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[0:00] Well, I'm saying first of all that I'm glad to be here and thank you for your kind welcome and the excellent lunch we had.! I was told by my friend to be challenging and to stretch you and I came and I thought that you were all then stretched already and in some ways I feel dwarfed by the audience I'm addressing because I'm listening to conversations and I'm very impressed with the learning and occupying all along. So I feel, I must say, very, very inadequate today, also unusual. So forgive me, it's been a long day. I'm not quite sure what level I should pitch this at, what the real needs are.

[0:54] But my thinking was that I would work towards the question of theology and preaching. But I'm very conscious that theology as such has involved grace in the churches today, in the non-ministrators and teachers of the word.

[1:11] And I wanted them to begin by reflecting on the question, what is theology and who am I from there? As the word suggests, theology is the doctrine or the knowledge of God. Or more precisely, it is the study by means of which you can come to be able to speak a word or a logos about God.

[1:40] That is, it is its practical function. Now, if one bears your mind that anybody speaks about God, then in one sense all humans are theologians.

[1:59] And even the atheist who denies God's existence has a clear idea of which God doesn't believe it. So that's actually true as a theologian.

[2:12] The child who prays, in a very elementary way perhaps, and those things Jesus loves me. That child too is a theologian. She is speaking her own words about God.

[2:32] And she cannot pray or sing her own words about God. And she cannot pray or sing her own words, although she has some kind of knowledge which that prayer and that hymn is going to articulate.

[2:44] And so she too is a theologian. The believer who is no academic, but sits in a few and listens and worships and prays and again sings his own words to God.

[3:01] That believer is also a theologian. One who in his prayers uses words about God, who sings words about God, who witnesses to God human speech and human words.

[3:17] And so he too is a theologian. And so he too is a theologian. In a way the profession, if I may say so, is kind of unavoidable. For an atheist for child, for a purpose called sometimes the humble or simple believer.

[3:33] Maybe the pre-preacher of the humble or simple believer. Maybe the pre-preacher of the world is and must be a theologian. Now some of them would pre-prefess some dislike of theology as they said, and even some suspicion of it.

[3:52] We had a scoff at it to recently a cardinal, the one before, the last one, cardinal Tom Woody. He was very contemptuous of theology and he had a return to a role as an expert on the anelmetic manages, which in fact had more important role than being a theologian, so that's a pretty dark place. But even the preacher who kind of is suspicious of theology and dismissive of it, would nevertheless in his own preaching reflect a theological position. And sometimes they spoke, well I think in Europe, some would call to the mercy of the word. The dad and Matthew received orders of the ministry of the church, the ministry of the word, and a ministry of pastoral overs and the elders of possibility primarily, and also the accredit.

[4:59] And these are some ways to seek cause with their own, each which are the particular complex of gifts and divine power. And the use of the word is inevitably going to be a theology, what speaks words about God. And it sometimes will be, I am certain, as a person of theology, using terms which are not biblical, but never the rest, understanding the theology. For example, if we, who are not in the number of theology, can speak of the people of substitution, we are then theologians. And we are then using non-biblical words to express our own positions. We have a word like another word, like a mercy, many, many other words which are very much of a benefit of the non-theology, and yet which are distinctly theological terms and concepts. And so what I'm saying is that all of us speak words about God. The atheists, the child of praise, the worshipper, the preacher, are all using words, speaking words about God. And a large part of our concern is to hone that terminology, because we are forced often to invent a new vocabulary to express the concepts and the beliefs at which we have arrived. There are other causes of course, there are some problems. Well, that's a very general introduction to the field here. I want to look at the challenge that's often posed in our studies. Can there be a knowledge of God? Can God be known?

[7:05] There are many theologians who answer that's negative. And I would say there can be no objective knowledge of God.

[7:17] They would say, yes, we can tell what many theologians think about God, or the many doctors of the church think about God. We can ascertain what the Christian consciousness tells about God. We can tell what the the believers experience tells us about God. But all the time you have only anthropology. You are talking only of human mental, academic, or perhaps emotional, psychological states.

[8:04] There are statements about human beings, not about God. And there are many of them that can't get out of that particular first ailment, out of those limitations. And all God talk is, in the last analysis, of the man talk, talk of human beliefs about God.

[8:26] Now, the basis of this scepticism lies, as you should all of you know, in Immanuel Kant's famous position.

