INTRODUCTION

 

In my filing cabinet were stored many articles that I had written but never satisfactorily edited. Some of them dated as far back as before I began to use a computer. While it is always more attractive to be writing something new than renovating what is old, the swift passage of time finally convinced me to peer into this cabinet, select from it what most deserves to be published, and begin the overhaul. The zeal for new projects has for years overruled my plan to revise what once I had some hope for, and did nearly prevent these articles from receiving new attention. It was good that they were laid aside for so long before they were let out. Whatever growth I have gained between their initial composition and this final revision has been, I hope, infused into them. My understanding being more mature than when I first wrote the articles, and my supporting sources more authoritative and numerous, I can say, with conviction, that my beliefs, largely the same then as now, have been thoroughly vindicated.

As my practice has been mostly to write articles, not books limited to single theses, discrete material continues to be generated; articles of recent creation, therefore, finding no better place to reside, have been placed between these covers alongside the more aged bulk that this volume is made of. Some articles were produced as my circumstances necessitated me figuring certain things out. Others were inspired as my interests dictated. Still others happened by accident. All were gladly written during fluctuating distress. Where it seemed necessary, articles have been brought up to date. Twenty of them have been allowed admission: ten on the forepart and ten on the back end.

A motley collection of articles is not fit for division into shipshape categories. Because of this, I had decided to divide the whole by size, thus setting the motley bunch into two neat ranks of ‘major’ ‘and minor.’ However, upon closer scrutiny, I discovered that these articles were not miscellaneous enough to be labeled motley, after all, and that there was a more natural way of setting things in array than by assigning placement according to size. While trying to discern how best to line the articles up, I saw that each one was written as the result of ‘biblical inquiry’ or ‘cultural criticism,’ which processes exactly correspond with what a Christian is obliged to do. The Christian inquires into what he has been convinced is the word of God; then he critiques the culture into which this word of God must penetrate and affect. The word of God tenders judgment to the Christian mind; the Christian puts his accumulated judgment to use in judging the culture. In The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, Thomas Dehany Bernard points out the obvious but easily missed fact that Jesus taught most of his lessons as occasions about him arose. This is an encouraging fact because learning doctrines and critiquing subcultures is something of an inverse imitation of that. Jesus faced the culture and taught his doctrine; the Christian learns his doctrine and faces the culture. 

Not every Christian will write articles about his progress. He need not do that. But the practice is a good one for persons in the habit. If labor in the study of the Bible is for the purpose of gaining understanding in obedience to God, this labor is not lost even if publishing be not its end or popularity be not its outcome.