What’s changed: From now on my regular posts on Christian life and ministry will appear on the new Briefing site. The Sola Panel is now dead.
What hasn’t changed: I’ll continue to use this site (Forget the Channel) to post about more technical biblical and theological topics.
Check out the shiny new Briefing site; it’s full of free goodies. Tony, the Publishing Director, says:
September 1 has come at last, and we’re thrilled to be launching our new Briefing site. We hope you enjoy having a browse around. Here’s a quick guide to some of the main new features:
- It’s all free! All our content from now on will go up on this site, without any payment or subscription barriers. If you prefer the paper edition (in which the best of our content will be published every two months), that will cost you a small amount. To find out more about the paper magazine, see all the details here.
- Pretty much everything is tagged in one of five main categories: Life (growing in godliness and holiness as we live each day as Christians); Thought (growing in understanding and knowledge of God through his Word); Everyday Ministry (being equipped and encouraged for the nuts-and-bolts ministry that all Christians share); Pastoral Ministry (material especially, but not exclusively, for those engaged in full-time ministry); and Review (where we look at books, ministry resources, and anything else we might cast our eye over).
- These five categories tell you most of you need to know about what we believe and stand for, and what we’re trying to do on this site, but if you want more ‘about us’ sort of info, including our doctrinal statement, go here.
- The Sola Panel blog is now hosted here on The Briefing site, with six regular panellists from around the world.
- Col Marshall and I are launching a new podcast called ‘Trellis and Vine Talk’, in which we talk every couple of weeks about some aspect of the ministry that we all share. The first episode will be online in the next few days.
Please tell us what you think about the new site, and fire off any questions you might have. We very much want to contribute to your lives and ministries, so any suggestions on how to do that will always be gratefully received.
A short while ago I wrote a post claiming that Paul doesn’t ever teach that the Gentiles are included in Israel. I said:
Gentiles don’t need to be included in Israel. In fact, the opposite is true; we Gentiles are saved by faith in Christ without being included in Israel. That’s one of the apostle Paul’s big points in Romans and Galatians … Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians are united, not in Israel, but in the promises to Abraham and ultimately in Christ.
The natural counter to this claim is: “What about the allegory of the olive tree in Romans 11? Doesn’t that clearly assume that the Gentiles join Israel?” This question is based on a common assumption that the olive tree in Romans 11:17-24 refers to Israel, and that the image of the Gentiles being “grafted in” to this olive tree (e.g. 11:17) must therefore refer to the Gentiles joining Israel. That is, the olive-tree analogy is commonly read ecclesiologically.
But really, this ecclesiological reading of the olive tree doesn’t work when you start to read the passage carefully. I think that it makes far more sense to read the olive tree theologically (with, of course, implications for both Israel and the Gentiles). That is, the all-important root of the olive tree in Romans 11:17-24 doesn’t stand for Israel, but for God’s promises of salvation (and I think especially his promises to Abraham, who is not only the father of Israel but the father of many nations, see Romans 4).
I’ve just read an article by Nikolaus Walter which makes this point very clearly. Since the article is in German, I thought I’d translate some of the key points for English readers:
When interpreting an allegory, we must always be controlled by the question: What does the author probably want to say in the given context, and what lies beyond his immediate horizon? The main problem for the interpretation of Romans 11:17-24 seems to me to be the question: Who or what is Paul speaking about when he talks about the olive tree with its root, trunk and “sap”; i.e. the olive tree along with the “fatness” which proceeds from the root, which is of course the distinguishing honour of the olive tree and makes it suitable as an allegory of salvation?
[pp. 179-180]
In my opinion the olive tree, or the trunk, and particularly the root, “is” not = Israel, despite Jeremiah 11:16 ff. For “Israel” is in fact what has branched out of the olive tree, which currently–by virtue of its non-acceptance of Christ Jesus–is in its greater part excluded from the olive tree (Rom 11:25 b).
[p. 180]
If the cultivated olive tree, its root and the fat which flows from it into the branches (or fruits!) (Rom 11:17) is to point concretely at anything, then it points above all to God–to his election and promises and the grace of salvation which flows out from him–but it should not be immediately identified with Israel as a people. Israel, which until now has been that which branches out of the olive tree, has grown on this cultivated olive tree; it has its own history of God and salvation in its past and as its foundation; however it “is” not itself this foundation; the root, the trunk, the fat.
(pp. 180-181)
And now they [the Gentiles] are through God’s salvific action in Christ planted not in Israel, but rather they are included in the salvific activity of the God of Israel.
(p. 181)
The often-applied sentance Rom 11:18 b does not imply that the Gentile Christians are supported by Israel as their “root”. Rather, what is actually said to the Gentile Christians is that they should not boast with respect to the now-broken-off branches, i.e. with respect to Israel; for even they, the Gentile Christians, “support” not the root, but rather are supported by it (but not by the broken-off branches); i.e. they have not become branches on the olive tree and participated in its “fat” by their own power, but rather they are “supported” by God and his gracious election enacted in Jesus Christ, just as formerly Israel was and also yet again will be.
(pp. 181-182)
Walter, Nikolaus. “Zur Interpretation von Römer 9-11.” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 81 (1984): 172-195.
In response to the growing number of comments on my blog, and to a very reasonable suggestion from my friend David, I’ve added a subscription service for comments. I.e. you can choose to receive emails notifying you when comments are added to a given blog post. Enjoy! And please let me know if you find any bugs in this new service.
This site has been through a number of metamorphoses. It began as a place where I posted Greek and Hebrew vocabulary-learning tools. After a while I added a few articles and essays and random thoughts. In the last few years, I’ve been using the site to inform people about my studies and how to support my family prayerfully and financially. But finally, I’ve bitten the bullet and decided that I’m actually going to use the site to write regular blog posts on topics relating to biblical scholarship. It’s a good discipline for me and may even be helpful for others.
I’m not quite sure what “regular” means yet, but I suspect it’ll be once every week or so.
(I’ll also keep writing posts for more general consumption at the Sola Panel, and will post them up at this site too)
Anyway, if you do happen to be following my hitherto haphazard posts, I thought I’d let you know that I plan to make them a bit more regular and “bloggy” from now on.
Many of the older articles on this site are PDFs or static HTML pages. Over the next few months, in order to update my site, I’ll be publishing these older articles as blog posts, at a frequency of one post every few days.
I’ve been thinking about naming this site for a while. The new name, Forget the Channel, is taken from the final verse of the hymn ‘May the Mind of Christ my Saviour’ by Kate Barclay Wilkinson (apparently written before 1913, published in 1925):
May His beauty rest upon me,
As I seek the lost to win,
And may they forget the channel,
Seeing only Him.
The idea is that the site is designed to contribute to the vital task of seeing people come to a saving trust in Jesus Christ. If it furthers that end, it’s achieved its aim. If all it does is make people appreciate Lionel Windsor more, then it’s failed.
The name was suggested by my very beautiful wife, Bronwyn. It’s actually a song we sang while standing together at the Mid Year Conference for Campus Bible Study (University of New South Wales) in 1997, less than a week before I asked her out. We remember the song, because I had to ask Bronwyn what the words ‘forget the channel’ meant, and she patiently explained it to me. We were married eleven months later.
On the Sola Panel: What is a tree for?
On the Sola Panel: Stranger evangelism
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