HOW TO READ THE PSALMS (SERIES): PART III OF IV

 

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

In this third installment of “How to Read the Psalms,” we want to understand something very important about this book. What would that be? Psalms is a book. This virtual tautology is something I think many do not understand to the level that it can be helpful. Why is this the case?

I believe that the default way of reading the Psalms is to pick a song and just read it. This is how we often listen to music in this day of “shuffling the iPod.” We ask ourselves, “What psalm do I want to hear this time,” and we become our own D. J. I actually don’t want to poo-poo this too much, as it is true that each song is its own self-contained unit. That is, after all, the way all songs work. So, this is certainly a fine and good way to read the Psalms.

But you can think of the Psalter like you might think of an old-fashioned record. Back in the day, we had to listen to vinyl. That meant, you had to put the needle on the record and let it play until Side A was finished. (Yeah, I know, you can play D. J. even on a record. But it’s a LOT more work, and really only fun when you are scratching!) When you turned it over, you started Side B.

Thing is, a good artist always put the songs on the album in some kind of meaningful way. It might start with a fast song and the side might end with a slow song. Sometimes, as in “concept albums,” the tracks all had a larger meaning and purpose collectively than they did individually. Only by listening to them together and in the order the artist wanted, did you get that message. My personal favorite example of this is Boston’s Third Stage. Concept albums are like symphonies with their various movements that often trade on a basic set of notes, or jazz compositions that improvise a riff for fifteen minutes. Listen to the first and last songs on the Third Stage, and you realize that Amanda and Hollyann are not only the only two girl-named songs on the record, but they have the same basic tune! The songs form a kind of chiasm!

The Psalter is basically the greatest concept album ever written. Here I want to tell you how it works. There are four levels.

1. Level 1: An Individual Song. As mentioned above, each song is its own self-contained unit. As such, each song can and should be read by itself. Scholars have labeled the various songs in subjects, including but not limited to songs of lament, praise, thanksgiving, trust, and royal Look for a basic theme like this and it will help you read the psalm better.
2. Level 2: Units of songs. As I’ve been preaching through the psalter, I’ve discovered that certain sets of songs are related such that reading them together is very helpful. Some of these are obvious (such as the Hallel song units of Psalm 113-118 or 146-150). Others take more work. For example, quite often, you can pick out and “evening” idea that is followed in the next song as a “morning” idea, and as such were intended to be sung liturgically by Israel, often during feast weeks. When read together this way, the songs complement and deepen the meaning of one another. In the way our church has uploaded our Psalm series, you can see many of these units simply in the way I decided to preach the psalms here. If you are looking for help, just read that list for an introduction (and for more in depth study, click on any of those sermons).
3. Level 3: The Five Books. The editor-scribe (perhaps Ezra and his associates) who put the Psalter into its final form wrote the collection on five scrolls, even though it was short enough to fit on just one.[1] Each scroll ended in doxology, thus creating the five “little books” of the Psalter. The Rabbis said that these five books parallel the Torah (the five books of Moses), and their purpose was, like Genesis-Deuteronomy, for different forms of instruction. Thus, each of these five books can be read as their own kind of self-contained unit. Some focus more on suffering. Others on covenant. Still others on life after exile.
4. Level 4: The One Psalter. The final level of reading is the psalter as a whole. Much good work has been done on this in the last few decades among scholars, and the idea is that the individual units, the mini-sets, and the five-books all work together to form an almost incomprehensible single story-line that is the Psalter. To me, this is as important a reading activity as any of the other three. Perhaps more so. For, you do not say that you have read a book unless you have finished that book. So also, you can’t really understand the Psalter until you have read it from beginning to end. It is to this last point that we will focus our final installment of this series.

[1] See Nahum Sarna, Songs of the Heart (New York: Schocken Books, 1993), 17.

How to Read the Psalms (Series): Part II of IV

 

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

In this series, we are asking the specific question, “How do I read the Psalms?” After figuring out the level of reading you want to achieve, you need to move into specifics. Here are some of my thoughts as I’ve been studying the Psalms. I believe they are simple enough for a second level of reading (“chewing”), but profound enough to take you all the way to the highest level you want to go.

