restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Back to Ethiopia

 David Alan Black  

As you may know, this week Becky and I, due to the sheer unmerited grace of God, are returning to Ethiopia at long last. Our purpose is very simple: to minister to others in the name of Jesus. Ministry has been given by Christ to the church. It is to be exercised in the church, for the church, and by the church. The goal is to equip the church as the servant of Christ in the world. In the footwashing in the Upper Room, Jesus Himself demonstrated this to His followers.

Will we miss fellowshipping with our brothers and sisters at Bethel Hill? You bet! But the corporate gathering of the church is not the fulfillment most churchgoers believe it to be. It is just the beginning. The gathering is merely the commissioning! How grateful Becky and I are to be part of a fellowship of Jesus-followers who emphasize the going as much as the gathering. The challenge now is to mobilize the full manpower and womanpower of the church for global evangelization.

Luther, Calvin, and the Anabaptists agreed that there is only one “divine vocation” for all Christians who accept their role as the people of God, and that is to minister for Christ in our various spheres of life. Becky is a fulltime housewife, and I am a fulltime Greek professor, but those are our jobs. Our business is the Gospel business — fulltime, 24/7/365. In the New Testament, we find no fixed forms, organizational structures, or ranking of “fulltime professionals” in the church. Ministry belongs to the whole people of God. Christians are to be Christ’s servants in all sectors of life. Under the direct leadership of the Head, the whole Body becomes a Christocentric fraternity penetrating the whole world (including our own neighborhoods) with the Good News. We are Jesus disciples, followers, learners, witnesses, workers, and, if need be, martyrs. Christ ascended for the specific purpose of “preparing God’s people for works of service” (Eph. 4:7-12). It is unmistakably clear that the term “priest” as used in the New Testament does not refer to officiates in a church building but describes all Christians in every nation of the world in their role as the priesthood of all believers.

We leave for Africa with a promise burned deep into our hearts: “I am with you each and every day, even until the end of the age.” Jesus promised His Holy Spirit to empower all believers to be His ambassadors in the world. That He should have chosen Becky and me — we who are totally undeserving! — to be His representatives is nothing short of miraculous. May He receive all the glory.

March 15, 2010

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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A New Barmen Declaration for American Evangelicals?

Yes–But With Careful Qualifications

Mark Dankof

I was in an arts and crafts store in suburban Philadelphia recently, wandering through the section devoted to wooden icons conducive to visual enhancement and improvement at the hands of skillful craftsmen with the proper paints and brushes, carving tools, and creative conceptions.

There were many Christian crosses and crucifixes to be seen by browsing customers, none more prominently displayed than one which sported Old Glory with the words United We Stand transposed on the cross’s center where vertical and horizontal lines intersected. The symbols of red-white-and-blue post-911 American nationalism stood out as a starkly blasphemous substitution for any Christological reference or context. The blasphemous character of the blatant hijacking of a symbol of remembrance of the Crucified Christ in the interest of paying overt homage to Caesar, was then magnified exponentially by the complete indifference and obliviousness of the store’s comatose denizens to the implications of the message conveyed. Perhaps their hearts and minds were preoccupied with images from MTV and ESPN–or maybe Fox News.

As for me, on the drive home that night, the image of Calvary’s enshroudment by Old Glory was one I could not erase from my mind. The presumptuous obscenity of it all was not simply rooted in the inversion of the Biblical relationship between Christ and Caesar, but in a declared state of collective amnesia over the events and changes in this alleged Republic in my own brief lifetime. My mental calculator could not stop the incessant tabulating–the Kennedy and King assassinations; Vietnam; Watergate; Roe versus Wade; the drug and sexual revolutions; Waco and Ruby Ridge; Constitutionally undeclared, preemptive foreign wars; 2 trillion dollar plus federal budgets; 550 billion dollar budget deficits; 7 trillion in national debt and counting; the destruction and outsourcing of the manufacturing sector of the American economy with the derivative multi-billion dollar trade deficits; the burgeoning drive to jettison the American Constitution in favor of World Government; the USA Patriot Act; and the cultural embrace of virtually anything which defies a theistic world view and the accompanying understanding of the revealed and natural law of God–notions which used to peripherally influence even the most secular Americans extant. It is the Weimar Republic of Germany–as Yogi Berra would put it–all over again.

And where is the American church in the midst of this spiritual and political morass? J. Gresham Machen, Kurt Marquart, Robert Preus, Carl F. H. Henry, and James Montgomery Boice were among those in the larger American evangelical world both Lutheran and Reformed, who noted the dismal declension of orthodox views of Scripture in the contemporary scene of the 20th and 21st century institutional church and its affiliated educational entities. The malignant decline in the study of Biblical languages; the jettisoning of reverence for the prophetic and apostolic Word of God; the evaporation of expository preaching and corresponding study of church history, systematic theology, and theistic apologetics among apostate clergy, would metastasize in quantum leaps and bounds–only to be accompanied by Federal tax laws and corporate-foundation sources of income designed to buy–or coerce–silence to the excesses of Caesar in tandem with the adherence to a Christ denuded of Biblical definition and Confessional witness. This would, of necessity, join with a fatal accommodation to an American culture no longer drifting away from the standards of the Confessing Church, but now in absolute antithesis to it.

