An International Journal for Students of Theological and Religious Studies Volume 37 Issue 2 July 2012 EDITORIAL: The Beauty of Biblical Balance 178 D. A. Carson OFF THE RECORD: The Right to Ridicule? 182 Michael J. Ovey Bonhoeffer as Bible Scholar 185 Robert W. Yarbrough Sacramental Supersessionism Revisited: 191 A Response to Martin Salter on the Relationship between Circumcision and Baptism David Gibson Response to David Gibson 209 Martin Salter Telling the Story from the Bible? How Story Bibles Work 211 David A. Shaw High Stakes: Insider Movement Hermeneutics 249 and the Gospel David B. Garner Some Reflections on Enns and The Evolution of Adam: 275 A Review Essay Hans Madueme Book Reviews 287 DESCRIPTION Themelios is an international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. It was formerly a print journal operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008. The editorial team draws participants from across the globe as editors, essayists, and reviewers. Themelios is published three times a year exclusively online at www.theGospelCoalition.org. It is presented in two formats: PDF (for citing pagination) and HTML (for greater accessibility, usability, and infiltration in search engines). Themelios is copyrighted by The Gospel Coalition. Readers are free to use it and circulate it in digital form without further permission (any print use requires further written permission), but they must acknowledge the source and, of course, not change the content. EDITORS BOOK ReVIEW EDITORS Systematic Theology and Bioethics Hans Madueme General Editor: D. A. Carson Old Testament Covenant College Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Daniel Santos 14049 Scenic Highway 2065 Half Day Road Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie— Lookout Mountain, GA 30750, USA Deerfield, IL 60015, USA CPAJ [email protected] Rua Maria Borba, 15 [email protected] Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil 01221-040 Managing Editor: Charles Anderson Ethics (but not Bioethics) and Pastoralia [email protected] Oak Hill Theological College Dane Ortlund Chase Side, Southgate New Testament Crossway London, N14 4PS, UK Alan Thompson 1300 Crescent Street [email protected] Sydney Missionary & Bible College Wheaton, IL 60187, USA PO Box 83 Contributing Editor: Michael J. Ovey [email protected] Croydon, NSW 2132, Australia Oak Hill Theological College [email protected] Mission and Culture Chase Side, Southgate Jason Sexton London, N14 4PS, UK History and Historical Theology Ridley Hall [email protected] Nathan A. Finn Ridley Hall Road Administrator: Andrew David Naselli Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Cambridge, CB3 9HG P. O. Box 1889 Grace Bible Church England Wake Forest, NC 27588, USA 107 West Road [email protected] Moore, SC 29369, USA [email protected] [email protected] EDITORIal BOARD Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School; Oliver D. Crisp, Fuller Theological Seminary; William Kynes, Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church; Ken Magnuson, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Jonathan Pennington, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; James Robson, Wycliffe Hall; Michael Thate, Durham University; Mark D. Thompson, Moore Theological College; Garry Williams, The John Owen Centre, London Theological Seminary; Paul Williamson, Moore Theological College; Stephen Witmer, Pepperell Christian Fellowship. ARTIcleS Articles should generally be about 4,000 to 7,000 words (including footnotes) and should be submitted to the Managing Editor of Themelios, which is peer-reviewed. Articles should use clear, concise English, following The SBL Handbook of Style (esp. for abbreviations), supplemented by The Chicago Manual of Style. They should consistently use either UK or USA spelling and punctuation, and they should be submitted electronically as an email attachment using Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx extensions) or Rich Text Format (.rtf extension). Special characters should use a Unicode font. ReVIEWS The book review editors generally select individuals for book reviews, but potential reviewers may contact them about reviewing specific books. As part of arranging book reviews, the book review editors will supply book review guidelines to reviewers. Themelios 37.2 (2012): 178–81 EDITORIal The Beauty of Biblical Balance — D. A. Carson — D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. hen I was a young man in pastoral ministry, I wrote a book-length manuscript under the title shared with this editorial. I sent it to only one publisher. That publisher turned it down with more grace than the manuscript deserved. He gently pointed out major exegetical Wand logical flaws in one of the arguments. I could see he was right, and, suitably humbled and foolishly discouraged, I couldn’t bring myself to expend the time