1. Psalms is not a book about life-verses. Growing up in the 80s, singing the Psalms was becoming popular again. But this wasn’t a singing of the whole psalm. It was often a wrenching out of context of one or two “happy verses” to create a sentimental ditty. As the Deer is an interesting example. Taking its cue from Psalm 42:1, the song is a series of cheerful lines that fit a simple, welcoming tune. Many of those lines are taken from other parts of Scripture, which is well and good. But, this isn’t singing the psalm. Rather, the context of Psalm 42 is very, very different from anything you actually hear in that contemporary chorus. In fact, there actually is a chorus in Psalm 42 (it has one idea repeated three times). It isn’t “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you.” Rather, it is, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Ps 42:5, 11, 43:5). That’s quite a different idea from “As the Deer…” So, as you read the Psalms, don’t go looking for a verse here or there. Read the whole thing and come to understand its main point.
2. The Main Point. How do you find the main point of a psalm? There are several ways of doing this. Understanding the kind of literature that you are in is the place to start. Psalms are songs. These songs are written in Hebrew poetry. As such, you will find at least one of the following elements in each song:

 

• Chiasm. A chiasm is the most basic and common technique employed by the psalmists (they are actually found throughout the Bible, not just the Psalms). In its most basic form, it is a repetition of ideas that form a giant arrow pointing you to the main point. They used chiasms to help in memorization and to highlight various parts of the text. Most psalms are chiastic,[1] so look for repeating ideas near the ends of the song and inbetween. When you find a chiasm, the center is the main point. Once you become practiced at it, finding chiasms isn’t really all the difficult, even when you are simply sitting down and reading the psalm. In the paragraph I have provided an example from the most recent Psalm I preached.
• Repetition. When you notice a line repeated in a psalm (like we saw in Psalm 42-43), this acts like an English chorus (a line repeated throughout the song). This is rarer than chiasm, but many psalms have them. This is a main idea of the song.
• Superscription. The superscription is the first line of a psalm that was added later and is not, properly speaking, part of the text of the song. I believe the superscriptions are inspired. I also believe they are important for identifying the background of a song. Some are quite detailed (like Psalm 57’s, “To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave”). Others are very basic (like Psalm 143’s “A Psalm of David”). Both help put the song in a context, and sometimes that context means you need to go to other places in the Bible to better understand what’s going on. In the case of Psalm 57, you need to read 1 Samuel 24. In the case of a simple Davidic song, just remember that this means the song is coming from the hand of the king.
• First and last verses. Since every Psalm has a first and last verse, look at these for clues as to the what the rest of the psalm will answer. A good and simple example of this is the Hallelujah psalms at the end of the book (Ps 146-150). Each of these psalms begins and ends with the word “Hallelujah” (in Hebrew). In between, you learn the reasons why you are to “praise the LORD.” Another example is a song we just looked at. “As the Deer…” (cited in the previous post) begins Psalm 42. This is its first verse. It is actually a very meaningful verse, integral to the song as a whole. The last verse also happens to be the chorus. So here we have two of our ideas in understanding the point of a song. When put together, suddenly, it is clear that this isn’t a mere sentiment the psalmist is giving you, but a deep act of faith that becomes the longing of his heart during great trials and suffering.

After looking for the main point(s) of a song, it is time to move onto the next phase of reading the Psalms, which is learning to read them beyond a rag-tag collection of randomly jumbled together songs. We will look at this in the next installment.

[1] I’ve used three main online resources in my preaching through the Psalms here. First, Robert Alden’s three-part series on chiasms in the psalms published several decades ago in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (Psalms 1-50, Psalms 51-100, Psalms 101-150). Second, a blogger named Christine who has done some tremendous work on chiastic psalms. Third, the Biblical Chiasm Exchange.

How to Read the Psalms (Series): Part I of IV

 

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

The other day, someone asked me, “How should I read the Psalms?” I thought, that’s a good question, and given that I’m wrapping up a two-year series in them, it’s one that I think I’m able to answer better than I was before. This will be a four part series, and I’ll keep each post fairly short. This shouldn’t be rocket science.

So how should you read the Psalms? The first thought that came to my mind is that this is a different question than, “How should I study the Psalms?” Reading something vs. studying it are very different activities. In their famous 1940 book, How to Read a Book, Adler and Van Doren (no relation), following a quote from Francis Bacon, explain that there are four levels of reading any book. Using the illustration of eating, they suggest you can taste, swallow, chew, and digest it.[1] Each stage commits you to a more thorough reading such that by the end you really are studying more than reading.