[8:38] That's why reason can ascertain proof about the phenomenon. It can't ascertain proof about the phenomenon.

[8:52] If I can just for a moment, if I can just for a moment, unpack that. Kant is asking, what is the function of pure reason in the realm of religion?

[9:04] Or, indeed, the realm of human knowledge, generally? And he's saying to us that, if so far as he deals with the people of the visible, the sensible, the measurable, the quantifiable, then reason is competent.

[9:24] And he's saying to us that, in the realm of science. And Kant, who has some Scottish plan in itself, is saying, yes, reason is competent in the realm of science.

[9:46] But it can't know nothing of the human knowledge, that is, of the heavenly, of the invisible. It can't prove anything about God, or discover anything about God.

[10:04] Now, Kant is the doubt to get the wrong here in this own context, because the context was that it was facing a religion which is built on reason alone.

[10:22] In other words, the rationalism. And what he's saying to us is that, reason alone can't build a religion. Because it knows nothing, and can discover nothing about God.

[10:38] So, who is the object under a tantrum, and can't be a tantrum, and can't be a tantrum. There is no Christian faith as such, but rationalism. And he's saying that reason alone is not competent in this area of religion.

[10:54] Now, we have some something about that, because we know that your mind is already favoured. So, let's ask another question. Granted, that man, by pure reason, is thus limited, and cannot yet know God.

[11:14] Is God able to make himself known, or is God equally limited compared to man? Reason unable to discover, and God unable to make himself known.

[11:29] Or is it possible that God can reveal himself, can unveil himself, can make himself visible, and make himself audible, make himself apparent to our human knowing, our human interests, and our human minds?

[11:54] And the answer to the question is that, yes, God can make himself known. And God has revealed himself to us. And this divine act or action overcomes, illiberates our human limitation, our human ability.

[12:19] Pure reason, incompetent, but God able to make himself known to us in Revelation. And we believe that's what God has done. He has revealed himself, and he has also created us such as that we are able to understand that revelation.

[12:45] That is, that is, that is, that is a cognitively friendly, divine self-disclosure that makes human knowledge of God possible.

[12:56] Now, that revelation, as we call it in Hebrews, came in diverse ways. It came, it comes first of all, through creation, in what we might call general revelation.

[13:12] As you know, Karl Barth was very suspicious of this claim that God can be known through creation or general revelation. I'm not talking here of what Barth called National Theology, because that's a human achievement, the product of human ability.

[13:36] I'm talking of God's initiative in unveiling himself and making himself known. In creating, God expresses himself.

[13:53] He gives himself visibility, he who is invisible, even by the things that are made. He reveals, Paul says in Romans 1, his God eternal power and his Godhead.

[14:10] And that revelation is universal, in general. It imparts every human consciousness. And John Calvin, reflecting on Paul in Romans 1, brought out those great ideas that God has put in every human heart what Calvin called the senses, the etatis, or the veritatis, the awareness of deity.

[14:40] And that is there in every human heart. What Calvin also called the implanted knowledge of God.

[14:51] Now that implanted, the word is ipsitta, soul. That ipsitta, that soul is so not so important.

[15:02] Because again, it's not an autonomous human achievement. But God has put the senses there, and God has put the knowledge that he has sown in there.

[15:17] And he has put again, Calvin says, he has put there the seed of religion. And it's in every human heart. The steps of dependence, and the steps of accountability.

[15:31] And that's why we have, as Paul says, this excuselessness. Why God is entitled to call every human being to his own throne of judgment.

[15:45] Because, from this point of view, they all have a knowledge of God. Now, that's not God's point of view, but it is, I think, Paul's point of view, and his counsel of view, that we have in us, each one of us, this awareness of God, and the seed of religion.

[16:10] But there is also, as we know, what is called special revelation. And it's special because, well, for two reasons.

[16:21] First of all, it comes through special agents, prophets and apostles, and the incarnate Son. And also, it comes through unlimited constituency.

[16:34] It is not like the sun, moon and stars, universal in its impact. It is a word spoken to the Old Testament church, and then, later on, to the New Testament church.

[16:48] And only through them spoken to the wider world. So special. And it comes, again, in so many diverse forms.

[16:59] It came in theophany. It came in theophany. It came in dreams. It came in missions. It came in prophecy.