and energy to fix the problem. I moved on to other things. Decades later, however, I remain convinced that, even if one particular error needed repair, the main thesis of the book was right: the Bible depicts the importance of balance along quite a few quite different axes, and it is important not to confuse them. Before I list some of these different axes, I should acknowledge that balance is not always a virtue. For example, when Scripture commands us to love God with our whole being (Deut 6:4–5; Mark 12:29– 30), it does not add, “Of course, all things in moderation: one must balance love for God with other priorities.” Applied in the wrong contexts, the appeal for balance may be a mask for moral indifference and spiritual compromise. But let me assume that we have heeded the warning and turn to some of the different axes around which we need to maintain balance. 1. Balance in the Use of Our Time, While We Attempt to Be Faithful to Scripture The Bible exhorts us to discharge many responsibilities, all of them time-consuming: to work, love our neighbor, love our spouse, bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, pray, meditate on God’s Word, meet together with other believers for mutual edification and corporate praise, bear witness to the gospel with unbelievers, and much more. If we are elders/pastors/overseers, the work of teaching demands careful study, while the teaching itself extends indefinitely beyond Sunday morning sermons to include one-on-one Bible study, small group study, training others, and counsel of many kinds for the people in our flock, including the members of our own family. All of these are good things; all of them require time. The same Scriptures insist on proper cycles of rest: God gives his beloved sleep. Add to this pile the peculiar rush of duties that befall us in peculiar circumstances: a family member falls critically ill; two children are graduating from university about the same time that a third is getting married; the family business is on a knife-edge between a great leap forward and going belly-up—and all of these circumstances are under God’s providential arrangement. 178 The Beauty of Biblical Balance The needed balance in the face of such demands turns on right priorities in using the time God has given us, along with refusing to feel like dismal failures because we cannot squeeze thirty hours of living into twenty-four. We have all the time that God has wisely allotted; there is no more. We can work away at making our use of time more efficient; above all, we can pursue godly priorities. And we can trust the wisdom of our good and wise heavenly Father. 2. Balance in Integrating Complementary Biblical Emphases What I have in mind are such paired exhortations as the injunction to speak the truth, coupled with the injunction to do so in love. This kind of balance is quite different from the first kind. The first kind is what the gaming theorists call a zero-sum game: no matter how hard we hope otherwise, our daily distribution of time always sums up all the discrete blocks of time to achieve the same total: twenty- four hours. One cannot allot more time and energy to one responsibility without correspondingly diminishing one or more of the other blocks. But this second kind of balance is not a zero-sum game. One must not diminish the obligation to speak the truth by appealing to the priority of love; one must not diminish the obligation to speak in love by appealing to the priority of truth. There is no zero-sum game. In the case of the claims of truth and love, these twin virtues have roughly parallel claims: God mandates both of them. Both “truth” and “love” carry slightly different overtones in different contexts, of course, but there is no intrinsic reason that we should think that either diminishes the other. Other pairs in this category of balance are more complicated yet. For example, Christians must constantly recognize that they are saved by grace; Christians must perform the good deeds that God has created us to discharge (cf. Eph 2:8–10). In this case, although neither pole should diminish the other, they are not quite parallel and certainly not reciprocal. In many respects the good deeds are the necessary fruit and even the demonstration of the grace; the converse is not true. It is easy to think of other polarities under this heading that sustain relationships that are more complex yet. For example, the Bible urges Christian unity (think John 17), and the Bible insists on the non-negotiability of sound doctrine (think Gal 1), even if this means the most fundamental disruption of unity, namely, excommunication. The two desiderata are not quite parallel: one, the truth of the gospel, is always non-negotiable; the other, the virtue of unity, is often presented as something eminently desirable, but sometimes as an act of compromise (e.g., the alliances of Jehoshaphat).