Thus, if you want to read the Psalms, you have to first decide what level of reading you are committing yourself to.

• Do you want to merely taste it? This includes recognizing words, scanning the sentences, etc.? This is the most basic level of reading.
• Do you want to chew it? Here we do things like inspecting, skimming, pre-reading, learning the structure, taking notes, even memorizing. This is the level of starting to make the words your own.
• Do you want to swallow it? Now you begin to analyze, thoroughly read, figure out the plot, the unity, the author’s intent, the author’s message, and read the author fairly instead of importing your own “meaning.” This level begins to include other aids such as commentaries, journals, dictionaries, etc.
• Do you want to digest it? This kind of reading is where you get into the nitty gritty of the heavy demands of trying to understand the context, the culture, the language, how it fits in with other related texts in the Bible, and so on.

My suggestion is, at the very least, you want to commit to the second level of reading (“chewing”), where you are ruminating on the words rather than just letting your eyes glaze blurry over the text. (For more on this, I highly recommend Adler and Van Doren’s book, as the art of even basic reading is something that has been lost in our day to many people.)

In the next installment, we’ll begin to look at some specifics I’ve used when going through the psalms.

 

[1] I’ve rearranged the middle two.

THE NEW COVENANT–Covenant Recipients: AN EXPOSITION OF JEREMIAH 31:31-34 (PART 3)

Declaration: The Covenant Recipients

Who are the recipients of the new covenant? While not wanting to get into the baptism question (because Jeremiah isn’t talking about baptism in the slightest), without question this is one of those very disputed questions in Reformed circles. Let’s look at what the text says, rather than go to this or that system for an answer.

It is clear from history that the unfolding of the three parts of this passage (see Part 2) take place chronologically. The new covenant has been established because the Jews were brought back to their land. Our passage continues, “I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jer 31:31; Heb 8:8). It might seem evident who this is talking about. Some think it is literal biological Jews only. Others think it is Christians and their infants. Other think it is “the elect” (some taking that to mean even the elect before they are born). What is it talking about?

First, we have to see that Hebrews isn’t applying this to the nation of Israel, but to the Church. Somehow, Hebrews has interpreted “house of Israel” and “house of Judah” as the Church. There is no other explanation for how he could apply the new covenant to the church unless this is what he was doing. So how can that be?

Judah and Israel: Jesus as Covenant Recipient

Here, we have to remember that covenants are always mediated by covenant heads. When God made a covenant with the world, he made it with Adam and then Noah who both represented the world. When God made a covenant with Israel, he made it with Abram who represented his people, and so on. We have seen that Jesus is the one making the new covenant with his bride. In Part 2, we saw that he did this with his blood. But to have blood means that you are a human being. Gods don’t bleed! But the God-man bled. It is this humanity of Jesus that becomes so important in a new way.

Jesus’ death is the climax of three plus years of priestly ministry acted out to perfection (indeed, his entire life was one of perfect obedience). Matthew is a good example of how Jesus’ life is set up to emulate Israel’s life. Born from the stock of Jewish kings (Matt 1), he is a Hebrew of Hebrews. When he is two, a king tries to kill him, so he goes down to Egypt (Matt 2). He returns from Egypt and goes through the waters of baptism, as Israel was led through the Red Sea out of Egypt (Matt 3). He goes into the wilderness and is tempted for a period of “forty,” but he obeys and does not fall into temptation (Matt 4). He goes up to a mountain where he gives the law, just as Moses went up the mountain and received the law (Matt 5-7). He comes back down and never disobeys his God, not even to the point of death on a cross (Matt 8ff).

The point Matthew is making is that Jesus is True Israel. If Jesus is True Israel, then he is the True Recipient of the new covenant. Among several reasons, this is a significant one that led early Reformed Baptists to see the new covenant as the historical manifestation of that eternal covenant made before time (sometimes called the Covenant of Redemption). Jesus is being given “the covenant of grace” (a theological, not biblical phrase) because of his perfect obedience and fulfillment of all the old covenants. If you want to know what “Israel” or “Judah” means, look no further. Until we come to accept that Jesus Christ is true Israel, we will never be able to understand what he actually did for the whole world. The new covenant won’t make any sense.

