The idea that the word wine in the Bible sometimes means an unintoxicating beverage is without any sufficient foundation. Some men have written to that effect, but no man who is a thorough Hebrew or Greek scholar, as far as I know, at all takes any such position. It seems to me a great pity that advocates of the great cause of total abstinence should take up so utterly untenable a position. The pure wine of Palestine, in our Lord’s time, taken as was the custom with a double quantity of water (a man who ‘drinks unmixed,’ among the Greeks, meant a hard drinker), and used in moderation, was about as stimulating as our tea and coffee, and was used by the Saviour and by others just as we use them. The case is altered now, for such pure and mild wines would be very hard to get, and they are not needed because we have tea and coffee, and their use would tend to encourage the use of distilled liquors, which are so much more powerful and dangerous. Therefore it is better to abstain from the use of wine for our own sake and as an example to to others.

J. A. B. to B. W. N. Simms on Nov. 28, 1894 cited in A. T. Robertson, Life and Letters of John A. Broadus (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1910), 426-427.

Marcus Bockmuehl probes the issue with a question: “Is there perhaps some sense in which the living and lived word of Scripture shapes both exegesis and theology reciprocally, and in which dogmatics articulately engages and in turn illuminates the hearing of that word?” (Bockmuehl, in Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible, 8; cf. Vanhoozer in DTIB, 20).

Theological interpreters answer Bockmuehl in the affirmative: interpreters must refuse to sequester theology from exegesis. This means the text is read as Christian Scripture by those within the Christian church. Furthermore, theological interpreters read the Scripture as addressed to them as Christians (and not merely addressed to communities in the past) for the purpose of spiritual transformation (and not merely as ancient texts to be analyzed) (see Gorman, 146f.).

Thus theological interpretation maintains two key emphases. First, it holds that exegesis should shape doctrine and that doctrine should influence exegesis. Second, it holds that theology is ultimately about faithful living.

Highly recommended.

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Ebenezer Erskine once said, “The ministers of the gospel, when dispensing the truths of God, must preach home to their own souls as well as to others; and truly it can never be expected that we should apply the truth with any warmth or liveliness to others unless we make a warm application thereof to our own souls. And if we do not feed upon these doctrines, and practices the duties which we deliver to you, though we preach to others, we ourselves are but castaways.”

Our sermons will not be dry or insipid if they are infused with the freshness of our own growing relationship with God. Let us never forget that we preach most when we live best. “Our ministry is as our heart is,” wrote Thomas Wilson. “No man rises much above the level of his own habitual godliness.” John Owen put it negatively: “If a man teach uprightly and walk crookedly, more will fall down in the night of his life than be built in the day of his doctrine.”

Perhaps Robert Murray M’Cheyne said it best: “A minister’s life is the life of his ministry . . . . . In great measure, according to the purity and perfections of the instrument will be the success. It is not great talents that God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.

Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004), 254f.

A ban on dancing had already been introduced before Calvin’s time, but it is true the regulations had been tightened. Calvin thought that since the way people touch each other in dance is nothing less than a first step to adultery, the purity of the body would be better safeguarded by the complete avoidance of dancing. Even if nothing untoward was to happen it was . . . in Calvin’s words, ‘an invitation to Satan.’

Herman J. Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life, 151.

. . . . . . . . . .

Such are the visible marks of a sanctified man. I do not say that they are all to be seen equally in all God’s people. I freely admit that in the best they are not fully and perfectly exhibited. But I do say confidently, that the things of which I have been speaking are the Scriptural marks of sanctification, and that they who know nothing of them may well doubt whether they have any grace at all.

Extracts from Ryle, Holiness, 24-29.

But the specificity of the laws in these chapters reminds us that loving our neighbor needs to be worked out in specific ways. A person can’t say he loves his neighbor and then refuse to make restitution when the animal he borrowed from his neighbor dies while in his care.

I also appreciated his comments in the FBFI panel discussion on conservative evangelicalism. (I recognized the voices of Dr. Shumate and Dr. Bauder, and I found their comments helpful as well.)

His sermon at the FBFI is also well worth listening to.