An Americanized version of the “German-Christian” movement has now emerged. The 501c3 boys have emerged victorious! Bring on Bush’s Federal subsidies to “faith-based ministries!” Provide Federal financing and tax subsidies to foundations and corporations who desire to financially empower the World and National Council of Churches! Concurrently subsidize theological chairs for seminary and state university faculties devoted to jettisoning the Apostolic Age for the New Age! Give an implied or expressed Establishment ecclesiastical imprimatur for more governmental subsidies for abortion, stem-cell research, and the fast-track slide to wholesale euthanasia and marital relationships which contradict revealed and natural law–along with the corporate witness of the Confessing Church for the last two thousand years. And follow the trail of the money in both directions to discover the source, genesis and endgame of the agenda of Babylon. The real agenda is as follows: The deity and supremacy of Christ and His Word may be denied with impunity when convenient. The deity of Caesar and State, however, must be affirmed and promulgated at all costs in the New American Empire, including the sworn allegiance of its newly repristinated German-Christian church and clergy to the same. But the witness of a newly formed Confessing Church and an Americanized version of the Barmen Declaration must emerge to oppose it, even unto death.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor and martyr of the Confessing Church, critiqued the institutional German ecclesiastical context in November of 1932. His words apply equally seven decades later to the present American crisis which combines an epidemic of bad theology with sycophantic allegiance to the State and the chieftains of Corporate America:

No one who knows today’s church will want to complain that the church doesn’t do anything. No, the church does immeasurably much, and also with much sacrifice and seriousness; but we all do precisely too many second, third, and fourth works, and not the first works. And exactly because of this, the church is not doing what is crucial. We celebrate, we represent, we strive for influence, we start a Protestant movement, we do Protestant youth work, we perform charitable service and care, we make propaganda against godlessness–but do we do the first works which are the basis of absolutely everything? Do we love God and our brother with that first, passionate, burning love that risks everything–except God? Do we really allow God to be God? Do we leave ourselves and our church to Him completely? If that were the case, things would have to look different, there would surely be a breakthrough [Bonhoeffer’s sermon preached on Reformation Day, November 6, 1932 as quoted in Georg Huntemann’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Evangelical Reassessment (Baker), p. 285].

Thus, for Bonhoeffer, Niemoller, Barth, and the other key players in what became the first synod of the Confessing Church at Barmen in the Ruhr, the final text of the Barmen Declaration of 1934 and its six (6) component articles was designed to reflect the Church’s first works. And the first works of the Church could not be seen in isolation from the necessity of the maintenance of Confession regarding the identity and Lordship of Jesus Christ; this in turn was linked to the Confession of clear lines of demarcation and delineation between Confessing Church and Caesar’s State as expressed by Barth in the clear words and prophetic warning of Article 5, designed as Barmen’s central contradiction of the Deutsche Christen (“German-Christians”) statement at the Braune Synod in Saxony in 1933 which posited a German State linking race, sociology, and political power to an ideology of neo-paganism and the idea of Herrenvolk:

We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church’s vocation as well. We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State. (See: http://www.german-lutherans-melbourne.asn.au/en/16330e_barmend.shtml.)

The Barmen Declaration saw the statism of the German-Christian movement in clear perspective in 1934. Its witness against neo-paganism and the Totalitarian State must be revived in an American Confessing Church movement in clear opposition to what orthodox Catholic columnist Joseph Sobran wryly observes as the clear trend of today’s purportedly Christian church in America to “. . .not only render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but to render unto Caesar what is God’s and God’s alone.”

But this Confession, which also has implications for American Constitutional study as it relates to human nature, God, the separation of powers, and the specifically enumerated powers of the Federal government in Article I, Section 8, must strengthen the theological weaknesses of the faithful framers of the gathering of the Confessing Church in Barmen by the Ruhr. R. V. Schnucker is mistaken in stating that American evangelical criticisms of Karl Barth and his neo-orthodox colleagues in 1934 is “a meaningless debate” [See Schnucker’s article on Barth in Walter A. Elwell’s Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker), pp. 126-127]. Notions of universalism, a fallible Scripture which testifies to the Word but is not of itself the Word, and the modern German theological distinction between Historie and Geschichte in determining the relationship between faith and literal events in history involving specific points in linear time, are key elements in determining what comprises a Biblically founded faith and witness.

