John Dickson

I teach a class here at @WheatonCollege on the history of Christianity, focused on the first thousand years. One thought haunts me. We are right to look with shock and disappointment at the way medieval Christians accepted violence as a norm. 1/

@DgSpill @mattnightingale We likely have a similar view. Having read all the options. I just hold that view with about 80% confidence.

@mattnightingale @johnpauldickson I trust the Scriptures more than I trust you. I trust my ability to read the languages, understand the historical context, and appreciate the historical interpretation of God’s revelation for the last several thousand years as opposed to the last fifteen minutes.

I hope that Sam Alberry finds the freedom to be who he is and love who he loves, free from the shame and fear of homophobic evangelical theology and culture. 🙏🏼❤️🏳️‍🌈

@MBLinton @JaredCBurt Cool. Blessings.

@johnpauldickson @JaredCBurt No

This sounds reasonable. But SBC pastors have been trained to believe “the Bible is clear on this issue.” For many, it’s not 80%, but 100% certainty with no room for disagreement (“compromise”). Anyone who disagrees has rejected biblical inerrancy/authority and therefore is in sin

@MBLinton @JaredCBurt All power to you. Do you feel this way about all theological and church-order topics?

@JaredCBurt @johnpauldickson Count me as one who is 100% against the Mohler/Sanchez/Law Amendments but is also 100% certain the Bible doesn't call women to be the pastor of a church that is single-pastor led or to be the elder in a church that is led by a plurality of elders.

@Exodus15_11 That begs the question. On many things, it would be inappropriate to waver. On other things, it would be wrong not to remain generously open to disagreement.

@johnpauldickson Or, you could toss away the liberal academic mindset of 'Plurality' when it comes to rightly interpreting the Scriptures.

Why some of us can rejoice in women “pastors” even if we pretty much disagree with the idea. First, take a less fraught example: baptism. Suppose you’re 80% convinced the Bible endorses only believer’s baptism, not infant baptism. That still means you think there’s a half-decent chance you could be wrong. Since this is a matter of church order rather than morality, perhaps that possibility should be enough to let you attend the baptism of your friends’ infant child and even find some joy in it. After all, there’s a meaningful chance this practice is biblical, as many thoughtful, biblically serious Christians believe. Likewise, suppose you’re 80% convinced the Bible restricts women from doing pastor-like things. That still means you think there’s a half-decent chance you could be wrong. Since this too is a matter of church order rather than morality, perhaps that possibility should be enough to let you sit under the preaching and ministry of a gifted woman and maybe even find some blessing in it. After all, there’s a meaningful chance this too is biblical, as many thoughtful, biblically serious Christians believe. At least, that’s how I’ve come to think about it.

@Cldddy Are there no biblical issues you are 80% convinced of, where there is fair-minded reason for doubt? Gifts of the Spirit? Baptism? Sabbath keeping? Anything?

@johnpauldickson That margin in not trusting Gods Word and interjecting our thoughts is putting our wisdom above Gods and leads to pride flags draped over the altar.

@Cldddy Yep. But when you know all the issues, it’s hard not to leave a small margin for doubt.

@johnpauldickson Or you know, the Bible and not our opinion. 1 Timothy 2:12 (NASB) But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

@johnbotkin My reflection won’t apply, I guess.

@johnpauldickson What about those convinced 100%?

@dtripp4801 There’s some unpleasantness out there.

@johnpauldickson By their fruits you will know them. Male pastor online pissin and moanin about change, female pastor inspires congregants to follow the Holy Spirit's leading by an example of action. Today I took a holy risk with a neighbor because of her message. Argue all you want, dudes.

@SingnRing Yep.

@johnpauldickson Someone posted women pastors “displease Christ.” Yet Christ never said so and I consider such a claim presumptuous. Paul made a restriction and the question is was it local or universal forever? This IS an honest debate and not a moral one-so why such msle obsession over it?

@TimONeill007 @SawtelleAn5682 Hmm. Ok. Thanks.

@johnpauldickson @SawtelleAn5682 If he was being perfectly objective and rational, perhaps. But the JWs and many other examples show that people will convince themselves of very unlikely things to prevent cognitive dissonance when it comes to prophecies. And this isn't even especially unlikely.

@johnpauldickson @SawtelleAn5682 But, again, 30 was the minimum and in the first century it could be even younger. Another issue is not how old he *was* but rather if the gMark author *thought* he may still be alive. It's likely he was writing somewhere far from Judea and he couldn't exactly look him up on Wiki.

@TimONeill007 @SawtelleAn5682 Straight to high priest at 30? Nah. I was being generous saying 35. But even if I could imagine he was high priest at 30 (in AD 18), he would be 80 (not 70) years old in AD 68. It’s really not likely.

@johnpauldickson @SawtelleAn5682 ... political appointment by this period and some much younger men were appointed if expedient - e.g. Aristobulus III was just 17. Leavind aside some doubts about the Caiaphas Ossuary, the remains inside are assessed to be "at *least* 60", so could be older.