[17:11] It came through the apostles. Above all, it came through the incarnate Son of God himself. Now, there are diverse forms, but all of them disclosures of the mind, and the will, and the nature of God.

[17:30] Here, God is speaking about himself. But God went further. He was going to give us revelation to us through apostles and prophets, but he also gives us the luxury of how that revelation committed to writing.

[17:48] And given permanence as a consequence of that. So, this revelation, this word of God, it's not witness revelation or the record of it, but it is itself a written revelation, the living word of God.

[18:12] And then, in that, word of God, we have the source of the norm of our theology. So, God speaking through his own creativity and artistry.

[18:27] God speaking through chosen spokespersons. And God speaking to us now through his own written word as our living, relevant, contemporary revelation.

[18:43] Now, it is on that word that we as theologians are called to focus, and as preachers also called to focus.

[18:56] This is our Torah. We meditate on this Torah day and night. Because in this Torah, in the scripture word, that is the revelation of God.

[19:09] So, our study of that word has two general features, which I'm not going to expand on this dimension briefly. First of all, that there has to be a reference study.

[19:24] A reference because we are always handling God's own word. And whatever level, we owe it, that reference.

[19:36] These are holy scriptures. These are holy words, like none other, the living word of God himself. And so, all reverence is true, that is that word.

[19:51] But also, rigorous. Reverent and rigorous. And I mean rigorous in the academic sense.

[20:03] First of all, remember John Calvin. He comes to his two's coventaries with a bank of the Renaissance Hebrew Scholarship. His first word is ascetic.

[20:16] And the skills and tools of those disciplines he brings to his work as an explosive God's word. The same reader, they're gone into the first languages, of their grammar, their sickness, their story, their background, and so on.

[20:35] The record of the Renaissance, the information of Jesus. All that academic reader going into the searching of God's word on the part of the ministers of the world.

[20:48] It has to be academically rigorous. Now, again, I'm very conscious that there is a great demand today for shorting courses and distance learning and so on and so forth.

[21:02] And maybe sometimes, is that not going to be all the church can't really establish or even afford. But one of the curious things I find is that I get the impression that preachers think they've been overplayed.

[21:22] And I don't understand that. Because we cannot know too much as expositors. If we're going to approach the task in the relevant, rigorous way, then we need the appropriate training.

[21:37] But I also want to be the word scientific here. That our study of God's word must be scientific. And the school, the academic scientific, that's been the same team.

[21:49] But I do for this reason. The Lentian Torrance in particular insisted so often. But in any scientific discipline, we can achieve knowledge only between the subject on its own terms.

[22:10] What we are studying. We must, in the subject, dictate the terms of our knowledge. And that's why, if it's a rock, or if it's a tuber, or if it's a scar, or if it's a subatomic particle, then each must be accepted on its own terms and tell us about itself.

[22:41] You may, some of you have, some of you have, some of you have, some of you have, some of you have watched the American TV, a serious audio proof.

[22:52] And, one of the principles which we encourage in that series is, let the body speak.

[23:03] Because the cadaver always has something to say. And that's the basic theology, there's the basic principle. Let the subject speak for itself.

[23:15] In the theology, God must speak for itself. And we must come to know God on God's own terms.

[23:27] Only in and whose word can we come to our knowledge of God. I'm not saying that other disciplines and the secular studies may enrich or enumerate, maybe.

[23:41] For example, that in the world's great fiction, that we can learn something of human nature. And that the great source, the only source, the exclusive source of real knowledge, the saving knowledge of God is what we have then in this world.

[23:59] Now, there are three disciplines which approach this study. And I just want to comment on them briefly. First of all, there is exegesis.

[24:12] Now, this is of course the publication of all theology. The actual text itself. The words that God has breathed out, God has written.

[24:28] And we have to sit under those words and ask for the same truths. I'm not going to say it very much on this, but it is the text in its final form.

[24:47] Not the sources. Not the pre-redactor text. Not the historical setting, which starts by a second-temperate Judaism. Or the first century context of meaning.

[25:00] But what is this word? What did it say to its first readers? And what is it saying to us today? Those words, these words, in the dramatic settings, in the context, what are these words saying?

[25:19] And now every sermon must begin with a literal wrestling with the text. To let the text speak to us. And say to us what God wants to say to us.