The truly Confessing Church cannot exist without a clarity of witness on these critical issues. Carl F. H. Henry’s God, Revelation, and Authority will provide readers of Dave Black Online with a voluminous and documented rationale for jettisoning the theology of Barth, Bonhoeffer, Emil Brunner, and others in the prayerful consideration of these pivotal ideas and debates under the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. And kudos to our beloved Dr. and Pastor Dave Black of Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, for providing the leadership and scholarship necessary for jumpstarting the re-examination and evaluation of the importance of Barmen in these dark hours of American and Church history. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

April 13, 2004

Mark Dankof is a Lutheran pastor and free-lance journalist, occasionally contributing to Breaking All the Rules, Iran Dokht, Al Bawaba, Nile Media, CASCFEN, and other Internet news sites. Once a third party candidate for the United States Senate in Delaware (2000), he maintains the web-site Mark Dankof’s America while pursuing post-graduate theological education at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

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Blessed Is the Internet (Sort Of)

 David Alan Black  

The Internet is an odd contrivance. It digs deep and runs shallow, all at the same time. The technology is modern but the goal is ancient: self-expression of the most diverse kind.

It’s hard for me to imagine that there was a time when the word “blogger” did not exist. It seems like everyone today has an opinion about everything. Some moderns react vehemently against such morosophic bloviation, but I enjoy the Internet’s magniloquence.

For what it’s worth, I think the greatest weakness of cyberspace is also its greatest strength: its anthropocentricity. Generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to follow any man, even web-savvy reformers. If you will look at the history of the church, you will see that the great reformers did not set out to establish hard-and-fast guidelines for others. They were simply trying to find out how they could give themselves wholly to God without any strings attached. As Karl Barth was fond of saying with regard to his famous Romans commentary, he felt like a man in a dark bell tower, groping to find his way, who had reached out to steady himself and suddenly heard a bell ringing.

Beware, then, the Internet and cyberspace, webmasters and blogosphers. God calls us to relationships in real time, in which we are to find our ministries. I live a fairly mundane life surrounded by different groups of people to whom I desire to minister: my family, my rural farming community, the people of Averett Baptist Church, my seminary students, the believers in Ethiopia, my doctoral candidates. The question I constantly ask myself is, What are their needs, and how can I best serve them? When I have time left over, I blog.

Perhaps because I edit a website myself I am always a little wary of what people say or write. The Bible teaches that all of us, by nature, are basically egotistical, centered in ourselves and sinful. This means that a disciple of the Lord Jesus must be very honest about admitting his own inadequacy, insisting always that Jesus increase while he decreases. True, there needs to be a healthy interdependence among Christians, but never a co-dependence. God alone is the real Teacher, and the Bible alone His textbook.

Of course, I will continue to bloviate as long as I can persuade myself that I am being useful in pointing others to Christ. But to be honest, at any given moment each of us who clicks a mouse realizes that much of what we read (and write) is idle talk. By definition the Internet is opinion. It is when it becomes an impeccable guide that our troubles begin.

So, there’s a place for the Internet, for cyber-conversations, for quibbling and caviling. But in the end we must each go our own way, guided by the only True Light we have.

November 29, 2007

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Five Things to Do Until You Master Greek

 David Alan Black  

So you’re studying New Testament Greek and finding it a bit of a challenge. A lot of people don’t stick with it. “I tried learning Greek and it didn’t work for me.” The problem with these people may just be that they never learned persistence. Do you want to master the Greek language and be able to use it in your walk with God and in your service for Him? If you do, you will have to put forth some effort. How can we “stick with it” in a practical sense? 

One aspect of persistence is spending time in your Greek New Testament every day. Notice, I said spend time. It’s an investment, a conscious choice on your part. Don’t wait for it to just happen. Make time in the Greek text an indispensable part of your day. I do, and I never fail to benefit from it. If you need to, use any help that is out there, including interlinears. Yes, I said interlinears – which are usually considered anathema to Greek teachers. But if an interlinear can get you into the text, it’s worth the effort. As one preacher put it, “Halitosis is better than no breath at all.” Amen!

Second, take time to pray. Ask God to help you. For many Greek students, things go well for a few weeks. But as soon as a little difficulty comes their way they say, “Forget it. This is impossible.” That’s when you need to go to God in prayer. John wrote, “This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will we know that we have the petitions we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14-15). Prayer is your lifeline to God and your only source of strength. Take advantage of it.

Third, those who want to master the Greek language must grow constantly in their knowledge of grammar. If you’ve already had a year of Greek but are floundering, why not pick up a good intermediate textbook and begin reviewing your paradigms and syntax? Dan Wallace’sGreek Grammar Beyond the Basics is excellent for this purpose. Others find myIt’s Still Greek to Me helpful. If you’re going to master Greek you’re going to have become a perpetual student of the language. I’m sorry, but there aren’t any shortcuts, no easy solutions. We can’t skip a grade or two.

Fourth, to master Greek means to be patient with yourself. You put one foot in front of the other. It’s a steady gait, not a foot race. As I said above, the only way to get the job done is to stick with it.

Finally, let me suggest that you teach others what you’re learning. It’s often been said that the best way to learn something is by teaching it. This can make all the difference. It’s interesting that my best students tend to be those who are teaching Greek to others, whether in their small group fellowships or to their children at home or in their Sunday School classes. Last year I taught beginning Greek in my local church every Monday night for a year. We started out with 55 students and finished with six. At times I almost decided to give up. It’s at times like these that I have to ask myself, “Who am I serving? Am I doing this for God or for me?” The Bible says, “Let us not grow weary while doing what is good, because at the right time we will reap a harvest if we do not lose heart” (Gal. 6:9). I’m so proud of those six students who finished the course, who ran the race to the end. I’m also deeply appreciative of the efforts of those who had to drop out along the way, some for serious medical problems. (My wife Becky, one of my very best students, had to leave the course because of her surgery and chemotherapy).

