Keller and Carson on Slavery - as pulled together by Andy Naselli

Following up from  my previous post on the issue of Slavery in New Testament times, I came across this post from Andy Naselli addressing the issue of the nature of slavery in the Greco-Roman world.  Here is his introduction:

"Many modern readers assume that slavery in the New Testament is equivalent to the race-based slavery of the African slave trade. While not defending the Greco-Roman institution of slavery, Tim Keller and Don Carson explain why it’s important not to equate it with the race-based slavery that we may be more familiar with."

He is pulling together comments from Tim Keller and Don Carson (via Lee Strobel).

Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (New York: Dutton, 2012), 213–14, 280–83.  (This new book looks interesting - perhaps more another time!)

Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 166–69):

This is a great reminder of the importance of not making assumptions about what the Bible writers meant when they use words we think we understand - especially 'hot button' words like 'slavery'.

Definitely worth reading the whole article!  (http://andynaselli.com/keller-and-carson-greco-roman-slavery-race-based-slavery).

(You may also be interested in my post on the struggle to eradicate modern slavery.)

Don Carson on the Personhood of the Spirit

I have recently been reading Don Carson's Jesus and His Friends: His Farewell Message and Prayer in John 14 to 17. It is a very helpful work on this important passage that not only expounds the text but also draws out some of the implications and applications.

In a 'note' at the end of chapter 3 (On the Coming of the Spirit of Truth, John 14:15-24), Don Carson outlines reasons for believing the Holy Spirit is a person (rather than a force or 'thing'). This is more than a theological exercise, since our understanding of the Spirit will affect how we think about God and this will affect our prayers and our worship. I think it is worth sharing in full:

In the exposition of this passage I have assumed that the Holy Spirit is a person, and that traditional trinitarian formulations are both biblical and true. I have not attempted to defend the doctrine of the Trinity (except perhaps implicitly), nor have I attempted to prove that the Holy Spirit is a person. This is because the passage before us does not have such matters as their chief concerns, even though, in my view, it presupposes their essential ingredients.

It may be helpful to list a few reasons why I believe the Scriptures teach the Holy Spirit is both a person and divine. This list is neither exhaustive nor detailed; but it reflects several quite different lines of reasoning which, combined, are convincing.

First, both in this passage and in many others, the Holy Spirit performs personal actions. The Paraclete is a person who comes as Jesus' successor and, in many respects, substitute: a mere influence, or anything less personal and less divine than Jesus Christ himself, would necessarily be something of a disappointment.

Second, the Holy Spirit enjoys both the distinctness and the oneness with the Father that the Son enjoys. The distinctness (e.g. the Father sends the Spirit in response to the Son's intercession) ensures his separate personality; his oneness (e.g. by the Spirit's indwelling in the believer, the Father and the Son also make their home in the believer) ensures his deity.

Third, according to Mattew 12:31-32, a person may sin against the Holy Spirit. Contextually this is more than sinning against the light, or the like. It suggests again (though it does not prove) that the Holy Spirit is a person.

Fourth, the trinitarian formulae in the New Testament are virtually inexplicable if the Holy Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is not both a person and divine. I refer to such expressions as 'baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matthew 28:19) and 'May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all' (2 Corinthians 13:14). To construe the Spirit as less than person and less than divine when the texts put him in the company of deity and speak of his name would be as foolish as to say, 'I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of lovely influences.' The thought approaches blasphemy.

Fifth, although the Holy Spirit is sent from the Father, such 'sentness' does not reduce the counsellor to the status of a thing. After all, John's Gospel makes much of the fact that Jesus himself was sent (e.g. 3:17); and the Gospels do not think of Jesus as impersonal. More to the point, the new testament writers regularly distinguish between the Holy Spirit and his gifts (e.g. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11). Concerning these gifts, Paul writes. 'All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each man, just as he determines' (1 Corinthians 12:11).

Sixth, older theologians sometimes point to embodiments of the Holy Spirit. At Jesus' baptism, for instance, 'the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove' (Luke 3:22). It is possible, I suppose, to think of God sending a dove to represent a divine blessing or influence or the like; but the language suggests something more: the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove. It is difficult to predicate such a thing of an influence. The most natural way to take the passage is to think of the Holy Spirit as a person who normally has no bodily form.

Seventh, there are many isolated passages which do not easily fit into one of the previous categories, but which make the best sense if we presuppose both that the Holy Spirit is a person and that the Holy Spirit is God. One example must suffice. In Acts 5:3-4, Peter asks Ananias, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit . . .? You have not lied to men but to God.' The parrallel is obvious.

from Jesus and His Friends (Leicester: IVP / Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), p64-66

I love the way that Don gives his reasons from scripture. While the broader theological debates are valuable, our theology always needs to be grounded and controlled by the Biblical text.

