue for the authority of the text as artefact, he pleaded for a use of the Bible that depended on openness to God and a receptiveness of heart to the transforming work of the Word of Scripture. Here's what he says:

God's Word only works its true blessing when the truth it brings to us has stirred the inner life, and reproduced itself in resolve, trust, love or adoration. When the heart has received the Word through the mind and has had its spiritual powers called out and exercised on it, the Word is no longer void, but it has done that whereunto God has sent it. It has become part of our life, and strengthened us for new purpose and effort.

Andrew Murray, The Inner Chamber and the Inner Life, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1950), 72

Truth that transforms, a Word that is living, dynamic and provocative of response, words through which God speaks now, that is the Word enfleshed, embodied, lived, obeyed - and that is the authority of Scripture that matters most - it authors our lives.  

(Learning slowly how to use my new camera. The photo was taken in the Aberdeen Botanic Gardens)

Recovering a Neglected Text: Songs Based on the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs is one of those hidden treasures of the Bible that is more hidden than treasured in contemporary preaching and liturgy. Its explicit sensuality, its celebration of love in all its emotional fervour and poetic physicality, and its unmistakbable affirmation of love as the utter giving up of the self in deepest longing and passionate embrace, tend to mean that those committed to expository preaching give it a skilled body swerve. 

That's a pity, however understandable.  Some of the most lyrical writing, and spiritually perceptive devotional expression, and profound theological imagining has been produced by those in the Christian tradition who have studied and sung and prayed over this collection of Hebrew Love songs. From the mystical Bernard of Clairvaux and his eighty odd sermons on the first couple of chapters to the equally mystical if evangelical Charles Haddon Spurgeon's communion meditations, from the speculative and extravagant Origen to the restrained devotion of the 19th C. Lutheran Franz Delitzsch, from Samuel Rutherford the intense and volatile Scottish Puritan whose letters are marbled with the sensual imagery of the Song, to Marvin Pope whose Anchor Bible Commentary remains the vade mecum of previous interpretations, from such diverse directions in the tradition the Song of Songs has been a rich source of devotional and theological nourishment.

But no. It isn't necessarily the text to read out in church of a Sunday morning, either before or after the children leave. And yes, it is probably wise not to decide to do a long detailed series of expositions verse by verse - though that was done 30  odd years ago by the Rev Willie Still in Gilcomston South Church in Aberdeen.

But still, this book about love and passion and longing is there, right in the middle of the Bible, and it won't go away. So what to do with it. Read it. Think about it. It has much to teach a culture saturated by overstated desire, tone deaf to tenderness and delicacy, suffering an ennui of the heart and losing the capacity for imaginative and winsome discourse (a recent article mercilessly mocked the crass opening chat up lines that now pass for respectful introduction and consideration for the other).

Alternatively, buy Patrick Hawes' beautiful arrangement of 6 songs on the Song of Songs. The soloist Elin Manahan Thomas has one of the clearest and sharpest voices I've heard. The CD is a really good example of exegesis by lyric and music, a genuine expansion and exposition of ideas that lie at the centre of the Song. These ideas give content and substance to those words we try to use when we speak of love, desire, longing, passion, anticipation and fulfilment, devotedness given and received, the move from fear to trust and therefore to that joy which, if never complete, at least finds its home in the mutual enjoyment of human togetherness.

The Song of Songs has been understood as an allegory of  the love between Christ and the Church, between Christ and the soul, and between a man and a woman. That such rich resources to explore divine and human love lie in this earthy but sublime poetry is one of the great miracles of the canon of Scripture. I guess there are those who, if it were up to them, would have wanted it excluded for reasons of modesty.  And the Holy Spirit thankfully thwarted them! So here it is, between Ecclesiastes with his probing mockery of faith that comes too easy, and Isaiah with his defiant imagination in face of exile and imperial power, daring to hope - and between them, Sage and Prophet, this love letter, this unabashed celebration of love, divine and human, love which in the human heart and in the heart of God is the foundation of existence and the meaning and purpose of life itself.

Ephesians - The Triune God of love eternal and grace immeasurable...

 

From my early years as a Christian I've read and re-read Paul's Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon). As a pastor I've preached on them often, nearly always with a residual disappointment that mere preaching doesn't begin to convey the 'unsearchable riches of Christ'. If Isaac Newton really did say he felt like a child playing with seashells on the beach when the great ocean of truth lay before him unnoticed, then as a preacher I've felt the same with the unfathomable depths and irresistible currents of a text like Ephesians. That first extravagantly long sentence in Ephesians chapter 1 betrays a mind pushed into theological overdrive, Paul's vision and imagination running out of subordinate clauses as he finds it impossible to end the sentence. Maybe that's what happens when we speak of God - we run out of clauses and the sentence always, but always, finishes with much unsaid and probably unutterable.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached through Ephesians and the published sermons fill 8 thick volumes. By the way the volume on chapter 3, "The Unsearchable Riches of Christ" is a profound account of Christian mysticism illumined by evangelical experience and textual discipline, providing a deeply satisfying exposition of what it means to be in Christ, and for life to be grounded in the eternal love of God made known in Christ.  Here more than anywhere else in his writing. Lloyd-Jones expressed his Welsh fervour, his revival instincts, his theological passion, and through the intensity of his personal experience of Christ, he rhapsodised on the grace unspeakable, the riches inexhaustible, the love unfathomable and the wisdom unsearchable of this God who in Christ reveals His purposes of love and mercy hidden in the ages but revealed in Jesus.

