I. Lesson 1 - Fundamental Theological Issues
A. The purpose of the course is to address the practical issues that face the church today.
B. The concern is for the fundamental critical issues. We will also concern ourselves with the issues of Fundamentalism, too.
C. We will talk about inerrancy.
D. We want to define Fundamentalism. We will define (inerrancy, virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement, resurrection of Christ, and the Second Coming).
E. The inerrancy of Scripture is a stopgap doctrine that causes all the other fundamental elements to fall into place. This doctrine is critical.
F. How do you know which version to use (KJV, NIV, NASB, and so forth).
G. Creation is an issue. Should Christians believe that the Bible says "who" and that Science says "how"?
H. Calvinism will have to be addressed (TULIP).
I. The Charismatic Movement will be looked at, along with healing issues.
J. Your position on these issues will probably determine where you go to church. Is it ever appropriate for different churches to fellowship.
K. Lifestyle issues will be examined. Biblical separation matters will be examined.
L. The divorce rate and trying to minister to homosexuals, abortionists, feminists, and so forth are also issues.
II. Lesson 2 - What is the Fundamentalist Movement
A. Fundamentalism is not merely a reaction to modernism. It is not anti-intellectual. It is not just about separation. It is normative, not cultic Christianity. It is not dispensationalism or premillennialism, even though most Fundamentalists are those things. It is not the new right or the Moral Majority.
B. Fundamentalism is primarily theological essentialism. It is concerned with the required basics for Christians to build upon biblical Christianity. Fundamentalists are more confrontational. They are militant separatists, but they are still committed to theological correctness. They say that the essentials of Christianity are important.
C. Fundamentalism is mainstream Christianity. Fundamentalists can differ on some issues, but they all agree to the central core of biblical truth. Christianity is not defined by Christians. Christians, like everyone else, make mistakes. The Bible is the ultimate authority for normative Christianity. Christians cannot and must not redefine normative Christianity just because some people revise their understanding of Christianity. We must stick to biblical truth. The Bible defines our Faith. Maachen says that a person cannot be Christian and liberal. A person must choose to be a biblical Christian or to not be.
D. The theological core is: (1) inerrancy, (2) deity and virgin birth, (3) substitutionary death, (4) resurrection, (5) second coming. Of these, inerrancy is the fundamental core. That one is the most important because everything else follows from that. The integrity of the Bible depends on inerrancy. Without that, we do not have a basis for our belief.
E. The Bible gives propositional revelation of God. It is the objective standard and authority.
F. Christianity is supernatural and exclusivistic. The resurrection and revelation are supernatural. The liberals have tried to water down the supernatural acpects of the Bible.
G. Inerrancy and Christology are uniquely related. In Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus showed that there is a need for righteousness, and He used the objective standard of the Old Testament Law. His statement is based on the objective authority of the Old Testament Law. The "jot" was the very smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The "tittle" was the overhang on some Hebrew letters. It is the smallest characteristic of those letters of the alphabet. In John 10:34-36, Jesus said that the Scriptures cannot be broken. Critics might say that His remarks were about authority and were obvious hyperbole, not about inerrancy. But the authority is not there unless it is inerrant.
H. The Bible was the ultimate authority for and about Jesus, the Christ. That means that Jesus recognized the authority. One can say that He was wrong or lied (in that case, He was not really God), that He played along with the people of that day, or that He was correct.
I. Inerrancy leads to the other core truths. His conception and birth were miraculous, and the Bible supports it. The Bible maintains His sinlessness, but for that to happen, a miraculous birth would have had to happen. If any of that is wrong, then He could not have been sinless. Most liberals accept an example theory, which says that Jesus was only an example. Then, they move to the resurrection and say that that was not true, too. The second coming would be existentialist, not literal.
J. The above core truths stand together or fall based on inerrancy.
III. Lesson 3 - Biblical Inerrancy
A. Inerrancy and Revelation - God has revealed Himself to man through the Bible. Inspiration means that God guided the production of the Book. He breathed the words. Preservation concerns how He has preserved His Word. Not one jot or tittle will pass. Many attempts through time to destroy the Bible have failed.
B. If the KJV is the only valid Bible, then what does that say to the Spanish. They do not use the English language KJV Bible.
