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BET 7.1 Interior 200316.Indd BULLETIN OF ECCLESIAL THEOLOGY BULLETIN OF ECCLESIAL THEOLOGY Essays on Spiritual Formation Vol. 7.1 (2020) Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology Published twice yearly by The Center for Pastor Theologians Editorial Staff General Editor: Gerald L. Hiestand Article Editor: Matthew Mason Book Review Editor: Zachary Wagner Editors’ Assistant: Soo Ai Kudo The Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology is published by the Center for Pastor Theologians. The essays contained within the Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology are drawn from the papers presented at the Center’s tri-annual theological symposia for pastors. Views of the contributors are their own, and not necessarily endorsed by the editorial staff or the Center. For more information regarding the Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology or the Center for Pastor Theologians, please visit www.pastortheologians.com. ISBN 9798643501275 ISSN 2471-075X Indexing available in Christian Periodical Index, owned by the Association of Christian Librarians and produced by EBSCOHost. Copyright 2020 Printed in the United States of America EDITORIAL Questions surrounding technology and human formation are of press- ing interest to a wide range of religious and secular thinkers. In examining them, there is a legitimate place for a ‘secular’ orientation to the natural ends of human persons. But for pastors and theologians, the questions we ask and the answers we attempt take their rise in consideration of the Triune God, and of his outer works of creating, sustaining, judging, reconciling and perfecting creatures for fellowship with him. A rightly ordered Christian theology of technology and formation will insist that divine reality-conferring and reality-shaping acts have absolute priority over any human acts, including the technologies used to serve those acts. We are formed by God, through God, and to God. Nevertheless, in this humans are not merely passive. God’s acts call forth and enable creaturely enactment of a fitting form of life, oriented towards appropriate natural ends, and above all to our supernatural end of loving fellowship with the Holy Trinity. The articles that follow approach these questions from a refreshing variety of perspectives within a broadly evangelical understanding of the Christian faith. Adam Copenhaver builds on St Luke’s use of history and theology to provide assurance to show how pastors might similarly seek the spiritual formation of believers from doubt to certainty. Benjamin Espinosa compares John Wesley, George Whitefield and contemporary white evan- gelicalism to call for more faithful formation that is aware of and addresses racial prejudice. By means of a rich exposition of Jacques Ellul’s thinking about ‘technique’, Joel Lawrence considers how Ellul can help Christians to avoid conforming to the world, and instead to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Then, in a pair of more exegetically focused articles, Michael LeFebvre offers a careful and hermeneutically aware reading of the story of Abigail and Nabal (1 Sam. 25) to mine it for insights into mental healthcare, and Jim Samra brings 2 Corinthians 3-5 to bear on the insights of behavioral science to enable a more theological evaluation of their limitations in light of people’s need for divinely accomplished rebirth and maturation. Finally, Joseph Sherrard articulates a biblical doctrine of the mortification of sin that challenges and corrects the distortions of an exclusively therapeutic gospel. It is appropriate, given the priority of the Holy Trinity as enabler and end of our formation, that reading and reflection on these essays be accompanied by prayer for divine assistance: Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Reverend Matthew Mason PhD Candidate, Aberdeen University Tutor in Ethics, the Pastors’ Academy London, England BET 7.1 (2020) 1-31 LUKE AS PASTOR OF DOUBT: FAITH AND CERTAINTY IN LUKAN PERSPECTIVE ADAM COPENHAVER1 Christians have traditionally embraced certainty as an ideal goal of Christian faith, but in recent times, the precise opposite view has been increasingly argued, namely that doubt is the only realistic and authentic way to believe. This creates confusion for Christians who doubt—should they strive to overcome their doubt in pursuit of certainty, or should they reject certainty and learn to be content with their doubt? And this also raises questions for spiritual formation and for pastoral ministry—what does it mean to be formed spiritually as one who doubts, and how does a pastor shepherd doubters into that formation? In this