Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 62
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Earlier, I explained that Origen’s first layer of reading was a
profound commitment to the literal sense of Scripture – the words, sentences,
grammar, and genres of the manuscripts before him” (p. 127). |
No, you showed that you cherry-picked Origen from the other church
fathers because he supported an allegorical view of the historical genre. You
also did not include all the other church fathers who treated the historical
genre as history. And “the literal sense of Scripture – the words, sentences, grammar,
and genres” is the Historical-Grammatical sense, not your version of the
non-literal Literal sense, and not your version of “Literalism”. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“I tried to show how the first Christians’ literal sense was decidedly
not literalism” (p. 127). |
Yes, you tried. But you failed. Not only were you using one of the
church fathers as if he represents them all, but you continue to present your
Literal Sense against your Literalism as if those are the only two options.
That is just another deception of this book. And no, the first Christians’ “literal sense” was not the strawman of
literalism you have fabricated, but the Historical-Grammatical sense of what
the writers said and meant. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Origen included within his literal sense the need to discern and
distinguish (1) actual history from (2) fictitious history (when we can)
composed by the Spirit to communicate more-than-literal truth. In either
case, the message the story conveys is true” (p. 127). |
Yes, it is duly noted that you switch between “the early Christians”
and the one early Christian who wrote things that are used to support your
view, but Origen stands isolated from the other church fathers in this so is
NOT a representation of what the early church believed about the Scriptures. Also, with no references included, we don’t even know if you are
accurately representing Origen! We already covered the sensibility of distinguishing between actual
history and fictitious history. The parable of the lost son in Luke 15 is
fictitious history. In that case, the message it conveys about God’s joy in
receiving repentant sinners is altogether true even though the parable is
only an illustration. On the other hand, creation, the fall, the flood, Job and Jonah are
all presented as actual history, and nothing in them is written like it is a
parable or illustration. Neither are there any references in any other
Scriptures suggesting those historical events were nothing more than
allegory. The conflict is not whether we should distinguish between actual and
fictitious stories in the Bible (as in the rest of real life), but who
decides what is fictitious, and what evidence do they give that this is the
Bible’s stance on the matter? I continue to see the Bible fulfilling Paul’s
teaching that “all Scripture is breathed out by God”, and I continue to heed Jesus’
words that we are to live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God”,
so I will not give up such glorious confidence for the author’s claim that he
has authority to deny the Bible’s authority. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“A literal reading of Jonah, for example, does not depend on finding a
fish big enough to swallow a man, or discovering when in history Nineveh
actually repented, if ever” (p. 127). |
Clever. Like a serpent. Of course we do not need to “find” a fish big enough to swallow a man
(though the evidence is there that such fish existed), or pin down the exact
point in history when Nineveh repented (though this is also evident). It is
enough that these are the breathed-out words of God. Every miracle of God has
some elements we don’t need to prove. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing
from the word of Christ (Romans 10:17), so what is written in the
breathed-out words of God is what gives us our faith. We don’t need our own
personal experience of the evidence to know that what was written was true
history. This applies to Jonah as much as to Jesus’ death, burial, and
resurrection! On the other hand, the twisting of Scripture here does demand
something BJ is trying to deny. A literal reading of Jonah DOES require a
fish big enough to swallow a man! And it DOES require a real-life event when
Nineveh repented exactly as described in God’s Book. So yes, the reality of a
big fish and a repentant city IS required of the historical description even though
we ourselves do not need to see such things to know they happened as God
described them. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Rather, the literal reading of Jonah asks what truth the author of
this strange story meant to convey” (p. 127). |
No, the literal reading of Jonah asks first what God said. It does due
diligence to ascertain any nuances of genre that may be mixed into the
historical account. And it looks for the lasting message to the people of God
through the historical events that took place. NEVER is a historical event reduced to nothing more than the spiritual meaning it meant to convey. It is
not either/or but both/and. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“The scandalous prophetic message of the book is that God’s mercy
extends to all, even the tyrannical Ninevites, the same evildoers who are
condemned in the book of Nahum!” (p. 127). |
Not quite. First, there was nothing scandalous about what God revealed of himself
in the life of Jonah. Those characteristics of God are all through the Jewish
Scriptures (as are the ones affirming God’s justice in condemning a people
group when they again turn to sin, amply proven in the life of Israel!). Second, it depends what you mean by “God’s mercy extends to all”.