[25:34] Food. So that's where it all starts. This thorough ransacking of God's word. And we can talk about the actual text, the details of that text.

[25:46] And as those of you who have done this know, sometimes the reposition is important. Sometimes a case is important. Accusative, originative, number, singular, plural, singular, we.

[26:02] All these details have considerable homo-erical significance. If you go back, for example, to the Lord's words, Peter Luke's Gospel.

[26:13] Simon, Satan has shot you out. He's trying to have you. That has got you. He has you. But in the verses, he says, I have prayed for you.

[26:29] Satan has you. Plural. He has them all. All the disciples. He had already ex-satuses in the verse.

[26:40] He has sought you out. But I have prayed for you, for you, for you, Peter singular. That personal, particular possession of the risen Savior, as he is now, on behalf of each one of his children.

[26:58] Satan has you, plural. Peter, I have prayed for you. And we need to explore the opportunity, the potential of nuances of that can work.

[27:12] I've got to go through all the rituals. But at least put them all yourselves. Just how fascinating they are. And then, at somewhat greater length, what is known today as biblical theology.

[27:25] I'm writing you, just interested with the overall theological etiopédia. And very much preferred by some over against systematic theology.

[27:42] The real theology, it's not unsystematic. It is systematic. It does erase the material in a very ordinary way.

[27:57] But it has two distinctive features. First of all, it does justice, or seeks to, to the historical dimension of knowing of the Jew.

[28:14] It is very much concerned with the progress of Revelation. It is historical progress. It is onward march.

[28:25] As God makes himself known, he does so, not just in one or every moment, but he does so when he adapts the authorised version of God.

[28:39] For all of my purposes, lie upon lie, precept upon precept. Now, this is not the evolution of theology or Revelation, because evolution is, of course, a different procedure from the realism itself.

[29:00] This is not even man's progress in knowledge of God. It is God progressively teaching his people.

[29:13] God accommodating himself to what Calvin called the rudeness of his ancient people. And then gradually disclosing more and more of the glory of the coming Messiah.

[29:30] And that revelation moves on from the elemental verse of Genesis 3 through the whole range of revelation, and down to its culmination in the writings of John, from John's epistles.

[29:49] And there is a historical line here. And the biblical theology wants to trace that line. The successive eras of Revelation, the patriarchs, the mosaic, and the prophetic, the incarnation, the apostolic.

[30:12] That progressive line for Revelation, that is its trajectory. And it is one that is eminently biblical.

[30:24] Because the Bible is itself a historical document, one that has its own historical momentum. And so you trace that line of development.

[30:37] When it comes to preaching, we have to bear this redemptory mind. We have to ask ourselves, where does this stand on the line of progress?

[30:51] And more particularly, what did this man know when he said this? When Job said, I know that my Redeemer lives, for example.

[31:05] How could he stand on the line? And can I assume that he knew George Prologue? And was really reflecting the same truth.

[31:18] And shall I preach? As if Job had, in fact, been conversed with the Old Testament Christologists.

[31:29] Well, he obviously hadn't been. And I'm, in a way, suggesting to you, Does it not sometimes make you wonder how strong the faith of these men was, when it compared to us in a new solitude?

[31:48] When the new solitude, for example, about life after death. About the resurrection of the body. About justification by faith alone.

[32:00] About being able to call God Abba. Which no Old Testament state does. And we have the choice, you see.

[32:11] Can we pretend? Oh yes, they do just want to read you and preach accordingly. Or shall we stand where they stood on the timeline. And preach from that point on the timeline.

[32:25] That's part of the challenge. And that's the first point with regard to communal theology. It does justice to the progressive nature of Revelation.

[32:39] It's historical timeline. It also, secondly, does justice to the variety of Scripture.

[32:51] The variations within the Scriptures themselves. Now, the Bible is full of variety. It's sometimes in different ways.

[33:04] And we don't have a Bible in a Bible, where everything is just the same in every book. It's sometimes of almost infinite variety.

[33:18] We have the variations between the different eras. And we have the justice to them.

[33:30] We have the variations between the authors. And these are considerable variations. The great prophets, for example.

[33:41] The different personalities. The Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so on. And so on. Now, we will ask in here, in biblical theology, what is the distinctive patriarchal message?

[33:56] The distinctive Osaic one. The distinctive prophetic message. What is the distinctive contributions of each of these eras to the divine revelation?