I know that Greek can be tough. If anyone ever experienced a sinking feeling while studying this language, it was me. I dropped out of my beginning Greek class at Biola after only three weeks! Thankfully I went on to take Moody Bible Institute’s correspondence course and, by God’s grace, aced it. Remember what Peter’s problem was when he was walking on the water? He took his eyes off the Lord. And that just about says it all.

October 20, 2010

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Codependent No More!

 David Alan Black  

I have been a Christian educator all of my adult life. I speak in churches most every Sunday. I am a firm believer in the public teaching and preaching of God’s Word. I have written not a few books about the Bible. God’s truth is the spiritual food that is absolutely necessary for spiritual growth.

Yet no single person or program or product in the church is given the responsibility of teaching the Bible. This includes Sunday School, Awana, sermons, seminars, and websites. A Bible study class of any kind may be a helpful auxiliary to spiritual growth, but it is not to replace personal Bible study. Similarly, public and corporate prayer is a wonderful thing. But Christians must develop habits of daily, private, personal prayer. Mature Christians do not expect others in the church to do all the praying for them. Neither will they become overly dependent on a Christian leader or a Bible teacher for their spiritual diet. And certainly no Bible teacher holds the magical “key” to any aspect of the Christian life.

When Jesus was on earth He gathered His disciples together and taught them personally. Into these men and women He poured His life and truth. Nothing has changed today except that Jesus now continues His teaching ministry through the Holy Spirit and through the Word of God. He still desires to speak to us personally, and as we grow in our personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus we learn to walk in a manner pleasing to Him. Of course, our ascended Lord also delights to speak to us through “pastors and teachers” whom He has gifted to communicate biblical truth (Eph. 4:11), as well through others who have the gift of teaching (Rom. 12:7). But this should never take the place of the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit to us through the Scriptures. “All of you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things,” wrote elder John. “You don’t need anyone to teach you!” (1 John 2:20, 27).

The tragic truth is that American Christianity has become spiritually codependent. A spirit of deep sleep, to use Isaiah’s phrase, has fallen on the faddish evangelical church. It cannot seem to make up its mind about anything until it first consults Dr. So-and-So to see what he says. When the counsel of men is heeded more than the Word of God, the devil always stirs up trouble. This is the day of the “expert,” and we listen to fallible men more than the infallible Scriptures. The Good News is that through the New Covenant Jesus has set us free and we are His. We need no pope or prelate to tell us what course we are to set. We may legitimately make use of all the avenues of sound biblical teaching available to us today. But unless we have the mind of Christ and a clear conviction based on personal study of the Bible we shall make no real progress. Finite Bible scholars cannot provide this conviction. Indeed, they need it as much as anyone else.

Something, someone, governs the thoughts and actions of every one of us. May that something always be the Bible, and that someone be the Lord Himself.

February 15, 2007

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Karl Barth and the German Church Conflict

 David Alan Black

In my essay “Do We Need a New Barmen Declaration?” I attempted to discuss some of the disconcerting similarities between the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler and the current scene in America. The most disturbing parallels concern what appear to be the reluctance on the part of the Christian church in America to confront the evils of statism in a way the Confessing Church of Germany did in the 1930s.

This does not mean that the state is inherently anti-Christian or that it always fails to promulgate Christian convictions. In fact, political leaders and parties often claim to stake out their positions believing they are supporting biblical principles. The problem, however, is this: in the very act of asserting its “Christian” principles, the state all too easily undermines the very principles it purportedly seeks to sustain. The result, unfortunately, is a situation in which you have wolves that appear very much like sheep.

As Christine Elizabeth King has shown in her book The Nazi State and the New Religions, many Nazi party leaders used religious ideas freely in their speeches, especially Goebbels and even Hitler, who declared himself to be God’s special agent. Moreover, biblical terminology can be found in many party speeches, though because of its Jewishness the Old Testament was taboo. References made in Nazi circles to “positive Christianity” show an awareness of the ideas later adopted by the German Christians. These references suggested that Jesus was a true Aryan who had founded “positive Christianity,” which, however, had been corrupted by the “Rabbi” Paul who judaized Christ’s heroic Aryan ideals. As King notes, “Pauline theology had thus corrupted Christianity, but Hitler had arisen to cleanse it and restore it in its true form to Germany.” Many Christians in Germany believed this new emphasis accorded with attempts to make the church’s teaching relevant and to “demythologize” the Old Testament and parts of the New Testament in ways suggested by the liberal trends of the day.