C. Some theories of Inspiration.
1. The orthodox view - the Bible is the Word of God. This has been the traditional view of the church. The Bible is a thoroughly accurate record of God's truth and self-revelation. The dictation theory suggests that God gave the very words to the author. The concept theory says that God inspired the concepts but not the word forms. The concept view usually leads to a denial of inspiration. There is a third theory which will be discussed later.
2. The modernist view - the Bible contains the Word of God. The Bible is a mixture of divine and human elements. The divine elements are absolutely true, but the human elements may not always be. The modernist view often sees the human elements as legend or allegory. The illumination view says that the Bible says that the author comes to terms with some kind of divine principle by being illuminated. The human intuition view sees the authors as religious, human genius, not something from or by God.
3. The neo-orthodox view - the Bible becomes the Word of God as I experience it and encounter it in my life. This was an attempt to break from nineteenth century liberalism and coming part way back to orthodoxy. This view sees God as being involved with the Bible, but they do not cling to inerrancy. The authors had a personal experience with God, so the neo-orthodox are more interested in subjective than objective truth. These people would question what kind of religious experience did the disciples have that caused them to believe in the resurrection. They are not interested in the resurrection. They are interested in religious experience. Christians are interested in objective truth, too. Neo-orthodoxy says that the main concern is what kind of individual experience can I have to have a spiritual sense of the resurrection.
D. The biblical teaching of Inspiration (II Timothy 3:16, II Peter 1:21) - Inspiration is verbal. The words, themselves, are inspired. Inspiration is plenary. Therefore, all the words are equally inspired. Whatever was written was written for our instruction. John 10:35 says that Scripture cannot be broken. Jesus did not accomodate Himself to human error. He always corrected the Pharisees when they were wrong. The Sermon on the Mount upset those that had not correctly interpreted Moses. He corrected them. Because He corrected those that were wrong and He did not correct them in their belief on inerrancy, that shows that He must have agreed.
E. Inspiration applies to both Testaments. It includes a variety of literary styles, and that shows that the dictation theory is probably not correct. Some biblical authors used non-biblical references because they had some correct information, but those references were not considered inspired. The Bible has a number of different styles and genre. The Bible is written in the language of common human experience.
F. Inspiration implies inerrancy. Hebrews 6:18, Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2 and several other verses say that God cannot lie. Therefore, His Word must be true and without error.
IV. Lesson 4 - The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
A. Two summits met prior to 1987 to discuss biblical inerrancy.
B. The Chicago statement (the first summit) - the first two articles dealt with authority (inerrancy is the basis for authority). The Holy Scriptures are to be received as the Holy Word from God. It is authoritative because it is the Word of God. Authoritative means that it is the objective standard, and the Bible is the only authority.
C. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes a dual authority - tradition as interpreted by the church as well as the Bible. The Protestant Church recognizes only the Bible as the sole authority.
D. The third article dealt with the revelation of God. The entire Bible does not become (neo-Orthodox) the Word of God. It is the Word of God. It is the revelation of God.
E. Article four dealt with a concern for language. The statement affirmed that God used language as a means for revelation, and it denies that language is inadequate to accomplish that task. God uses language analogically. Words can be used univocally (words used in the same way in two different contexts ==> the man is tall, the building is tall, but the man is not as tall as the building. They are both tall, and the word "tall" is used similarly (univocally). The man is running, the car is running. In the second case, the word "running" mean different things in the context. They are two different types of running (equivocally).). Analogically is somewhere between univocal and equivocal. God loves like humans. It is univocal (same kind of love), but it is also different in degree. We do not see and understand God the way that He sees and understands us.
F. The Bible gives us everything that we need to come to God and to be rightly related to Him.
G. Article five dealt with progressive revelation. The Bible was not deposited all at once. It came progressively from Moses to John, but later Scripture does not correct or contradict earlier Scripture.
H. Did Jesus correct Moses? Do people need to correct Paul? The Chicago statement says no. The Chicago statement also recognized the canon as closed with John.
I. Article six recognized verbal and plenary inspiration. Article seven says that God gave His Word through human authors. The writings are inspired, not the authors. The statement does not even try to explain how God did it. Article eight says that God used the individual personalities of the authors, but He did not override their personalities. Article nine says that God did not make the authors infallible. The products were inspired, not the producers. Article ten says that inspiration only applies to only the autograph (original) text. But the copies have faithfully represented the originals. Article eleven says that Scripture is infallible and reliable. Article twelve says that the Bible is inerrant and free from all falsehood, fraud, and deceit. Scientific teachings cannot be used to overthrow biblical instruction. The Bible speaks accurately and authoritative.