Since you are pushing for the unbiblical view of universal inclusion, and
have already slaughtered the meaning of Scriptures that don’t come close to
teaching that, if this is a stepping stone of thoughts to convince readers
that even Jonah can communicate universal inclusion (when you admit the same
people group is condemned at a later time under Nahum’s prophetic ministry),
then you are completely wrong. However, if we admit that Jonah was a real prophet living a real-life
experience of fighting against and then doing God’s will, and we admit what
is revealed of the mercy of God to that particular person at that particular
time, and we admit that his mercy to Jonah in his unloving and ungracious
stance against his enemies is certainly front and center, and we admit that his mercy towards Nineveh in repenting is the same as he responds to all sinners who repent, and we admit that
the book of Jonah continues to show God’s ultimate purpose in calling
Abraham, to have a people who would make Yahweh known to the nations, then
yes, God does show his mercy to all and forgives those who repent. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“The punchline in Jonah’s book comes from the mouth of God: ‘And
should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are
more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right
hand from their left—and also many animals?’ (Jonah 4:11 NIV). That covers
the literal meaning of the story” (p. 128). |
Yes, the literal meaning comes from the literal event. There is
nothing in the whole of the Bible to suggest that the book of Jonah was
anything but real life history with a glaring revelation of God’s grace and
mercy to sinners. To discredit the Bible’s written history of the man, his
message, and his impact in order to reduce history to spiritual stories is an
attack on how God breathed out his words no matter how nicely the “punchline”
is in line with the historical event. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“The message of Jonah is true whether the story of Jonah is historical
fact or moral fiction” (p. 128). |
Nope. What I mean is, if the Bible said that this was a parable we could
then say that the details of the account were fiction but the spiritual
lesson was just as real as Jesus’ parables. The message of the lost sheep,
the lost coin, and the lost son, is true even though these were clearly
parables. On the other hand, since the Bible does not anywhere suggest Jonah is
a parable, or a fictitious story for spiritual effect, then your reasoning is
misleading. When the Bible does present something as history, if the history
is false, the moral of the story is untrustworthy. But, since everything about the prophetic book of Jonah appears to be
real history, it is only the arrogance of the peddlers of God’s word that denies
the possibility of God doing miracles and makes them do everything they can
to explain away the powerful works of God. |
I see
that BJ is now going to develop this into the “moral and the spiritual” senses,
claiming that “Really, we’ve hardly begun!” (p. 128), so I will call it a
night, set up camp, meet with God in the morning, and join the Spirit’s work of helping to save others from BJ’s garden path snares.
HOWEVER… just as I was shutting the computer down for the night, this
came up on my Facebook:
[1]
That
is BJ. He masquerades half-truths that he invented on his own, and that turns what truth he does include into falsehood just as arsenic in the tea makes it
poisonous.
The following links are rebuttals to BJ’s false-teaching take on Jonah for those who really think the author can say he is taking Jonah the literal way when he is explaining it all away as fictitious.
The Global Message of Jonah: this article describes the theme of Jonah taking the book literally as a real historical work described in the breathed-out words of God: https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/global-message-of-jonah/
Summary
of the Book of Jonah from Got Questions: https://www.gotquestions.org/Book-of-Jonah.html
Key Themes in Jonah is a summary of
the themes as explained in greater detail in their Tyndale Old Testament
Commentary series: https://ivpbooks.com/blog/key-themes-in-jonah.html
A
Neglected Proof for the Resurrection – The Sign of Jonah, by Erik Manning
of crossexamined.org, explores the significance of Jesus’ reference to Jonah as
a sign regarding his death and resurrection: https://crossexamined.org/a-neglected-proof-for-the-resurrection-the-sign-of-jonah/
Was
Jonah truly swallowed by a whale?, by Got Questions: https://www.gotquestions.org/Jonah-whale.html
Did
Jonah Really Get Swallowed by a Whale? This one is from Institute for Creation
Research, addressing the compatibility of miracles with science: https://www.icr.org/article/did-jonah-really-get-swallowed-by-whale
Under
the search heading “Jonah” at Got Questions, this is the list of
articles that come up. My point is to show how much is out there denying BJ’s
claim that Jonah was a fictional story with a good message: https://www.gotquestions.org/search-results.html?q=Jonah#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=Jonah&gsc.page=1
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems
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