As early as 1920, the program of the NSDAP stated its support for “positive Christianity,” which proved to be an invaluable tactical aid in convincing the religious masses that they could support National Socialism without betraying their religious convictions:

We insist upon freedom for all religious confessions in the state, providing they do not endanger its existence or offend the German race’s sense of decency and morality. The Party as such stands for a positive Christianity, without binding itself denominationally to a particular confession. It fights against the Jewish-materialistic spirit at home and abroad and believes that any lasting recovery of our people must be based on the “spiritual principle” that the welfare of the community comes before that of the individual.

Nazi propagandists encouraged such thinking although they presented the new emphasis in terms that linked it clearly to the new political message. Party rallies were made to appear as a form of “divine service” (Gottesdienst) or the equivalent. Similarly, the party had its own religious “texts” in the form of slogans. The Jews were the “enemy,” and the mention of “evil” became identified with traditional Christian anti-Semitism. Thus the “satanic influence” of Judaism had to be destroyed before the political millennenium was possible.

If the church struggle in Germany was a struggle for religious liberty under a totalitarian state, it was also—and perhaps primarily—a struggle of the church against itself—a struggle for it to remain faithful to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ. As I mentioned in my previous essay, it was Karl Barth, then professor of systematic theology in Bonn, who became the leading spokesman for a small but articulate group within the Protestant churches that challenged the ethos of National Socialism by an abrasive call to return to the prophetic witness of the biblical revelation. Above anything else, it was the ecclesiastical triumphalism of the Protestant establishment that provoked him to write his polemics against the state, including a piece entitled Quousque Tandem, a portion of which may be quoted here:

Laying aside all professional long-windedness, discretion, and prudence, I have this comment to make: It is a scandal which cries to heaven that the German evangelical church is always talking in this way…. Professor Schneider speaks for dozens of our leaders and for hundreds and thousands of our pastors. I have nothing against him and those like him, but I have everything against the sort of language with which he and the army of those like him are leading this country astray. I am sick, too, of holding my peace…. If we allow ourselves to be constantly addressed in this way, if we fail to protest, if this language is listened to and given credence, then in its inmost being the Church has already ceased to live.

Barth thus set himself against the establishment church of his day, and the dividing lines had been clearly drawn. Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller had proclaimed, “We must emphasize with all decisiveness that Christianity did not grow out of Judaism but developed in opposition to Judaism. When we speak of Christianity and Judaism today, the two in their most fundamental essence stand in glaring contrast to one another. There is no bond between them, rather the sharpest opposition.” Barth, however, made it clear that such a position on Judaism was unacceptable. In 1933 he wrote:

Protests against the German Christian heresy cannot simply begin with the Aryan Paragraph, nor with their rejection of the Old Testament, the Arianism of their Christology, the naturalism and pelagianism of their teachings of justification and sanctification, nor with the idolization of the state that characterizes German Christian ethics. Rather our protest must be directed fundamentally at the source of all those individual heresies: at the fact that, next to the holy scripture as the sole revelation of God, the German Christians claim German Volkstum, its past and its political present, as a second revelation. We thereby recognize them as believers in “another God.”

“Believers,” yes, said Barth; but “believers in another God”! To Barth, the essence of the German Christian movement was obvious. By elevating Volkstum—race—to the level of revelation, they had opened the floodgates to a torrent of non-Christian and anti-Christian beliefs, attitudes, and activities. Blurring racial and religious categories, the German Christians defined the church as essentially and primarily anti-Jewish, and it was this idea that became the fixed point around which spokesmen of the movement structured and organized their views.

When Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933, the German Christians were already well organized. Hiller’s policy at this time was still to try and persuade the populace that his party was Christian and that he himself was neutral with respect to the various denominations. Thus in his speech before the first meeting of the Reichstag on March 23, 1933, he declared:

The national Government sees in the two Christian Confessions the most important factors for the preservation of our nationality. It will respect the agreements that have been drawn up between them and the provincial states. Their rights are not to be infringed. It expects, however, and hopes that conversely the work upon the national and moral renewal of our nation, which the Government has assumed as its task, will receive the same appreciation. All other denominations will be treated with the same impartial justice…. The rights of the churches will not be curtailed; their position in relation to the State will not be changed.

When the German Christians held their first national convention in Berlin on April 3-5, Dr. Friedrich Werner, later president of the Evangelical Church government office, declared that the basis of the church’s constitution had to be the “Führer” principle. Only then could the unification of church and state produce the necessary increase of power needed by the nation. The convention closed by passing a resolution that called for the creation of a Reich Church and the right of believers to revolt. The resolution included these words:

God has created me a German. Germanism is a gift of God. God wants me to fight for my Germany. Military service is in no sense a violation of Christian conscience, but is obedience to God…. For a German the Church is the fellowship of believers who are obligated to fight for a Christian Germany. The goal of the “Faith Movement of ‘German Christians’” is an evangelical German Reich.

With this statement we come to the relevance of this essay to our own situation. Barth and others like him resisted peace at any price. To those who believed in accommodation with the idolatrous state he stated, in unmistakably clear terms, “No Compromise!” Thus the heart of the German church struggle lay in the confessing of Jesus Christ, for to confess Christ meant not to confess others as Christ. Witness to Jesus Christ alone meant, under the Third Reich, the denial of neo-German paganism and of the German-Christian heresy. Certainly we are in a totally different situation today, yet as we read these statements of Barth we find our own situation mirrored in them. It may be that our way forward is also to be found in them—the way of confession to Jesus Christ alone.