J. says that biblical inerrancy is not rejected by the use of literary devices, proposed discrepancies (in a later lesson), and other things. No biblical errors are new. They have been used over and over for centuries.
K. Truthful means that it corresponds to reality. The sun stood still. The axe handle floated. The Bible is taken exactly as written. It is taken as factual.
L. Article fourteen recognizes the common unit of itself as being Jesus. Article fifteen says that Jesus and the Bible do not accomodate themselves to error. With respect to the Bible, human need and limitation are acknowledged. Article sixteen looks at the historicity of the Bible. Article eighteen pertains to the words in context, syntax, and structure, not allegory. Article nineteen says that a confession of the full authority of the Bible is vital to a correct understanding of the Christian Faith. They did not say that inerrancy was a condition for salvation, but they thought that salvation and acceptance of inerrancy were critical. Rejecting inerrancy does serious damage to the Gospel.
V. Lesson 5 - Problems and Discrepancies with Defending Biblical Inerrancy
A. Inerrancy is that the Bible is absolutely correct in "all" that it affirms. It's not all true (Job's friends' advice, the lies of Satan, and so forth), but it has all been accurately transmitted.
B. There are several types of discrepancies.
1. Errors of Number - (II Chronicles 36:9 and II Kings 24:8) - parallel accounts give different ages of Jehoichim when he became king. Solomon's number of stalls are different between Kings and Chronicles. In all, eighteen such discrepancies have been found in Samuels, Kings, and Chronicles.
a. There does not seem to be a direct pattern between the different accounts.
b. These discrepancies might have been in the original texts, but they are probably copying errors. When they are in the original, then the theologian needs to have an answer. With Jehoichim, for instance, his father might have made him a co-regent at one age, and he might have become king at another age.
c. With the Hebrew language, a copying error could have easily happened, so that is much more probable (transcriptional blunders).
2. Errors of geneaologies - Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are very different. Matthew most likely showed Joseph, and Luke most likely showed Mary. It is also possible that some of these are copying errors, too. Manuscript 109 was copied horizontally instead of vertically on Luke 3, and the copy did not match up. This is a known copying error because of other copies.
3. Errors of geographical - Joseph's bones in plot of ground purchased by Abraham or Jacob. In Genesis 33:18-20, Jacob purchased land, and it was apparently purchased earlier by Abraham. Abraham bought it, the local tribes reclaimed it, and Jacob had to buy the same land again.
4. Errors of history - one (Matthew and Mark) or two angels (Luke and John) at Jesus' tomb. What was, in fact, on the sign put over Jesus on the cross. It is very possible that the sign said all those things, but different men recorded different parts of the same sign. The one angel thing is that maybe one angel was more dominant than the other.
5. Errors of phenomalogical language - heaven is up, and hell is down. The Bible speaks of the four corners of the earth. Are these scientific blunders? Weathermen say sunrise and sunset when the sun does not actually rise or set. We allow this kind of language, and God could have done the same thing. We need to make a distinction between what the original author knew and what God knew. Many times, the authors did not understand much of what they were writing. The Bible is not written in the language of exact science. The Bible was written in the common language of everyday intelligence. God and the human authors have not blundered.
C. Some people (Benjamin Warfield, for example) say that we should just ignore the apparent blunders. This might be true in some instances. People cannot comprehend God's infinity, so often, we do have to just accept them. How could Jesus be born of a virgin? We must affirm God's Word as truth and trust it over anything that anyone else says.
D. We should not totally ignore alleged discrepancies, but we must look at each discrepancy on a case by case basis. We can explain some easily, but others we must accept by faith. Gleason Archer wrote an extensive book about all of the alleged discrepancies of the Bible. Many of his explanations are possible.
E. Another approach is to resolve the discrepancy with the information at hand and to reserve judgment on the others. Dr. Mitchell thinks that this is the best approach. When we do not have good information, then let God be true and every man be a liar. Once, no one knew about the Hittite nation, but the Bible talks about the Hittites. Now, archaeologists have uncovered their capitol city, so we know that they existed.
F. Things to remember: (1) the burden of proof is on the critic, and he must show the error in the original. No one has ever done that, so go on the offensive. (2) there are not any new alleged discrepancies. All of them are well over one thousand years old.