Judah and Israel: The Church as Covenant Recipient “in Christ”

Now, remember that in the OT, the house of Israel is called the vine (Isa 5:1-7). But in the NT, Jesus is called The Vine (John 15:1-5). Why? Because Jesus is True Israel. But then Jesus says something amazing. Any who are branches in the Vine have abundant life. The idea is that to be in the Vine is to be part of the Vine. Christians have their life “in Christ.” To put that another way, they have their life “in True Israel.” Thus, the Church is actually what is being predicted by Jeremiah. Let’s look a little more carefully to see how.

Using a different metaphor, listen to what Jeremiah said earlier in his book. The prophet lumps the two houses in with all of the nations. They are no different in this respect: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh–Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart” (Jer 9:25-26). Circumcision is obviously hugely important for the covenant God made with Israel through Abraham. But if you do not have a circumcised heart, then to God, you are as good as a pagan. And this is found in the OT!

Just here, I want us to move ahead for a moment to Jer 33:33/Heb 8:10, and one of the promises found regarding the new covenant. “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts.” “On their hearts” language is closely related to being circumcised in heart, and other new covenant prophecies confirm this. This idea of being circumcised in heart is found in Jeremiah 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.” This is in turn found in Deuteronomy. “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” (Deut 10:15).

But of course, it isn’t possible for a man to circumcise his own heart. Moses told the people that it was in God’s power to do so, but as of the end of Deuteronomy, he hadn’t done it yet. “But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear” (Deut 29:4). God refused to do that in those days in order that the new covenant promises might come to us today. Moses foresaw this and prophesied, “The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live” (Deut 30:6). This is a new covenant prophecy.

Now let’s think about Ezekiel. This prophet talks about the same new covenant, only he calls it a “covenant of peace” (Ezek 37:26-28).[1] “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek 36:25-26).

Take all of this and come to the NT and suddenly you start seeing the fulfillment in the church. Listen to the language of being a Jew from this passage in Romans, “No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God” (Rom 2:28-29). This is what Jeremiah was driving at, and in the first part actually said. This is what Ezekiel was looking forward to as well.

But Paul is talking about the Gentiles being True Jews. This was in accordance with many prophecies. Isaiah puts it this way, “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance” (Isa 19:23-25). This goes all the way back to the covenant promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations.

We have only looked at the prophecy of a new heart and circumcision, but this one idea can help us see why the NT uses all sorts of “Israel” language to talk about the Church. It calls us “true Jews” (Rom 2:29), “the circumcision” (Php 3:3);[2] “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16),[3] “the temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16),[4] “Abraham’s children” (Rom 4:16);[5] “the new Jerusalem” (Rev 21:2),[6] “the bride” (Eph 5:25),[7] “a kingdom of priests” (Rev 5:10; cf. Ex 19:6),[8] and even the term Ekklesia (Church) are straight out of the OT language used of “Israel.”[9]

Thus, when Jeremiah says that God is going to make a new covenant with the house of Judah and Israel, we have to understand the organic relationship between the nation of Israel and the church. The church is Israel “in Christ.” The first stage of the prophecy was with the nation of Israel—they were brought back to the Land. The second stage comes once the Gentiles are grafted into the vine, which is not the nation of Israel, but Jesus Christ who is True Israel. The nation is a type of Christ. This is why Hebrews can take a prophecy that seems to be for the nation only, and apply it to the church of Jesus. The NT everywhere sees the church as the eschatological fulfillment of national Israel. That doesn’t mean the biological people called Jews cease to be Jews anymore than Italians or Chinese cease to be those. It does mean that in Christ, all are one nation—there is no Jew or Greek (Gal 3:28).

We have now taken the first of two important steps in identifying the recipients of the new covenant. We have seen that it is Christ who receives this covenant and who then cuts it in his own blood for his bride. Next time, we will look at what this means regarding the oldness and the newness of the new covenant and how this helps us further identify the covenant recipients.

— — — — — —

[1] “I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” (Ezek 37:26-28). “Covenant of peace” is the language of the Phinehas priestly covenant. Ezekiel’s language here is completely temple focused, as is the ritual of sprinkling. See last week’s sermon for more on the priestly covenant and its relation to the new covenant.

[2] “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”

[3] “And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.”

