Prior to the gavel falling to begin the annual business meeting of the BGCT, many were attending workshops led by various convention leaders and seminary professors. One was led by Dr. Dan Stiver who teaches theology at the Logsdon School of Theology on the campus of
A third issue is then to understand the historical development that takes place through the Old Testament and into the New Testament. A basically Christian understanding is that the fullness of God's revelation is in Jesus Christ. It implies that previous to Christ there was not the fullness of that revelation. While some would come to the Bible as a “flat Bible,” this is a very ahistorical and unincarnational way to approach the Bible. If we think in terms of what is called "progressive revelation," then we can understand that God is being revealed to people throughout the Old Testament in ways compatible with their ability to understand. John Calvin spoke of this as God “accommodating” the limitations of their understanding.10 At best, he thought, God speaks baby talk to us because of our limitations. We should always be aware, therefore, that revelation does not mean utter and thorough explanation, but it is accommodated to particular places and cultures and languages and translations and concepts. What this looks like is that there were places where there was dramatic understanding, and there were places where they pretty clearly did not understand the way God is later understood in light of the revelation in Jesus Christ. For example, polygamy seemed to be understood by many in the Old Testament as consistent with God's will. Jesus pointed out in the Sermon on the Mount that the understanding of divorce in the Old Testament was not really God's intention. Genocide, under the name of holy war, was understood to be consistent with the will of God in some of the Old Testament, which is difficult to reconcile with the perspective of Jesus in the New Testament. Unless we have some idea of God changing in God's basic character, which is almost universally considered unorthodox among Christian theologians, then it is difficult to think that what happened was that God changed; rather, what it looks like is that the understanding of God changed and developed over the course of time. This is the meaning then of progressive revelation. While this approach enables us to avoid seeming contradictions in the Bible and to make some aspects of interpretation quite a bit easier, it does represent a challenge. It puts a burden upon the believing interpreter to discern in light of the whole canon what is consistent with the nature of God and the purposes of God in places where it is not clear. For example, in the Old Testament, we have the commandments, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5) and also “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev. 19:18) It is fairly easy to see these as revelatory of God in the full and universal sense. It is much more difficult to see holy war, the practice of polygamy, or God hardening someone's heart (as with Pharaoh, Ex. 10:1) as consistent with the understanding of God conveyed in Jesus Christ. Another case is Psalm 137, where the prayer is that God will dash the enemy's children against the rocks. (vs. 9) In the context, there is no hint that there is anything wrong with any of this sentiment, and one can imagine someone taking from the Psalm that this is the kind of attitude that we are supposed to have. It is only in light of the wider message of the whole Bible that we would have a more critical perspective.
The article can be found in its entirety at the following link. http://www.bgct.org/texasbaptists/Document.Doc?&id=4408.
Others have mentioned this seminar in their blogs or comments.
See, Aaron on SBC Outpost as a comment on the story of the BGCT electing a female president.
See this note at Waves of Truth under his blog BGCT thoughts and concerns.
http://tree4lifetx.blogspot.com/
Is this a conservative approach, a moderate approach, or a neo liberal approach?
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I thought it might be helpful to clarify what I said at the conference. My point was the opposite of what some have claimed. I was arguing in the conference and in my forthcoming book AGAINST an open canon. I have attempted to correct these claims on other blogs, but to no avail! Certainly the issue of open theism didn't even come up! I guess this is the danger of blogs and the Internet. I appreciate you putting the context of the article on your blog. It makes clear that the issue of progressive revelation is in the context of the closed canon and related actually to the ideas of Calvin. It represents the basic Christian hermeneutic from the beginning of reading the Old Testament in light of the New, that is, the supreme revelation of God in Christ.
Dan, I didn't agree with the comments that accused you of open cannon. I do strongly disagree with your hermeneutic in reconciling difficult passages of the OT. I can agree that the OT writers didn't understand as much as post resurrection believers. I cannot agree that they were wrong in what they wrote about God. They may not have understood grace as we can understand grace, but when they wrote that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, then the Bible teaches God hardened his heart. But then would you agree that Jonah really went to the belly of the fish and that the plagues really happened at the hand of almighty God?
Thank you. I appreciate it.
I actually don't think the language of "wrong" is apt. When the New Testament has a view different from the Old Testament, such as Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount or his modification of Sabbath laws, the more robust views of an afterlife and of Satan, or even of things like polygamy that were accepted as consistent with the Law in the Old Testament, I prefer the language of "development" or "fuller revelation" rather than the Old Testament being wrong.
Not to have a view of such movement in revelation from the Old to the New leads unbelievers, it seems to me, to see these differences as mistakes or problems that then become stumbling blocks.
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