Every now and then I'm drawn back to Ephesians, just as at other times I'm drawn back to other parts of the Bible that to use the old Puritan phrase, 'speak to my condition'. Sometimes Isaiah 40-55;  or the Psalms; the Gospels often, and John most often. But when it comes to Paul the Prison Epistles are where I instinctively go - especially those first chapters in Ephesians and Colossians when Paul sees the universe through the lens of Christ. And my own story is not relativised and reduced by the comparison; it is drawn into it and given a significance that is rooted in precisely that  "grace unspeakable..., those riches inexhaustible, such love unfathomable and the wisdom unsearchable of this God who in Christ reveals His purposes of love and mercy hidden in the ages.

The paradox of revelation and mystery is one we live with as Christians, gladly, gratefully and generously. It's the paradox of the God who comes near in Christ but is beyond our comprehension as the Triune God of love eternal and grace immeasurable. It's the tension of the soul being caught up into the heavenly places while we still deal with the earthly, the everyday, the ordinary, the fragile, the transient, the reality of life as a human being yet as made in the image of God - trying to make sense of this paradox of existence in Christ and living the life that is ours. At those points in our lives when that tension is most acute and that paradox hardest to live with, that's when I read Ephesians 1, and Colossians 1, and Philippians 2. And if I ever need reminding of what it means to deal with the realities of social justice, human values, freedom and community, there's always that short masterpiece of practical theology we call the Letter to Philemon.

All of which arises because I've had on my desk one of the first commentaries I ever bought and which I treasure as a spiritual artefact, a sacred gift to myself, a trusted exegetical companion - Paul's Letters from Prison,G B Caird (Oxford, Clarendon: 1976) Bought in the John Smith Bookshop on the Campus of Stirling University, in March 1976 - cost then - £2.25! I doubt I ever spent money on a book more wisely and for better reward.  Yes there are the big heavies - and I have most of them (Markus Barth, Ernest Best, Andrew Lincoln, P T O'Brien, and just arrived Clinton Arnold and Frank Thielman - no space for Hoehner's encyclopedic doorstopper). But there is an elegance in Caird's 90 pages on Ephesians, and for me an affection for this careful scholar, that makes this small book special. It's one of the very few commentaries I've ever slipped  into a flight bag and read at an airport! I know - sad - better to read Lee Child, or Henning Mankell, Ian McEwan.

Maybe so. But for the umpteenth time I'm keeping company with G B Caird on Ephesians, trying to live with the tensions and paradoxes of grace unspeakable, unsearchable riches, all summed up in Ephesians 2.4-5, "But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved". That's the greatest paradox of them all - our transgressions and God's great love for us. Who would ever have thought they could be reconciled - except God, who is rich in mercy?

The Gospel of John - not being afraid of deep water

Since College days when I patiently and conscientiously worked through C K Barrett's commentary on the Gospel of John I have loved this New Testament text. And alongside those evenings slowly turning the pages and making notes I still have in neat handwritten, pre-computer script, we were walked through the text by our New Testament teacher, R E O White. It was an immersion in text that taught me to swim, and not to be too afraid of deep water. In the years since I've slowly worked through numerous commentaries and monographs and tried to stay current with Johannine scholarship. Some big names are familiar companions - Barrett, Brown, Schnackenburg, Morris, Carson, Beasley-Murray ( a scandalously restricted volume in the Word series given the three volume sprawlers on Luke and Revelation) - more recently Moloney, Lincoln, and monographs by Ashton, Koester, Robinson, Bauckham et al.

And then there are those books which use John for spiritual formation, from Jean Vanier, to William Countryman to Francis Moloney. I have to say I'm less enamoured of such attempts to feed the Gospel of John through a Christian spirituality grid. Lesslie Newbiggin's The Light Has Come is a different category altogether. A theological gem.