VI. Lesson 6 - The KJV Issue - Which Bible Translation Can Be Trusted?
A. The canon of Scripture is of historic importance to the Christian Faith. The KJV focuses on one aspect of that concern. Many think that a commitment to the KJV is necessary for fellowship with a brother or sister because of all the current translations.
B. How did we get the KJV? The Old Testament had more care than the New Testament. The Dead Sea Scrolls added credibility to the copying process. The New Testament was not as meticulous. Not until the time of Augustine that men actually gave their lives to copying Scripture.
C. Errors can be introduced by copying and translations. There are roughly 5000 manuscripts in existence (extant) and 8000 versions and translations from antiquity (latin, coptic, and so forth). These numbers make the New Testament the best kept manuscript in antiquity. None of the manuscripts, being hand-copied, agree in every detail.
D. How are the manuscripts qualified? Which reading is most correct? It will not always be the oldest. Sometimes, a parent copy can be very bad, and one cannot always go with the majority, either?
E. Types of errors: (1) Unintentional.
(a) Errors of hearing [Revelation 1:5 (washed (greek lousanti) or freed (greek lusanti)). Often, one person read one manuscript and as many as eight were copying what they heard.].
(b) Errors of seeing - eyes can play tricks on a person.
(c) Repeating or skipping text.
(d) Errors of memory - read a line and write from memory.
(e) Add synonyms instead of real text.
(f) Adding or transposing words.
(g) Errors of judgment - mistakes were often corrected in the margins. That could lead to mistakes centuries later because the copier would have to make a judgment. The tendency was to never leave anything out, so the manuscripts would expand.
(h) Errors of carelessness.
F. Types of errors: (2) Intentional.
(a) Errors when making intentional changes based on some standard or belief.
G. A text type is a collection of manuscripts that reflect the same type of variations or errors. Some might be shorter or larger than most. Some might be characterized by a lot of carelessness. The Byzantine text type (more Byzantine than all others combined) was the most common, longer, and it argued a western bias. The Western text type had a lot of carelessness. The Caesarean text was a mixture of Alexandrian and the Western text type. The Alexandrian text type was characterized by shortness and theological neutrality.
H. Textual criticism - evaluating the work and quality of manuscripts, also called Lower Criticism. It uses internal and external information --> date, geographical disposition, text type (brief, neutral, and so forth). Because of the tendency to not leave anything out meant that the shorter reading was probably the best or oldest. The author's style must also be considered. Sometimes, the tougher reading is used, sometimes not.
I. The KJV tends to support the Majority text view, which are the Byzantine readings. The KJV gets a lot of support because of the origin of the Textus Receptus (the received text). The first published Greek New Testament was in 1516 by Erasmus, and it had many errors. The manuscripts dated to the tenth century. Erasmus did not include I John 5:7-8 until later versions. His fourth and fifth editions were much improved and became the basis for a couple of centuries. All of these along with some other translations led to the KJV in 1611 based on editions by Bayse, too. All European translations until the nineteenth century used the Erasmus versions.
VII. Lesson 7 - Principles of the KJV Bible
A. This is an important issue because it threatens to separate the church. Both sides are wrong when they go too far.
B. Fourteen principles or points that drive the use or non-use of the KJV:
1. The Byzantine family text type, which was mainly used for the KJV, was not known until the 4th century AD (around 358AD). It is sometimes called the Majority text types, and there are many more Byzantine text types than of any of the other text type families. This is the only text type not found in the early church father writings. The Alexandrian texts are the oldest because the dry climate helped them to be preserved.
2. The Majority text type is not necessarily the best. The Greek language was used until around 1500AD in some areas, and the Greek texts were primarily used.
3. The Byzantine text type was a secondary text. It was a systematic conflation of other texts, so it came about based on trying to harmonize a number of other texts. The Byzantine family text became an expanded type whereas the Alexandrian is shorter.
4. The Alexandrian text type is best attested by the earliest evidence. Many of the early versions had an Alexandrian type character to them, so it can easily be attested to prior to the 4th century AD. It is a singular family and does not appear to be a harmonization.
5. The appeal of the majority of the church to the Byzantine test type is not necessarily a good thing for today. KJV is from the Byzantine tradition. The majority of the Christians over time baptized babies, but that does not mean that they were correct.