July 17, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Ethiopia Report (Part 5b): Visiting Deda

 Becky Lynn Black 

At the end of our time in Ethiopia, we were given a very special honor and privilege: a visit to the home of our son David Halango. “David” is not his birth name. Not until we arrived in Ethiopia did he take the Christian name David.  He had asked the Lord for 12 years to give him Christian parents, and in the perfect timing of our Lord we were sent to him. He was born into a Muslim family and was given the name “Ahmed.” As the oldest son in his family, he was given every privilege possible. His father Halango is truly a great man, a strong leader in the community of Deda. When David entered secondary school, he was sent to live with an uncle in Alaba Town. A friend at school introduced him to Christ.  Unlike most strong Muslim parents, Halango did not throw Ahmed out of the family. His love for his son has continued strong, and it is this love that has moved him to openness to the Gospel.

David and his parents at their home in Deda village

Today, Halango is no longer actively persecuting those coming to Christ in the Deda village, but he also has not embraced the Lord Jesus for himself. Last summer he came to a showing of the Jesus Film. Over 400 people watched the movie on a little 15-inch laptop! And 38 of these people made decisions for Christ. Although he himself didn’t decide for Christ, he said he was open to listening to Christian music. So I took him a small cassette recorder, some rechargeable batteries, a recharger, and a voltage/plug adapter. He can go into town to recharge the batteries at the Alaba town church.

Giving Halango the cassette player

During our short visit to their home, we basked in the hospitality of Halango and his wife Achame. It was an honor to be included in their family, to eat at their table, and to sleep in their home. David’s brother walked 12 hours  to be with us in their home!  At the end of our visit, as we were leaving, Halango reached for my hand, and I savored the moment – a strong Muslim man holding the hand of a white Christian woman from America; he was making a statement to all in the community that the Christians were to be respected and appreciated. (Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that it was unsafe for a white foreigner to travel in this section of Ethiopia, so strong was their hatred because of the Iraq situation!) Halango is not far from salvation. And he has such strong influence in the community, when he comes through the door many will follow him. Please, please, please pray for his heart to be opened to the Gospel. It is Christ’s love in David and others that is drawing this man. There is no replacement for love.  

Leaving David’s village

Fifteen years ago, when David came to Christ, there were two other boys from this village who also came to Christ. This was the birthing of the Lord’s church in Deda. It grew slowly. First a hut was built; churches in Muslim areas need quiet beginnings, so a simple hut that looks like a home attracts less attention. But as the congregation grew strong in number and in Christ, a church building was needed. So two years ago, a simple rectangular building was erected. It has mud-&-stick walls, wood shutters and doors, a tin roof, and a few crude benches. Since the building was erected, the congregation has exploded. As I’ve already mentioned, 38 came to Christ last August after the showing of the Jesus Film on a laptop. In fact, in the 4-month period prior to our visit, no less than 198 (!) new believers have come to this church. (And while we were there another 15 came to Him.) Imagine growing from a congregation of 100 to 300 in only 4 months! And most of the new believers are young people in the 20-30 year age range. I tell you, if this doesn’t get you excited, you must be dead!

The elders of the Deda congregation

As Dave and I met with the “elders” (themselves young men), we were impressed with men who are young in the faith but are eager to grow in our Lord Jesus. They are so “green” in spiritual issues, it was downright refreshing. Their’s is a simple faith, uncomplicated by religious tradition or church polity. Jesus is Lord – this is the simple truth they know and live by. We asked the leaders, “How can we help you?” They asked for 3 things, and we offered a fourth. What were they? (1) A guitar, with which to draw people to the church services; no one has any musical instruments (except the traditional drum), so people come just to see the guitar being played. (2) Benches to sit on, so they don’t have to gather leaves every Sunday to cover the dirt floor; greenery is scarce. (3) A perimeter foundation of stones and concrete to keep the termites from eating their building; termites are an extreme problem in much of Ethiopia. (4) Bibles; they have only 20 Bibles in a congregation of 300!

We have always taken unallocated money with us on our trips, ready to minister to those the Lord puts in our path. On this trip, we had provided funds for two blind boys in Burji, so they could go to Addis for examination. And we had given funds for medical treatment to several impoverished believers in Alaba. But the Lord hadn’t directed us much with regards to the use of this money. 

They asked for a picture of the gift for their benches

When we met with the Deda church, we understood why our Lord had arranged things as He had. We had on our persons the funds for the benches and the guitar. And we made an agreement with the Deda leaders: if two-thirds of the congregation would memorize the nine passages of Scripture for the Bible memory program, we would, by God’s grace,  fund the concrete perimeter and give a Bible to anyone who had completed the program. I wish you could have seen their faces when we told them!  Words simply cannot express their excitement. “We will do it!” they exclaimed with joy. In addition, we encouraged them to assume responsibility for the teaching of their little flock, so we gave them some basic books on understanding the Scriptures.

