Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

This quote is from All That's Good by Hannah Anderson. I read it all in one sitting literally as I was on a train for 7 hours. Lord willing, I will be reviewing it soon.

Discernment does not overlook the brokenness of the world. It does not deny the need of redemption. It does not excuse sinfulness, live in a false reality, or pretend that a damaged statue is just as good as a carefully preserved one. What discernment does is equip us to see the true nature of the world and of ourselves, - both the good and the bad. Discernment helps us see the world for what it was made to be and believe that God is powerful enough to restore it to its intended purpose. That somehow we are part of that process. That somehow we will be restored ourselves.  (pg. 42-43)

Kim:

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in a compilation of his sermons on Isaiah 40, comments on v.1-2, and what the message of God is:

The message of God is one that comes to us in Christ and comes to us exactly where we are, even as the Lord himself put it in that perfect picture he once painted of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. This man fell among thieves and was wounded and left there on the road. Certain people passed him by, but the one whom our Lord praised crossed the road and went to where the man was lying and cleaned and bandaged his wounds and took him to an inn and paid for him. He dealt with the man exactly as he was and here he was. And that is what the gospel does; it speaks to the heart of Jerusalem. How wonderful it is that the gospel of Christ comes to us exactly where we are, however weary and sad we may be.

Rebecca:

Hebrews 1:1-2a says this:

Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. (CSB)

Notice the contrasting pairs of phrases:

• Long ago/in these last days
• God spoke to the fathers/he has spoken to us
• By the prophets/by his Son

In Tom Schreiner’s Commentary on Hebrews, he writes this about these verses and their contrasting phrases:

[W]e see that the one phrase with no corresponding phrase is “at different time and in different ways.” Still the author expects the readers to fill in the gap. The revelation in the former era was diverse and partial, but the revelation in the Son is unitary and definitive. The final revelation has come in the last day for God has spoken in his last and best word. No further word is to be expected, for the last word focuses on the life, death, and resurrection of the Son. As 9:26 says of Jesus, “But now He has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Believers await the return of the Son (9:28), but they don’t expect a further word from God. No more clarification is needed. The significance of what the Son accomplished has been revealed once for all . . . .

We don't expect more revelation from God. He has spoken finally and definitively in the Son. We have it all.

Deb: 

Writing on the gulf between the scholarship of the academy and Bible study from the pews, Dr. Craig Carter highlights some of the central issues in scripture interpretation today. One example:

Many people seem to confuse the allegorical method with postmodern reader-response methods of hermeneutics in which the reader actually reads meaning into the text that was not there initially. The difference between at least some of the allegorical approaches of the fathers and the modern, reader-centered approaches, however, is that the former do not seek to read the reader’s ideas into the text, but rather to extract a second layer of meaning from the text itself. As David Steinmetz makes clear in his classic article, “The Superiority of Pre-critical Exegesis,” the allegorical method actually lies between the two extremes of the Enlightenment’s single-meaning theory, on the one side, and a postmodern reader-centered approach, on the other. The allegorical approach views the text as having more than one meaning, but not an unlimited number of meanings and certainly not mutually contradictory ones... 

A fundamental choice confronts the would-be interpreter at the outset: inspiration or naturalism. This basic choice cannot be avoided, only obfuscated. The choice between inspiration and naturalism is the basis of the gulf between the academy and the church of which Steinmetz spoke. Classical interpretation of Scripture— which was the approach in Western culture from the early centuries up to the Enlightenment and still is the approach followed in the (conservative) preaching and teaching of much of the worldwide church today— cannot adopt methodological naturalism without rendering inoperative the doctrine of inspiration.

Carter, C. A. (2018). Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Pre-modern Exegesis. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition (pp. 5, 16).