Items tagged poythress

The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:38:06 GMT

Vern Poythress's book, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, is now available online for free.

Here is the table of contents:

Part 1: Understanding the Different Aspects of the Law

Part 2: Understanding Specific Penalties of the Law

HT: Keith Plummer

Understanding Dispensationalism

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 05:00:27 GMT

Vern Poythress's book, Understanding Dispensationalism, is now online.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Getting Dispensationalists and Nondispensationalists to Listen to Each Another
Chapter 2: Characteristics of Scofield Dispensationalism
Chapter 3: Variations of Dispensationalism
Chapter 4: Developments in Covenant Theology
Chapter 5: The Near Impossibility of Simple Refutations
Chapter 6: Strategy for Dialogue With Dispensationalists
Chapter 7: The Last Trumpet
Chapter 8: What is Literal Interpretation?
Chapter 9: Dispensational Expositions of Liternalness
Chapter 10: Interpretive Viewpoint in Old Testament Israel
Chapter 11: The Challenge of Typology
Chapter 12: Hebrews 12:22-24
Chapter 13: The Fulfillment of Israel in Chris
Chapter 14: Other Areas for Potential Exploration
Postscript
Bibliography

Baptizing Small Children

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:05:31 GMT

Here's an opportunity for good iron-sharpening-iron discussion, in a spirit of gentleness and respect, regarding baptism.

If you're up for it, read this article by Vern Poythress: Indifferentism and Rigorism in the Church: With Implications for Baptizing Small Children (originally published in 1997 in the Westminster Theological Journal). It's a rapprochement of sorts between baptists and paedobaptists.

Poythress set forth four truths: (1) baptism marks the inception of life with Christ and the joining of the church; (2) credible profession of faith rather than infallible evidence of regeneration is required; (3) credible profession must be appropriate to the age and gifts of the person; (4) faith consists primarily in trust in Christ rather than intellectual mastery, precise verbal articulation of the truth, or self-conscious, autonomous decision-making.

If you agree, then it's very hard to avoid the conclusion that children--even young children--should be baptized.

Poythress also has a sequel to this article, Linking Small Children with Infants in the Theology of Baptizing. {link fixed} As with virtually everything Poythress pens, this article is filled with provocative points and insights. However, as a convinced credobaptist, my sense is that one would not come to these conclusions regarding the linkage of baptism with nascent infant faith unless one first believed in paedobaptism or was seeking validation for it.

But going back to the first article: what do you think? Are Poythress' arguments, especially concerning rigorism, persuasive? (I'd love for the 9Marks guys to weigh in, too!)

God's Presence Qualifying Grammatical-Historical Interpretation

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:19:52 GMT

The Presence of God Qualifying Our Notions of Grammatical-Historical Interpretation by Vern Poythress:

Evangelical scholars have championed grammatical-historical interpretation as an objective means of sifting truth from error. This approach has value if we use it as one focus, but limitations if we use it as a total account. The temptation arises to think of objective interpretation as implying total domination of the text in order to capture its meaning. God himself poses an obstacle in several ways to hermeneutical dominance. God as master author limits our understanding of the authorial mind. God the Spirit as inspirer of human authors limits our understanding of human author's minds. God as archetype for man as the image of God implies the necessity of understanding the divine mind in order to understand the human mind. God as master of history limits our ability to confine the text to its immediate historical and cultural horizon. God as Lord of language limits our control on word and sentence meaning. God as present through the Spirit among interpreters limits our control on our own minds. Various limitations can be illustrated in the challenge of interpreting Genesis 3:15

Read the rest of the article here.

Also, check out Poythress' book God-Centered Biblical Interpretation.

Do Modern People Have Room for the Wrath of God?

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 09:53:14 GMT

Do Modern People Have Room for the Wrath of God? by Vern Poythress