Part of the Rightly Understanding God’s Word series by Craig S. Keener.

Take a course on biblical interpretation with New Testament scholar, Professor Craig S. Keener.

Editor’s Note: Craig Keener originally intended for this portion of his course on biblical interpretation to appear at the end of Chapter 1: Context (Spring 2003), and before Chapter 2: Learning Context (Summer 2003). However, Pneuma Review editors did not receive it in time to publish it in the print edition of the journal. It is our pleasure to include this revision, twelve years later, to complete this excellent series in its new digital format.
Raul Mock
February 24, 2015

Objections to Context

I should deal here with one objection to context that arises in some circles. Some people quote Scripture out of context and then claim they are right because they have special authority or a special revelation from God. But they should be honest in claiming that this is a special revelation rather than the Scripture. All revelations must be judged (1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess 5:20-21), and God gave us a Bible in part so we could test other revelations. No one has the right to short-circuit hearers’ rights to evaluate their claims from Scripture by claiming a revelation about Scripture’s meaning which the hearers cannot evaluate by studying it for themselves. Otherwise anyone could claim that Scripture means anything! Any view can be supported based on proof-texts out of context; any theology can make its reasoning sound consistent; Jehovah’s Witnesses do this all the time. We dare not base our faith on other people’s study of the Bible rather than on the Bible itself.

Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Vols. 1-3 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000 and 2003).

When you encounter a Jewish man or woman willing to enter into a dialogue about Jesus, and you face the inevitable hurdles many Jewish people can raise, would it not be nice to have resources that could provide you an easy-to-read, well-researched, yet comprehensive view on countering those objections?

Michael Brown has compiled three such books. Volume One tackles the General and Historical Objections; Volume Two examines the Theological Objections; and Volume Three offers an in depth examination of Messianic Prophecy Objections. The three volumes bring together a wealth of knowledge without parallel in the marketplace.

Brown brings Jewish understanding to the fore, tracing centuries of Hebrew thought, theology, and history that developed through interaction in predominately Christian and Muslim communities, demonstrating how the rabbis came to reach some of the conclusions they reached about the Messiah. He helps you understand the Jewish perspective, and then equips you with solid, biblical—and usually thoroughly Jewish—answers.

Moishe Rosen, founder of Jews for Jesus writes, “Michael Brown’s thinking is incisive and to the point. His ability to explain so that anyone can understand is amazing. He will surely be acclaimed as the new expert in Jewish Christian apologetics.”

Each volume includes extensive notes, a glossary of Hebrew terms, as well as subject and Scripture indexes. You don’t have to be a rabbi to enter into a meaningful dialogue about the Jewish Messiah. Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus has done all the work for you. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Kevin M. Williams

The Power of the Cross: The Biblical Place of Healing and Gift-Based Ministry in Proclaiming the Gospel

22. Doesn’t the Bible teach that the Holy Spirit will never call attention to Himself, but will always direct our attention to Christ? Then how can it be right to place so much emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit today?

This objection is based on trying to force a false alternative, one not supported by Scripture. Of course the Holy Spirit does glorify Jesus (John 16:14) and bear witness to Jesus (John 15:26; Acts 5:32; 1 John 2:3; 4:2). But this does not mean He does not make His own actions and words known. The Bible has hundreds of verses talking about the work of the Holy Spirit, making His work known, and Bible is itself spoken or inspired by the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19, “Make disciples …baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” suggests that the Holy Spirit is to be given equal honor with the Father and the Son in the Church.

Moreover, the Holy Spirit frequently made Himself known by some phenomenon or event that indicated His activity, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. This was true when the Holy Spirit came upon the 70 elders with Moses and they prophesied (Numbers 11:25-26), or when the Holy Spirit came upon the judges to enable them to do great works of power (Judges 14:6, 19; 15:14). People could see the effect of the Holy Spirit coming on someone in these cases. This was also true when the Holy Spirit came mightily upon Saul and he prophesied with a band of prophets (1 Samuel 10:6, 10), and it was frequently true when the Holy Spirit empowered the Old Testament prophets to give public prophecies.

The Holy Spirit also made Himself known or evident in a visible way when he descended as a dove on Jesus (John 1:32), or came as a sound of a rushing wind and with visible tongues of fire on the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2:2-3). In addition, when people had the Holy Spirit poured out on them and began to speak in tongues or praise God in a remarkable and spontaneous way (see Acts 2:4; 10:44-46; 19:6), the Holy Spirit certainly made His presence known as well. And Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit within us would be so powerful He would be like a river of living water flowing out from our inmost beings (see John 7:39): Certainly that simile suggests a kind of presence people would be aware of, a presence that would somehow be perceptible.

The Power of the Cross: The Biblical Place of Healing and Gift-Based Ministry in Proclaiming the Gospel

15. Why do people speak directly to demons today and command them to leave, rather than just praying and asking God to drive the demon away? Isn’t it safer just to pray to God about this?

In a way, this is similar to asking why Christians should share the gospel with another person rather than simply praying and asking God to reveal the gospel to that person directly. Or why should we speak words of encouragement to a Christian who is discouraged rather than just praying and asking God Himself to encourage that person directly? Why should we speak a word of rebuke or gentle admonition to a Christian, whom we see involved in some kind of sin, rather than just praying and asking God to take care of the sin in that person’s life?