The “life story” of this little congregation in the Deda village is typical of many villages in Alaba. Our Lord is ready to save; He is willing to save; He is able to save. And He is preparing to do a great work in the Alaba area of Ethiopia. The only question is: are we ready to work in the harvest? 

Next report: Going on from here – preparing for the harvest

Ethiopia Report (Part 1)

Ethiopia Report (Part 2)

Ethiopia Report (Part 3)

Ethiopia Report (Part 4)

Ethiopia Report (Part 5a)

February 14, 2006

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13 Cosas que su Profesor de Griego debe decirle

 David Alan Black 

http://www.newtestamentgreekportal.blogspot.com

1. El griego no es la única herramienta que necesitará para interpretar el Nuevo Testamento. De hecho, es un componente entre muchos. Aprenda griego; sin embargo, no pare allí. Necesitará también, por ejemplo, el hebreo del Antiguo Testamento y el griego de la Septuaginta.

2. El griego no es el “¡Ábrete, Sésamo!” de la interpretación bíblica. Lo que hace es delimitar las opciones: le dice qué es posible, y luego el contexto y otros factores sirven para aclarar el texto.

3. El griego no es superior a los demás idiomas del mundo. No crea cuando le dicen que el griego es más lógico que, por ejemplo, el hebreo.No es así.

4. No es que Dios tuviera que emplear el idioma griego para darnos el Nuevo Testamento, supuestamente debido a su sintaxis complicada. La verdad es que existe una sola razón por la cual el Nuevo Testamento fue escrito en griego y no en otra lengua (por ej., latín): es por un hombre llamado Alejandro Magno, cuya visión era conquistar el mundo habitado y luego unirlo por medio de un proceso conocido como la “helenización”. En gran medida, tuvo éxito; entonces el uso del griego como la lengua franca a través del mundo mediterráneo en el primer siglo no debe sorprendernos hoy. Enfatizo este punto, solamente porque hay algunos hoy en día que quieren resucitar la noción de un supuesto “Griego del Espíritu Santo.” Su perspectiva es, a mi parecer, obviamente una calle sin salida.

5. Una palabra griega no tiene un solo significado. Sin embargo, ¿cuántas veces escuchamos en un sermón que, “Esta palabra en griego significa…”? La gran mayoría de las palabras griegas son “polisémicas”; es decir, tienen muchos posibles significados, uno de los cuales es una contribución semántica a cualquier pasaje donde ocurra. (Es más – La práctica de usar todos los significados de una palabra griega dentro de un pasaje en particular donde ocurre es llamada por los lingüistas “transferencia ilegítima de la totalidad,” ver D. A. Carson, Falacias Exegéticas, p. 59).

6. No es difícil aprender griego. Lo digo otra vez: no es difícil aprender griego. Me gusta decirles a mis alumnos, “El griego es un idioma fácil; es nosotros, los maestros de griego, que causamos tantos problemas en el aprendizaje de este idioma.” El punto es que todo el mundo puede aprender griego, hasta este surfistahawaiano con poca educación. ¡Si yo puedo dominar el griego, todos pueden!

7. Se puede aprender griego de varias maneras, incluso con la mayoría de los textos para principiantes. Es cierto que prefiero mi propio libro,Aprenda a Leer el Griego del Nuevo Testamento (Learn to Read New Testament Greek) en mis clases, pero el mío no es el único texto. Cuando vivía en California, enseñé en una institución que requería que todos sus maestros de griego usaran el mismo texto para griego básico. Yo rotundamente me opuse a esa política. Creo muy fuertemente que los maestros deben tener el derecho de usar cualquier texto que prefieran. Afortunadamente, el año cuando salí de California para mudarme a Carolina del Sur, ellos cambiaron la política, y ahora los maestros pueden escoger los textos del primer año a su gusto. (A propósito, ¡el texto que ellos habían requerido era el mío!).

8. Algunos estudiantes de griego opinan que pueden salir bien librados tras haberse atrasado en sus estudios. Amigos, ¡no se puede! Les digo a mis alumnos que es casi imposible ponerse al día en el trabajo aunque se trate solo de un capítulo del texto. El estudio de un idioma requiere disciplina y la habilidad de gestión del tiempo, quizás más que cualquier otro curso académico.

9. ¡El griego es divertido! Al menos, cuando uno lo enseña de manera divertida.

10. El griego sirve para mucho más que el estudio de palabras. De hecho, en los últimos años he iniciado una cruzada para apartar a mis alumnos de una exégesis que es meramente de palabras. Cuando estaba en el seminario, me enseñaron un poco más que cómo llevar a cabo estudios de palabras griegas. Por lo tanto, pensé que había “usado el griego en mi ministerio” si había consultado a Wuest, A. T. Robertson, Kittel, Colin Brown, Vincent o Vine. Desde luego he descubierto que este análisis léxico es el siervo, no el rey, de la exégesis neotestamentaria. El griego nos permite que veamos cómo el texto está estructurado, cómo se incluye la retórica, cómo las construcciones sintácticas son las claves hermenéuticas, entre otras cosas.

