Grame Godlsworthy - notes taken from his book - PREACHING THE WHOLE BIBLE AS CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE

Lately some other pastors and I have been reading through a book together. We get together once a month to discuss about 3 chapters from that book around some food. Of course there is food involved! We're pastors and pastors can do some eating; especially Brian Sandifer. ;)

Over the period of about two hours we talk about what we have gleamed from this encouraging book.

Here is the first post of many to come about this great book by Grame Goldsworthy.

Concerning the mandate to preach-

“We believe that preaching is not some peripheral item in the program of the local church, but that it lies at the very heart of what it is to be the people of God. We understand the activity of preaching as the primary way in which the congregations of God’s people express their submission to God”

Taken from- Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture; page 1.

Concerning the reduction to moralism of the OT in preaching-

"The message of the Old Testament is too easily reduced to the imitation of godly example and the avoidance of the ungodly example. This raises the questions of the Bible's unity, the relationship of the Testaments. (page 5)

"Jesus is presented in the New Testament as the one who fulfills the promises of God by achieving for humankind the salvation that is i otherwise beyond our reach. Against the backdrop of the complexity of the history and prophetic expectations of the Old Testament, Jesus proclaims himself to be the goal of all the purposes and promises of God. Where the Old Testament describes the goal of God's work in terms of a remnant of the chosen people, the promised land, the temple, the David prince, and a whole range of images and metaphors, the New Testament claims simply that the death and resurrection of Jesus fulfills them all. The mighty acts of God, interpreted by his prophetic word, and by which he revealed his nature, are declared by the preaching of Jesus and his apostles to be preparatory for the person and work of Jesus. The God who acts in the Old Testament is the God who becomes flesh in the New Testament in order to achieve the definitive saving work in the world."

Taken from- Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture; page 6.

Concerning the Bible's main subject-

"The principle is simply this: Jesus says that the Old Testament is a book about him. ... How does this passage of Scripture, and consequently my sermon, testify to Christ? There are two man grounds for this question. The first, as stated above, is that Jesus claims to be the subject of all Scripture. The second is the overall structure of the biblical revelation, which finds its coherence only in the person and work of Christ."

Taken from- Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture; page 21.

Goldsworthy is an Australian Anglican and Old Testament scholar. Now retired, Goldsworthy was formerly lecturer in Old Testament, biblical theology and hermeneutics at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of According to Plan (IVP, 1991) and Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (Eerdmans, 2000). Goldsworthy has an MA from Cambridge University and a ThM and PhD from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia.

John Stott on the "old man" and the "body ruled by sin" in Rom 6 v 6

There are, in fact, two quite distinct ways in which the New Testament speaks of crucifixion in relation to holiness. The first is our death to sin through identification with Christ; the second is our death to self through imitation of Christ. On the one hand, we have been crucified with Christ. But on the other we have crucified (decisively repudiated) our sinful nature with all its desires, so that every day we renew this attitude by taking up our cross and following Christ to crucifixion. The first is a legal death, a death to the penalty of sin; the second is a moral death, a death to the power of sin. The first belongs to the past, and is unique and unrepeatable; the second belongs to the present, and is repeatable, even continuous. I died to sin (in Christ) once; I die to self (like Christ) daily. It is with the first of these two deaths that Romans 6 is chiefly concerned, although the first is with a view to the second, and the second cannot take place w...

Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

The giving of the law did not effect a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but merely introduced a change in its external form. The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. Many of the Israelites, indeed, looked upon the law in a purely legalistic spirit and sought to base their claim to salvation on a scrupulous fulfillment of it as a body of external precepts. But in the case of those who understood its real nature, who felt the inwardness and spirituality of the law, it served to deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only from the grace of God . L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 498–499.

F.F. Bruce: ...know their father's will...

The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...

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