The answer to all these questions is that in the kind of world God has created, He has given us an active role in carrying out His plans, especially His plans for advancing the Kingdom and building up the Church. In all of these cases, our direct involvement and activity is important in addition to our prayers. And so it seems to be in our dealing with demonic forces as well.

As a wise father who does not settle all of his children’s disputes for them, but sometimes sends them back out to the playground to settle a dispute themselves, so our heavenly Father encourages us to enter directly into conflict with demonic forces, in the name of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thereby He enables us to gain the joy of participating in eternally significant ministry and the joy of triumphing over the destructive power of Satan and his demons in people’s lives. God could certainly deal with demonic attacks every time we prayed and asked Him to do so, and He no doubt sometimes does. But the New Testament pattern seems to be that God ordinarily expects Christians themselves to speak directly to the unclean spirits.

We see this pattern of speaking directly to demons first in the ministry of Jesus. He spoke to the demon troubling a man in the synagogue, saying, “Be silent, and come out of Him!” (Mark 1:25). He commanded the demons in the Gadarene demoniac, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” (Mark 5:8). When Jesus encountered a young boy severely afflicted by a demon, “He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again'” (Mark 9:25). This was Jesus’ general pattern, for people said about Him, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out” (Luke 4:36).

The Power of the Cross: The Biblical Place of Healing and Gift-Based Ministry in Proclaiming the Gospel

8. Doesn’t Hebrews 2:3 tell us that miracles were restricted to the apostles, “those who heard him”?

In Hebrews 2:3-4, the author says about the message of salvation,

It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God also bore witness²³  by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will.

The miracles here are said to come through those who heard the Lord firsthand (“those who heard him”), so it is argued that we should not expect them to be done through others who were not firsthand witnesses to the Lord’s teaching and ministry.²⁴

But this argument attempts to draw more from the passage than is there. First, the phrase “those who heard him” (Hebrews 2:3) is certainly not limited to the apostles, for many others heard Jesus as well (Luke 10:1 ff.; John 6:60-70; 1 Corinthians 15:6). But more importantly, this position is claiming something the text simply does not say: That the gospel message was confirmed by miracles when it was preached by those who heard Jesus says nothing at all about whether it would be confirmed by miracles when preached by others who did not hear Jesus.

Finally, this passage says the message was confirmed not only by “signs and wonders and various miracles” but also by “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” If someone argues that this passage limits miracles to the apostles and their companions, then he or she must also argue that gifts of the Holy Spirit are likewise limited to the first-century Church. But few would argue that there are no gifts of the Holy Spirit today.

9. When Paul says, “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23), doesn’t he warn us against seeking signs and say that we should just preach the gospel of Christ?

Here Paul cannot be denying that he performed miracles in connection with proclaiming the gospel. In Romans 15:18-19, a passage Paul wrote while in Corinth, he said,

For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyr’icum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.

Should we expect the Holy Spirit to work in powerful, miraculous ways in connection with the preaching of the gospel and the life of the Church today? This has been the claim of John Wimber and the Vineyard movement, and of others within what is called the “third wave” of renewal by the Holy Spirit.¹  Similar claims have been made for years by Christians within the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. But other evangelicals have differed with this claim, and have raised several objections. In this series, I want to consider some of the most frequent objections and propose some answers from Scripture.

1. Doesn’t Jesus say, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 16:4)?²  Doesn’t this mean we should not seek miracles today—rather, we should look to “the sign of Jonah,” which means the resurrection of Christ, and emphasize that when we talk about miracles?³

The mistake made in this objection is a failure to look at the context and find whom Jesus was talking to. In the context of Matthew 16, it is the Pharisees and Sadducees who came, “and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven” (Matthew 16:1). Similarly, it was the hostile scribes and Pharisees who came in Matthew 12:38-45, the Pharisees who began to argue with him “to test him” in Mark 8:11-12, and skeptics who came “to test him” and seek a sign from heaven in Luke 11:16. (The only passage that doesn’t specify that the comment was directed against hostile unbelievers is Luke 11:29, but the parallel passage in Matthew 12:39-42 does specify that it was specifically the scribes and Pharisees against whom this word was directed.)

So in every instance the rebuke for seeking signs is addressed to hostile unbelievers. Jesus is rebuking Jewish leaders who had hard hearts and were simply seeking a pretext for criticizing Him. In no case are such rebukes addressed to genuine followers of Jesus who sought a miracle for physical healing or deliverance for themselves or others, either out of compassion for others or out of a desire to advance the gospel and see God’s name glorified. These warning verses, taken in the original contexts, apply to unbelievers, and therefore to use them to apply to genuine Christians is an illegitimate application. No New Testament passages warn against the use of miracles by genuine Christians.

It seems to me that the New Testament encourages us to believe God and seek answers to prayer in many ways, including miraculous answers to prayer. (See Acts 4:30; 1 Corinthians 14:1; Galatians 3:5 [implicitly], see also the entire pattern of gospel proclamation plus miraculous demonstration in the evangelism carried on in Acts 3:6, 12ff.; 4:29, 30; 5:12-16, 20, 21, 28, 42; 6:8 10; 8:4-7, 12; 9:17, 18 [cf. 22:13] 34, 35; 14:3, 8-10, 15ff.; 15:12, 36; 18:5, 11 [cf. 2 Corinthians 12:12, 1 Corinthians 2:4-5]; 19:8-12; compare Hebrews 2:4; James 5:13-18).