But the reason for all this Johannine enthusiasm is the imminent arrival of John Ramsey Michael's commentary on John. I met him once when i was teaching in Hanover, New Hampshire. He is a wise, shrewd and deeply learned man, whose scholarship range is wide and deep. I was teaching on Julian of Norwich, George Herbert and Charles Wesley - he was teaching on John Bunyan. His literary sensitivity, theological resourcefulness and open minded interest levels made him a source of much fun and much learning. His commentary is already being described as readable, progressing Johannine scholarship, and a gift to the preaching of the church. Not surprised. And it will be the commentary I'll saunter through for the next few months - if it arrives by Advent it'll be fun reading him on the greatest advent hymn of them all - "In the beginning was the Word.....and the Word became flesh..." So swimming at the deep end, standing at the edge of the reservoir, not being afraid of deep water - my theological hero James Denney had his own take on the deep water metaphor - about Jesus and his passion he urged that we hear 'the plunge of lead into fathomless waters'. That's what happens when I dive into the text of John's Gospel.

Gordon Fee as Exegete: Giving Paul his due and the importance of word order

Two examples of Fee's no nonsense exegetical comments:

"R F Collins argues (unconvincingly) that Paul has here taken over an earlier formula and adapted it to his own purposes. While all things are possible, not all possible things are equally probable. Indeed, it is of considerable interest that the most creative theologian in the early church is seen as not capable of being creative at points like this, but must be assumed to be borrowing from others - and that without evidence."

............................

On Paul's use of charis and shalom in the greeting:

"Paul salutes his brothers and sisters in Christ with "grace to you - and peace." It is worth noting that this is the invariable order of Paul's words, not "grace and peace to you" as in most translations. Very likely there is significance to this order: the grace of God and Christ is what is given to God's people; peace is what results from such a gift. Hence "grace to you - and peace."...The sum total of God's activity towards his human creatures is found in the word "grace"; God has given himself to his people bountifully and mercifully in Christ. Nothing is deserved, nothing can be achieved. The sum total of those benefits  as they are experienced by the recipients of God's grace is "peace", God's eschatological shalom, both now and to come."

......................

If the task of the exegete is to enable later readers to hear as clearly as possible, the voice of the one speaking in the text, then these two brief quotations are good examples of why Gordon Fee is a trusted guide. For myself, I wholly concur with his pedantic care in translating Paul's greeting "grace to you - and peace". Allowing the brief pause between the two both distinguishes and connects them in a way that is profoundly theological.

On another note, the Scottish Baptist College Blog is being revived into a discussion forum for issues that we as part of the Scottish Baptist community want to explore in conversation. In particular we want to explore areas of theological education, ministry formation, discipleship in 21st Century Culture, and we will include occasional book reviews. It will also contain news and comment from our College community and have some guest posts from students and others now and again. You might want to go look - I'll occasionally flag it up here as new material is added. 

Gordon Fee and the intellectual deference of a New Testament scholar.

There are occasional Bible commentaries that have a long shelf life, and then there are those that are hacked out to meet the voracious appetite of publishers for niche series. The carbon footprint of commentary mania is brontosauran in its scale. There are currently around 125 biblical commentary series in production in various North Western World publishers. You can see them here if you click on Series button on the upper menu bar. I'm not sure whether to describe this as ludicrous, wasteful, exegetical overkill, marketing madness, unbiblical abuse of creation gifts, or just plain stupid. But out there somewhere people are buying them, seduced by claims of niche market, latest scholarship, and that underlying assumption that if the book is about the Bible it must be justified.

So. When I buy a new commentary now (it was not always thus for me), I have to have a good reason. It has to give me what I don't have and really need. The fact that it rehearses what everyone else has said, or the concern to defend particular positions, or the claim that it now adds a different perspective isn't enough. Nor do I want a commentary that forecloses exegetical options because the publisher takes a particular theological line - and that goes both for the conservative and the critical.

For the discerning commentary reader and user there are certain names that are the gold standard. Gordon Fee is one. Now Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at Regent's College Vancouver, he is a retired Pentecostal scholar of singular standing across the denominations. His exegetical honesty, focused erudition, rigorous scholarship, and crisp no nonsense writing style laced with fun and gentle critique of others' positions, make him a joy to read. His First Corinthians and Philippians are amongst my most used volumes - I've read them both and used them constantly. His two massive exegetical studies of the Holy Spirit (God's Empowering Presence) and of Christology (Pauline Christology) as well as his up-front honest exegesis of the Pastoral Epistles, are full of help for those who want to break sweat doing some exegetical excavations.

So now I am slowly reading my way through his newest volume on the Thessalonian Epistles. I'm going to blog on Fee once a week for a while - just highlighting what makes him interesting, reliable, for me the commentator of choice on any book he chooses to work on. And not because he is always right, or says what I'd like to confirm my own exegetical prejudices; but because he is to be trusted with a text, which he treats with an intellectual deference that nonetheless tolerates the hard questions. And because he knows when to expose nonsense, question unexamined assumptions, and link up creative connections across the range of the Bible, while making sure that pastors and preachers, scholars and enquirers see both the wood and the trees, and learn to love the view. Tomorrow a few characteristic quotes from Fee to show that all the above isn't just another sales pitch for another commentary to take up further space in an already overpopulated market.