P1: If Christianity is true, Jesus cannot lie. P2: Jesus stated he would return before his contemporaries died. P3: Jesus did not return before his contemporaries died. C: Christianity is not true. Supporting argument negating metaphorical objection: P1: A biblical prediction is either a literal prophecy or a metaphor. P2: If it is a literal prophecy, it failed (which makes Jesus mistaken). P3: If it is a metaphor, it is not an actual prophecy (which invalidates the prophetic claim). P4: Jesus cannot be mistaken, and his prophetic claims cannot be invalid. C: The Christian theological position is self-contradictory.

Cheers back. My reason for doubting Caiaphas was alive in AD 68 is twofold. If he was 35 years old when he became high priest in AD 18 (he was likely older), he would be in his mid-80s by AD 68. Not impossible, but very unlikely. Moreover, with many, I accept the Caiaphas ossuary as the ossuary of the high priest. The older male in that ossuary was approximately 60 at death. Caiaphas likely died in the AD 40s in his 60s, two decades before Mark's Gospel.

@johnpauldickson @SawtelleAn5682 ... there could still be alive (ask the JWs about that problem). But, of course, you won’t find that convincing either. It’s always interesting to discuss these things with people of different views and are happy to do so in good faith (no pun intended there 😉) Cheers John.

@PaetzoldBill That is called begging the question.

@johnpauldickson The original language, if you believe Enoch, would have been an ancient (original) form of Hebrew. He says he wrote it and that God taught him. I believe Enoch over you.

Enoch wrote 1 Enoch. Prove me wrong.

Tim, let me explain why these arguments don't feel as strong to me as they evidently do to you. John contains almost none of the Synoptic teaching material, whether ethical or apocalyptic, so it is wholly speculative to suggest he excluded this material out of embarrassment. One might as well suggest he was embarrassed about the Lord’s Prayer, “turn the other cheek,” “love your enemy,” the “Lord’s Supper,” and a host of other things. Your comments about Matthew’s and Luke’s redaction of Mark’s material can also be questioned. The fact is: the high priest would see Jesus coming on the clouds of heaven whether in his earthly lifetime or at the resurrection of the dead. There is therefore no “problem” here for Matthew and Luke to fix. By definition, the final triumph of the Messiah is a universal event, as all three Synoptics plainly state. Nor does the addition of “from now on” (ἀπ’ ἄρτι / ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν) change things. Matthew 26:64 still has Jesus declare that the high priest will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds. Matthew simply adds an enthronement theme: the passion and resurrection inaugurate the Messiah’s glorification, which reaches its consummation at the final coming, which the high priest will still witness. Luke 22:69 likewise emphasizes enthronement and omits the “coming on the clouds” language at that point. But this omission cannot plausibly be explained as embarrassment, because Luke includes the same “coming on the clouds” tradition earlier (Luke 21:27-28), explicitly framing it as something the hearers of Jesus will see. There is also a probable problem for your reconstruction in Mark itself. I assume you agree Mark is writing around AD 68-70, as most of us think. Caiaphas has already been out of public life for more than 30 years and was very likely long dead (I’m happy to provide the reasons for thinking this). Yet Mark still has Jesus say directly to the high priest, “you will see the Son of Man … coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62), without qualification or embarrassment. So the alleged “problem” already exists in Mark, not merely in the later Gospels. The more plausible reading is that there is no problem; Mark understood Caiaphas would see the coming of the Son of Man whether or not he remained alive until it occurred. There is also no reason to imagine “the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21) is Luke’s attempt to shift away from future eschatology. For one thing, even though that saying does not appear in Mark, it chimes perfectly with the statement in Q (which is just as early as Mark) that Jesus’ healings by the power of God show that the “kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28; Luke 11:20). Moreover, Luke’s Gospel is replete with full-blown future eschatology. There is no shift. This kind of redactional squinting does not do justice to the evidence. To reiterate: Matthew and Luke are writing more than a generation after Jesus, or, on your reckoning, at the very outer edge of a “generation,” and yet both (a) fully retain the “this generation” saying, (b) explicitly say that people listening to Jesus will see him returning on the clouds, and yet also (c) give the strong impression, even 50 years after Jesus, that the church still has much work to do in taking the gospel to all the nations. There is simply no evidence that the “this generation” saying was a problem for the earliest Christians. That suggests to me we may be forcing the saying into a framework the evangelists themselves did not share.

@johnpauldickson @SawtelleAn5682 But, as I've already noted, the "this generation" bit isn't a major problem in c. 80 AD. As with the JWs, it doesn't become embarassing until *all* of those alive in Jesus' time would definitely have to be dead. Thus the lack of any of this in gJohn. And we do see some ...

@henri_mourant @TimONeill007 @SawtelleAn5682 It’s more than embarrassing. It would be an admission of the abject failure of the One who allegedly said he would be with them in their mission to the nations until the end of the age. That strains plausibility for me.

@johnpauldickson @TimONeill007 @SawtelleAn5682 Couldn't they have just reproduced what their source said even if it's embarrassing?

@henri_mourant @chilllcatholic @SawtelleAn5682 Ahh

@johnpauldickson @chilllcatholic @SawtelleAn5682 Tbf I think this guy was saying the OP guy hadn't responded to you