Don Carson’s ‘Jesus and His Friends’ and Understanding Jesus’ Farewell Discourse in John 14-17

Chapters 14-17 of John’s gospel are sometimes called the ‘farewell discourse’. Set in the upper room as Jesus addresses his friends during (and after) the last supper, John recounts in these chapters some of Jesus’ most significant teaching about his ministry and mission, about his relationship with the Father and the Spirit, about the ongoing work of the Spirit, and concludes with his prayer for the disciples and for all believers. It is a significant passage and worthy of careful study.

A helpful guide in looking at the farewell discourse is Don Carson’s “Jesus and His Friends: His Farewell Message and Prayer in John 14 To 17”. This is not really a commentary (Carson has written one of those as well), but seeks to explain and apply the passage at a more popular level.

The farewell discourse begins with these words from Jesus: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14:1-4 NIV 1984)

The following is a quote from pages 19-20 of Jesus and His Friends explaining the significance of Jesus’ words and in general terms what the farewell discourse is all about:

Unable to grasp that Jesus’ departure from them is his return to the glory rightly his, by way of the cross and the tomb, the disciples wallow in their misery, fearing they are about to be abandoned. We, too, may sometimes slither around in the slough of despond and feel abandoned; but the situation in John 13 and 14 is unique. The sense of abandonment experienced by the disciples was prompted by an unrepeatable event in the history of redemption: the physical departure of Jesus by way of the cross. Therefore, although the disciples needed the general exhortation to trust in God and to trust in Jesus, they needed something more: they needed further instruction, more detailed explanation of the significance of the events to take place. Even if they remain unable to absorb all the details until after that epochal weekend had passed, Jesus’ words provided not only some immediate relief, but the framework ultimately made sense of the most important events in all history.

In other words, the Farewell Discourse must not be treated simplistically, as nothing more than Christian comfort designed to console defeated saints. Rather it is first and foremost an exposition of the significance of Jesus’ ‘going away’ to his father via the cross. It is elemental theology; and only as such does it offer encouragement and consolation. For troubled Christians there is little genuine comfort that is divorced from the significance of the events of that one weekend in Jerusalem and its environs almost two thousand years ago. This was especially true for those first believers, whose anguish was made particularly acute by the fact that they themselves participated in those events and were engulfed by them. But modern believers, too, best discover renewed faith and fortitude, not by clinging to isolated spiritual aphorisms and evangelical clichés, but by returning to a deep understanding of the historical and redemptive structure of their faith.

Within this framework, Jesus provides some content for his followers to believe (14:2-7); he enunciates truths they must believe if their faith is to be triumphant, their spirits tranquil. Unfortunately, the disciples grasp little of this, because they have already misjudged who Jesus is. The profound implications of the exhortation, ‘Trust in God; trust also in me’ (14:1) have quite passed them by; and therefore Jesus must review some of his earlier teaching and provide a lesson for slow learners concerning who he really is (14:8-14).

I hope you find this as helpful as I do in gaining an orientation to this passage – and to the Farewell Discourse as a whole.

Bible Reading Plans for the New Year

One of the things we often do for the new year is make our New Year resolutions. While we can make fun of people who make the same resolutions each year but never do anything about them, I want to suggest that a little reflection followed by some resolutions can be a good opportunity for all of us.


While Christians know that we can make a fresh start with God anytime, the start of a new year can be a good opportunity to change some of the patterns of life and make the changes that we haven’t felt able to make in the business of the year. I suggested in a recent sermon that two of the habits and patterns we might seek to establish or re-establish for the new year might be our quiet times and our Bible reading programme. Often these two can (and should) be linked.

One of the challenges of establishing a regular Bible reading plan is working out the plan. I find that it helps to use a plan that someone else has put some time and effort into devising. I recently came across a collection of these gathered by Justin Taylor here: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/12/30/bible-reading-plans-2/

Another recent article with a revised Bible reading plan is found here:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/12/29/two-year-bible-reading-plan/

In particular I recommend the plan I am using this year. It was originally devised by Robert Murray M’Cheyne in 1842. If you read all four readings for each day you read the whole Bible in a year. It can easily be modified so that you read the whole Bible in two years (just read two readings each day). The plan is reprinted in a book by Don Carson, For the Love of God (Vols 1 and 2) which gives a short reflection for each day on one of the readings. Carson’s introduction, which includes a copy of the plan, can be found here: Carson’s Introduction - For the Love of God

Take the plunge and get into a Bible reading plan this year. I pray that God will bless you richly as you listen to his word.

PS.  For a nice online version of the M'Cheyne plan, with links to Biblegateway, check out this page created by Karen & Ben Beilharz.   http://hippocampusextensions.com/mcheyneplan/