6. The appeal to divine providence to support the KJV is not valid. The providence of God produced Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and Adolph Hitler. Were the Catholics correct just because they dominated the church for over one thousand years?
7. Fourth century writing techniques did not allow for comparison of many manuscripts, but this is not necessarily true, either. They stood up and copied at podiums, but they could have had multiple podiums.
8. The KJV/Textus Receptus cannot be considered to be the base text with all others adding or subtracting from the base. The Erasmian text is similar to the Textus Receptus, and it was mainly used for the KJV. The correct issue is whether the KJV matches the original Greek.
9. The non-Byzantine text types are not filled with theological heresies. The NIV contains seven of eight critical passages that say that Jesus is God, but the KJV only matched on four of the eight. It is a mistake to automatically assume that some versions are totally heretical. The KJV cannot be used as the standard because it is only one of many versions. There are not any theological contradictions between the KJV and the NIV.
10. The KJV was not accepted immediately or without a struggle.
11. The Byzantine text type is not identical to the Textus Receptus. There is not a single manuscript in the world that corresponds completely to the TR or the KJV.
12. Inspiration only applies totally to the original, autograph versions. The copies were not inspired. Inspiration should not be confused with transmission and preservation.
13. Believers should not slander other believers over versions. Westcott and Hort were not total fundamentalists, but using their text does not make one automatically liberal.
14. The adoption of the KJV should not be a basis for fellowship or orthodoxy or the exclusion thereof.
VIII. Lesson 8 - The Charismatic Movement
A. Pentacostalism came from 19th century Liberalism. In those days, they were interested in evidences for the Faith. They questioned doctrines that could not be proved. Three reactions came out of 19th century Liberalism.
1. The reaction of Fundamentalism focused on the objective truths of Christianity. The emphasis was on biblical authority. Experiences, doctrine, and what is taught are defined by Scriptures.
2. Neo-orthodoxy focused on subjective or experienced truths. They went back to the subjective reality of faith rather than the Bible. Karl Barth was the founder, and he did not return back to the Scriptures or full orthodoxy. In the 20th century, this was popular in some universities because they could accept orthodox views without becoming Fundamentalists.
3. Pentacostalism - they went back to a focus on holiness and practical Christian living. They also focused on the presence and experience of the Holy Spirit rather than on scientific evidences. A person did not have to have proofs. In the 1960s, this group crossed over into the Charismatic Movement. Pentacostalists do not like to be associated with the Charismatic Movement because they are different movements. Pentacostalists took their theology from the Bible, but they were different from Fundamentalists, too.
B. Pentacostalism was a Holiness Movement. They believed in a "second blessing" of sanctification after salvation. A person does not go back to salvation, and he or she also did not go back to the second blessing. They kept moving forward spiritually. This became known as the Higher Life or Deeper Life Experience. They thought of it as the baptism of the Holy Spirit in John 7:37-39. The whole idea of the second blessing carried a lot of emotionalism with it. Benjamin Irwin came up with a "third blessing" or "tongues of fire" during the 1980s. The stressed an experience that was closer to Acts 2:1-4. They started emphasizing an instancy to all of these emotional experiences.
C. The Keswick Movement had salvation, baptism of the Spirit, divine healing, and the second coming as their fundamentals of the faith. Pentacostalism started in 1901. They wanted to "know" that they had been saved, that they had received the second and third blessings, and so forth. They looked for normative evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In 1901, Agnes Ozman came to the conclusion that all Christians, based on the Book of Acts, would show the evidence of speaking in tongues, and that became the main characteristic of the movement. Some people call it the second blessing, and some even say that it is associated with salvation.
D. By 1980, there were 51 million Pentacostalists and 11 million were Charismatic listed in the Christian Encyclopedia. Proof became replaced by experience, whereas Fundamentalists say that they know He lives because the Bible says that He lives. The Charismatic Movement does not focus as much on the Bible as does Fundamentalism, and it focuses more on experience. The important thing to look at today is whether or not the experiences are backed up by the Bible. This movement has not characterized the church before the last century.
E. In 1966, the Charismatic Movement crossed over into Catholicism. By 1973, there were thirty thousand Charismatic Catholics at a national convention at Notre Dame University. Emphasis began to focus on mystical experiences, and that has drawn many Catholics back to the Roman Catholic church.
F. Fundamentalists believe that tongues was given in the first century to validate the church. We will look more at this in a future lecture.