paper, we will explore doubt and certainty in light of the writings of Luke. We will see that Luke intends for his writings to in some way form certainty within his audience, and that Luke may thereby be seen as a pastor to those who doubt. The paper will develop in three sections. First, we will consider some of the voices speaking about doubt and certainty today. Second, we will explore Luke’s understanding of certainty and how he expects his corpus of writings to produce that certainty. Third and finally, we will draw conclusions for spiritual formation and pastoral ministry today. I. DOUBT, FAITH AND CERTAINTY IN THEOLOGICAL CONVERSATION In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the main character, Christian, inadvertently trespasses on the ground of Doubting Castle.2 He is taken captive by Giant Despair, who is lord of Doubting Castle, and Christian suffers many torments during his captivity, though Hopeful remains faith- fully by his side, so that he does not die, as have many captives before him. He escapes when, after a night of prayer, he realizes that he has always had the key in his chest pocket, near his heart, and that key is the promises of God. As his faith is renewed and his convictions restored, this key opens one gate after another, releasing him from captivity. Christian then erects 1 Adam Copenhaver is the Senior Pastor of Mabton Grace Bretheren Church in Mabton, Washington. 2 John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come, ed. Barry E. Horner (Lindenhurst, NY: Reformation Press, 1999; originally published 1678). 2 BULLETIN OF ECCLESIAL THEOLOGY a monument warning future pilgrims about the danger of doubt, which is forbidden ground, for it leads to captivity, despair, and even destruction.3 Bunyan’s view of doubt has been shared by many Christians throughout history. John Calvin, for example, defines faith as a “a firm and sure knowl- edge of the divine favor toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds, and sealed on our hearts, by the Holy Spirit.”4 Doubt, however, works against the “firm and sure” nature of faith, for “nothing is more adverse to faith than conjecture, or any other feeling akin to doubt.”5 For Calvin, though all believers experience the doubts that arise from the flesh, God equips believers for overcoming doubt by the Holy Spirit, who reveals to us the promise of God’s favor toward us in Christ and seals those truths upon our hearts.6 Therefore, believers can have assurance in humility, for such assurance is the gift of God.7 More recently, Os Guinness has expressed the danger of doubt even more explicitly. He defines doubt in light of belief and unbelief as follows: “To believe is to be ‘in one mind’ about trusting someone or something as true; to disbelieve is to be ‘in one mind’ about rejecting them. To doubt is to waver between the two, to believe and disbelieve at once and so to be ‘in 3 The monument reads (Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, 145): Out of the way we went, and then we found What ‘twas to tread upon forbidden ground; And let them that come after have a care, Lest heedlessness makes them, as we, to fare. Lest they for trespassing his prisoners are, Whose castle’s Doubting, and whose name’s Despair. 4 Calvin, Inst. 3.2.7. All citations of Calvin’s Institutes are taken from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989). 5 Calvin, Inst. 3.2.38. 6 When a believer wrestles with unbelief, it has a limited power, for unbelief “reigns not in the hearts of believers, but only assails them from without; does not wound them mortally with its darts, but annoys them, or, at the utmost, gives them a wound which can be healed” (Calvin, Inst. 3.2.21). Further, doubt reflects the imperfect nature of faith whereby the believer both “delights in recognizing the divine goodness” and is filled “with bitterness under a sense of his fallen state.” The former inclines the believer toward confidence, while the latter elicits alarm and incertitude. “Hence those conflicts: the distrust cleaving to the remains of the flesh rising up to assail the faith existing in our hearts. But if in the believer’s mind certainty is mingled with doubt, must we not always be carried back to the conclusion that faith consists not of a sure and clear, but only of an obscure and confused, understanding of the divine will in regard to us? By no means. Though we are distracted by various thoughts, it does not follow that we are immediately divested of faith. Though we are agitated and carried to and fro by distrust, we are not immediately plunged into the abyss; though we are shaken, we are not therefore driven from our place.
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