11. El griego puede causar que pierda su fe. Le sucedió a un famoso profesor del Nuevo Testamento en los Estados Unidos, cuando él descubrió que había variantes textuales en el Nuevo Testamento Griego, y le puede pasar a usted. Cuando el texto de la Escritura llega a ser nada más que “otro dato analizable de interpretación lingüística,” desde entonces pierde su poder como la Palabra de Dios. Esto es lo que me emociona tanto de mis alumnos de griego en el seminario, la mayoría de los cuales tiene muchas ganas de colocar todo su aprendizaje a los pies de Jesús, en servicio humilde dentro de su reino.

12. Uno puede aprender griego en un ambiente informal. La verdad es que uno no tiene que tomar una clase formal de este tema ni de cualquier otro. Conozco a montones de estudiantes que estudian en casa y usan mi texto de manera autodidacta, muchos de ellos también usan mis DVD a la vez.

13. El griego no es griego. En otras palabras, el griego moderno y el griego koiné son dos idiomas bastante diferentes. Entonces, no crea que podría ordenar comida en Atenas solamente porque ha tomado un año de griego koiné. Por otro lado, una vez que haya dominado elkoiné, es relativamente fácil aprender el clásico y el moderno.

May 17, 2014

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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The Church No One Wanted To Join

 David Alan Black 

“But no one dared join himself to them” (Acts 5:13a).

How strange these words sound today! And they are strange-sounding because the concept is so foreign to us.

Whereas many of our churches will do practically anything to draw unbelievers to their services, the earliest Christians were so committed and so radical that few if any unbelievers dared join them. In New Testament times the early disciples came together not for evangelism or even for worship but for teaching, for fellowship, for the Breaking of Bread, and for times of prayer (Acts 2:42). The Lord’s Supper was not an addendum celebrated quarterly or monthly but the main reason the church assembled on the Lord’s Day (Acts 20:7). Jesus was front-and-center, not a pulpit.

“Church” did not mean a state-of-the-art building with all the latest gadgetry. It meant a company of committed believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who met regularly (at least weekly) in homes or perhaps small rented rooms where a committed family spirit could develop. To reach outsiders they took the Gospel to them – a riverside (Acts 16:13), a marketplace (Acts 17:17), a school hall (Acts 19:9). Because expenses were kept to a minimum, funds could be used to support the poor and, when necessary, their teachers (Acts 11:29; Phil. 4:16). Each believer was taught to exercise his or her own spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12) in a spirit of love (1 Cor. 13). When the Body gathered, its goal was that of strengthening itself and building itself up in love (1 Cor. 14:26).

Because every believer was a priest and minister there was no need for an officiating “clergy.” Those who had been appointed by the Holy Spirit as pastors (Acts 20:28) became elders and teachers (Eph. 4:11), guides and leaders (1 Thess. 5:12-13). But their Senior Pastor was none other than Jesus Himself, in whose name they gathered. It was by devotion to Him and not to any human leader that they were held together. How unlike the guilds of the day!

The early church had little of the glitz and glamour of its modern counterpart. Few of its member were from the upper crust of society. It exercised discipline on its members. It preached Jesus as Lord, not as a benevolent butler. It called for total allegiance even when that went against the ruling authorities. Its power, passion, and purity was a flaming sword that guarded the way to the tree of life (cf. Gen. 3:24).

Today we announce “services as usual” but the situation is more desperate than that. While the modern church seeks medals, the early Christians wore scars. Being true to God did not put them at the top of the ladder but at the bottom rung. Little wonder “no one dared join himself to them.”

June 7, 2006

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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D-Day and the Limitations of Liberty

 David Alan Black

“All things are lawful for me” (1 Corinthians 10:23).

Today is the anniversary of D-Day—a date commemorating liberty. There’s a great deal of discussion today over whether a Christian can be a libertarian. The answer, it seems to me, depends on the definition. If by “liberty” we mean “license” to do whatever we please, then the answer is no.

“All things are lawful for me” was the slogan of the careless Christian. He thought being a believer gave him liberty to do as he pleases. In one sense, of course, he was right, for the law of the Spirit had made him free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). But this liberty is not license.

Each time the sloganeer parrots his “All things are lawful for me,” Paul answers with a qualifying “but.” (1) “But not all things are expedient.” This is the test of expediency. Some things, though innocent enough in and of themselves, hinder my running well the race set before me. I will therefore discard what delays me. (2) “But I will not be brought under the power of any.” This is the test of enslavement. The avocation easily becomes an obsession. I will therefore not be enslaved by what I allow. (3) “But all things edify not.” This is the test of edification. Not everything builds me up in the faith. I must therefore build with gold, silver, and precious stones and not with wood, hay, and stubble.

My favorite verse in Galatians is 5:1. It is, in fact, the theme verse of the entire epistle: “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be ye not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Let us stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has made us free. But let us also remember that we are never free to do what is wrong. If the situation in our lives clears the three hurdles set forth by Paul, we may go ahead. But if there is any doubt, let us forsake that path altogether!

June 6, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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