How to read Romans
Much to my own embarrassment, but with great thankfulness for the patience of my friends at the Ministry Training Strategy and at Matthias Media, my writing about ministry training is long overdue. It's now at the stage where I have stitched together a reasonable draft. But the time has come to put a bit of serious work into shooting holes in what's there in order to see whether it all holds together from the broader perspective of Scripture.
One thing I've decided to do is remind myself of what and why the Reformers and the Puritans thought about ministry. That means casting the net wide and doing a bit of reading. One gem that I've rediscovered is The Puritan Hope by Iain Murray (The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1975), which gives a historical survey of how and why the English and American Puritans brought together their reading of Scripture with their confident hope that many, many people, both Jews and Gentiles, would continue to come into God's heavenly kingdom before the final day of judgement. It's proving useful for all sorts of reasons, and in the next little while I'm just going to share a few quotes and reflections from it, starting with this one about how to read Romans:
When the English-speaking churches gained their greatest influence in the world, and when evangelistic endeavour proceeded everywhere with vigour, the inspiration came in the first place from the believing apprehension of biblical truths. As Donald Maclean says of those who initiated the commencement of missions from Scotland, they ‘grasped the fact that Paul's declarations of profound mysteries in his Epistle to the Romans were not the cold intellectual conclusions of an exclusive dogmatist, but flames from the soul of a Christian missionary consumed with zeal for the salvation of souls.’ (pp. 232-33)
(The reference to Maclean is from an article called ‘Scottish Calvinism and Foreign Missions’ in Records of the Scottish Church History Society, Vol 6 pt 1, 1936.)
This passage gives us great insight into how we should all read the Bible (and Romans in particular) not as a text for fiery but ultimately cosy debate, but as a book written by evangelists for evangelists. In contrast, reading what God writes with detachment is a useless and even dangerous activity.