Kevin T. Bauder According to 2 Timothy 3:16, all scripture is God-breathed or inspired. In other words, inspiration applies to the scriptures themselves, not to the process by which they were produced. The word inspired is a result word, not a process word. The writers were not inspired. The thoughts were not inspired. The various… Continue Reading
For the past couple of weeks I have been establishing the need to root our theology and practice of worship in the authoritative and sufficient Word of God. So what would it mean, then for our worship to be truly governed by the authority and sufficiency of Scripture? This emphasis upon biblical authority over our… Continue Reading
Jesus’s confrontation with the Pharisees during his earthly ministry highlights the fact that God rejects worship based on the traditions of men; rather, he insists that worship be regulated by his inspired Word. The key biblical text that emphasizes the authority of God’s Word is 2 Timothy 3:16–17: All Scripture is breathed out by God… Continue Reading
Ever since Cain and Abel, God’s people have been asking, “What is the proper way to worship God?” Uncertainty reigns today in churches over whether or not certain service elements are really helpful for congregational worship. What is acceptable? Some godly Christians, attempting to enhance their worship, believe they have freedom to use anything to… Continue Reading
Week 14: Samson Weekly memory verse: Psalm 17:8 – “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Weekly hymn: Jesus, Lover of My Soul (free download) Weekly catechism: How can you come to know God and what he has made? The fear of the Lord is the… Continue Reading
Several years ago when my oldest was beginning his homeschooling in earnest and my wife and I were choosing our curricula for different school subjects, I set out to find just the right Bible curriculum. Our family does regularly read the Bible together as a family, but it is my firm belief that it also… Continue Reading
This is the final post in a series I’ve been writing over the past couple months in order to more thoroughly develop an idea I presented in By the Waters of Babylon, namely, that the aesthetic forms in our corporate worship should be regulated by the aesthetic forms of Scripture. In this series, I have argued… Continue Reading
Last week I argued that if we believe in verbal-plenary inspiration, then the meaning of the aesthetic forms we employ in our contemporary worship must accurately correspond to the meaning Scripture’s aesthetic forms had in their original context. What we need to concern ourselves with is what both Kevin Vanhoozer and Nicholas Wolterstorff call “fittingness.”1 Wolterstorff defines fittingness… Continue Reading
In this series of essays, I have argued that Scripture presents God’s truth to us, not merely in didactic propositions, but also (in fact, mostly!) through various aesthetic forms. Therefore, when we attempt to translate the truth of Scripture into contemporary forms of communication, we must be certain that the meaning of the original text is accurately… Continue Reading
In By the Waters of Babylon, I make a brief statement about how the aesthetic forms of Scripture should guide and regulate worship forms today. In this series, I am attempting to flesh out that argument a bit more. Up to this point, I have argued that truth expressed in Scripture is not merely scientific fact… Continue Reading
Conservative evangelicals admirably repudiate emergent leaders who argue that both content and form must be contextualized; evangelicals insist that since God’s Word is inspired and inerrant, God’s truth transcends culture and must be preserved intact. But since even most conservative evangelicals consider culture as entirely neutral in itself and beauty as in the eye of… Continue Reading
Over at Pyromaniacs, Dan Phillips offered a series of points for discussion regarding worship music. He and a few others encouraged me to head over to engage the conversation, so I did. I thought I’d post my response here as well for the sake of our readers: Dan, the points you make are very common,… Continue Reading
Faced with numerous denials of inerrancy from professing evangelicals, theologians and church leaders gathered in 1978 to form the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Meeting at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Chicago, the new organization adopted a statement that attempted to explain the historic evangelical understanding of Scripture. This document, called the “Chicago Statement on… Continue Reading
The wording of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 forces the reader to certain conclusions about biblical inspiration. First, the writings and not the writers are inspired. Second, the words and not merely the ideas of Scripture are inspired. Third, inspiration is about a result and not about the process by means of which the Scriptures were produced.… Continue Reading
In his recent series on The Gospel Coalition, Pastor Matt Recker devoted an entire essay to the doctrine of Scripture. Pointing to a 1956 article in Christian Life magazine, he noted that one element in the development of New Evangelicalism was a “re-opening of the subject of biblical inspiration.” He argued that this re-opening led… Continue Reading
Last week we discovered that the founders of the first church were characterized by united, fervent prayer. But prayer is not the only thing with which these founders of the first Church occupied their time, and Luke uses the event of choosing Judas’ replacement to highlight the second characteristic of these men. What was it that… Continue Reading
(The articles in this series were originally written for publication in the local newspaper of the town in which I pastor.) What do you look for in a church? Most people, I’ve found, are looking for are specific kinds of programs: children’s ministries, support groups, outreach plans, and so on. And none of these things… Continue Reading
There is an interesting conversation taking place in response to my post last week about “authenticity” in worship. The question revolves around affirmation from God that our worship is indeed acceptable. The question is, if we choose to do something in worship, and God affirms in our hearts that it is acceptable to him, how… Continue Reading
Tomorrow I begin another semester teaching a graduate class in the history and theology of worship. The class is largely a survey of the historical, theological, and philosophical events and ideas that have shaped worship today, and one of the first tasksI tackle on the first day of class is to answer the question, “Why?”… Continue Reading
In these book recommendations, we have worked our way back in time to the fourth century. We could spend much more time back there, and it would certainly be to our benefit. However, perhaps it would be best to bounce back to some twentieth century writers who had the insight to know how to apply… Continue Reading