[4] “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

[5] “… not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”

[6] “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

[7] See n. 14.

[8] “You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Rev 5:10); “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6).

[9] See Deut 4:10; 9:10; 18:16; 23:2-4; 31:10; etc.

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

Non-Biblical Literature and the Bible: Ancient World Literature (Tenth Post, Part II)

(Continued)

Structure and Common Grace

While the Bible is unlike anything else that has ever been written because of its authorship, inerrancy, and infallibility, the fact that it was written in a specific context both culturally and historically cannot be ignored. The very structure of the Bible itself can be understood in the framework of classical literary genres, thus displaying God’s common grace. This is our second thought for thinking about world literature.

While not necessarily able to identify them, most people are probably familiar with Greek epics, lyrics, tragedies, and comedies. The Bible is structured as an epic, made up of both tragedy and comedy. In very general terms, a tragedy can be understood as a story that begins high and ends low (e.g. Shakespeare’s Macbeth), while a comedy begins low and ends high (e.g. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice), most often with a wedding. Comedies also usually pick up in the middle of a story. An epic is typically broader in scope than both tragedy and comedy, and includes a journey (e.g. Homer’s Odyssey).

Perhaps you’re able to piece together where this is headed. The Old Testament is structured in the form of a tragedy. It begins high (creation) and ends low (rampant idolatry amongst the Israelites). The New Testament is structured in the form of a comedy. It begins low, in the middle of the story (450 years of silence from God), and ends high with a wedding (The great wedding of Christ and His people in the new heavens and new earth). Together, the Old and the New Testament are structured as an epic, as the Lord takes us through the journey that unfolds from creation, through his covenantal arrangements, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the establishment of the Church, and the fulfillment of all things in the new heavens and new earth. Any literature that follows these patterns serve in their very genres as copies of God’s Great Story.

There’s also much insight to be gained from a reading of individual classic works when compared to the Bible. Is it possible that God used the influence of men like Plato in his writing—as a pagan philosopher—to prepare the Hellenized world for the coming of the Christ and the announcement of the gospel? Consider the following dialogue and how it relates to Scripture:

 “Then is that city best governed which is most like a single human being? For example, when one of us wounds a finger, presumably the entire community—that community tying the body together with the soul in a single arrangement under the ruler within it—is aware of the fact, and all of it is in pain as a whole along with the afflicted part; and it is in this sense we say that this human being has a pain in his finger. And does the same argument hold for any other part of a human being, both when it is afflicted by pain and when eased by pleasure?“

“Yes, it does,” he said. “And, as to what you ask, the city with the best regime is most like such a human being.“

“I suppose, then, that when one of its citizens suffers anything at all, either good or bad, such a city will most of all say that the affected part is its own, and all will share in the joy or the pain.”

Sound familiar? This is from Plato’s Republic, written nearly 400 years prior to the New Testament. But, how about 1 Corinthians 12:14-26?

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 

Is it possible that the Apostle Paul used the language and ideas of Plato that were familiar to the people of his culture to describe the church? Could it be that Paul’s letter to the Romans was not only a theological treatise of positive Christian doctrine, but also a response to Plato’s Republic and the commonly accepted ideas about justice and redemption, based upon Greek philosophy?

A journey through the classics will expand a Christian’s horizons to help us have an even greater understanding of the context in which the Bible was written and the foundations of our faith were forged. By the common grace of God, He even used pagan philosophers to support His ends of introducing the greatest story ever told—the true myth of a great Savior who has come to rescue his people.

Stance (Attitude) and the Image of God

Another use can be reevaluating our stance and attitude towards unbelievers. Sometimes, I fear that too many Reformed Christians have as their root anthropological principle the fall and sin rather than the imago dei (image of God) in all humanity which is both logically and historically prior to sin. While helping us keep a good perspective on evil, doing this can also have certain detrimental, almost Fundamentalist ramifications which can cause us to retreat into our own castles rather than live in the world Jesus refused to take us out of. This is anything but a Reformed stance towards the world, at least historically speaking. Also, if sin and not the image is the most basic principle, then I have nothing to learn from an unbeliever except evil, and once I’m saved, the problem is only magnified. This in turn can cause me to take a personal stance towards them both in how I treat and in how I think about them as people and their contributions to society. By reading secular literature, I can more directly involve myself in the common humanity and echoes of truth that I share with them.

This gives me enough ability to read just about any ancient religious text–be it a Buddhist tract on ethics or law (demonstrating that we all have the law written on our hearts), or a Hindu text (that reflects the biblical worldview of the supernatural in a perverted way), or a piece of philosophical utopianism like the Communist Manifesto or Critique of Pure Reason—both to learn and to evaluate biblically the good and the bad. Our Faith is not diminished by challenges to it, but only increases in wonder in the face of them.

The wonder is really threefold. First, image bearers are still able to see truth—although they suppress it in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18ff). The image is not destroyed. They know the law and use reason and cannot help but talk about and use both in an almost infinite variety of ways. Second, the Gospel was revealed to a specific group of people in time giving those people the only news that can actually save it from itself. Only Scripture reveals the Good News that saves. Third, this Gospel is news that is to be proclaimed to all humanity, because Jesus came to be the Savior of the world. In reading their works, we can easily see points of contact and the many needs in which salvation is so important for us all. This in turn can help us in our attitudes towards others, knowing that we and they are alike in sin, in the image, and in our need for salvation.

Reading their writings and understanding their thought can then be used to soften our hearts against them as well as being used as points of contact in much the same way that Don Richardson used the story of the Peace Child as a point of contact to bring the gospel to an otherwise radically blinded group of pagans in Western New Guinea. We do not need to be afraid of other religions or philosophies or outlooks on life. Nor does reading and learning about them need to lead us into skepticism and unbelief. Frankly, those are stances that people bring to the literature, rather than conclude after starting with some kind of neutral stance. Using pagan literature to justify unbelief rather than seeing that the unbelief was there prior is just a way to mask the real problem.

Soul Cultivation

A final application of reading classical world literature is the cultivation of our own souls. Gene Veith, speaking about Classical Education writes, “The word ‘liberal’ [as in Liberal Arts] derives from the Latin libera, meaning freedom. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, a liberal education was necessary for a man to be free. Slaves would receive vocational training, but free citizens required an education that enlarged the mind and cultivated the soul. Classical education aimed at the apprehension of the true, the good, and the beautiful. The ancients believed that cultivation of virtue, knowledge of the world and of human nature, active citizenship, and practical action required an education with this purpose.”[1]

Sure, Classical Education was created by Greeks, but these people also believed in the cultivation of moral virtues. As with our own Founding Fathers, they cultivated these virtues not by indoctrinating –isms into people’s minds through public education, but by giving citizens the objective tools to think for themselves. The –isms that are dominating our education today are, in our opinion, creating more vices than virtues. We as a society and as the Church are increasingly held in captivity to philosophies that we don’t even know how to communicate, let alone combat. So we need to begin with our minds, learning to think critically (not being critical, but evaluating the good, the bad, and the ugly).

As one example, especially in light of the irony from the ancient world, education today has become almost wholly pragmatic (i.e. you go to school to get a job), meaning that they Greeks would have viewed us as people who willingly put themselves under slavery. If this is so, then we need to be willing to read the great Pragmatists such as Dewey and James as well as their critiques so that we can get out from under that slavery and into the freedom that the Liberal Arts can bring us (I speak in a human, not a spiritually way, as slavery to the devil only stops when a person believes the gospel).

After the mind, it is our very souls that need cultivation as well. Once our stance towards unbelievers is oriented properly (i.e. image bearers who possess truth, but who suppress it in unrighteousness), then we will find ourselves able to learn about truth (“all truth is God’s truth”) that we ourselves may not be thinking about. Thus, we can read the classics and come to see the beauty that is a Robert Frost poem, the brilliance that is Mark Twain’s critique of slavery in Huckleberry Finn, the truth that resides in Dante’s vision of the Roman Church, or the humor that is portrayed in Wuthering Heights (I can’t believe I just said that last one). In doing this, we find ourselves better people, freer citizens, more open and honest and willing to deal in the world, without having to be “of” it.

I hope you have enjoyed this series, and look in the coming week or so for a lengthy bibliography that we are working on that we hope will help you in your journey into the world of non-biblical literature as you now have the tools to think about it biblically.

(by: Doug Van Dorn, Nick Kennicott)

[1] Gene Edward Veith, Jr. and Andrew Kern, Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America (Washington D.C.: Capital Research Center, 2001), 11.