[34:12] And then we come on to the incarnation. What is this distinctive contribution? What is new here? What is fresh here? Then it's the advent of God's source of the Son.

[34:23] And then the epistory. So, all the time, we are trying to look at the historical timeline and the distinctive contributions of the component parts of Revelation.

[34:38] Now, if we look at the many writers, each with its own experience, its own personality, its own writing style, each playing even a sword world game.

[34:53] Then you are the great face of Isaiah, the servant of the Lord. What a mystery. And in history, Mr. Anderson, you explore the Isaiah's contribution.

[35:09] Jeremiah, with his explanations, with his inward-lookingness, with his Christ of abhorrence, sometimes, again, so different in this language.

[35:22] And you come to your testament, you find even more variation. And here you ask, what are the Gospels saying? The synoptics.

[35:33] And what is John saying? Because he has simply told the synoptics. And then Paul, with his own distinctive vocabulary. Paul alone speaks of reconciliation.

[35:47] Paul has his passage of the word flesh. Paul alone speaks of the old man and the new man. Paul alone speaks of kenosis, Christ making himself nothing.

[36:01] And here you look at the use of those titles of the Messiah, the Master of God, the Lord, and so on.

[36:12] What is the distinctive conviction of each of those component parts? and that is the task of biblical theology.

[36:24] Now, these are very vulnerable tasks. As I said, it is not unsystematic, but it's two great features. First of all, it's focused on the historical timeline and it's focused on the secret features of various contributors.

[36:42] If we come to systematics, we are in many ways a much more converted territory.

[36:53] But I think that perhaps I'll pause this point and see what feedback we have in what I've written to this other video. So, you've served long and patiently, so if you want to raise some questions here, I'd be very happy to try to understand them and then try to reply to them and respond to them.

[37:16] Yes? Hi. You mentioned that it is essential that people have the future and good grasp of original languages. Would you say that that's an art and cultural situation an essential thing to be done to that?

[37:35] Do all people who are listeners have a good working relationship to languages? I would say it's essential because that's really a very strong term. There are teachers who haven't had that equipment.

[37:49] I mean, Augustine, for example, didn't know Hebrew allegedly and even his brief was kind of walking. So, it can be in that sense essential but it certainly is desirable to a very high degree.

[38:04] Because, at the most fundamental level, if you can translate your text, you can speak and learn authoritatively. But, it's not simply a question of, you know, legal requirements on the part of the position of right of a nation.

[38:21] It is the sheer satisfaction and clue that comes. I'm not an expert in these languages. I know that it has been so rewarding to be able to follow the arguments based on, for example, grammar and xikonomi and so on and so forth because they do so illuminate the mind of God.

[38:40] Because, at one level, it's a human word selection. Why this word and not that word? Why this text and not that other text? But, Bill, but it's also a divine word selection.

[38:52] And, you pick up, you know, all these modern versions. How do you decide, you know, which is pretty much it really is.

[39:05] So, it's, I think it's a real enrichment of preaching to be able to go and analyze the text in its original component parts.

[39:17] And, yes, the points you want to raise?

[39:32] I'm here as an effective, I don't know how necessarily that is, but, yes. You said that these days you hear ministers being trained and saying that they feel like they're over-trained for the task.

[39:49] Can you maybe expand on that a little? In your 30 years of training to get the ministry, what do you think has led to ministers saying and being over-trained to go and depart here?

[40:01] And what was some of the details of that? They won't use that to merge themselves because, but, they could be the impression that they feel they were over-trained and that they shouldn't have had to do this or have to do that.

[40:17] And I think that to me that it was all that was necessary. That we can respect for people and respect for Greek, possibly competent.

[40:35] And, of course, we can be competent. There are always ways for them to be shortcomings, of course, for all of us. But the mentality, which is my debating partner here, my dialogue partner, there is a mentality that wants more practice and less theory.

[40:57] And I'm saying repeatedly that the study of the practice was a good theory, because all practice was based on an appropriate theory. And you can't have classes on how to speak to young people, or speak to old people, that kind of level of hands-on.

[41:17] You can't get experience over your life in a classroom. You can only get experience over your life until you arrive. So, what I'm responding to is the feedback that says, give us more practice, less academic stuff, less learning stuff, less technology.

[41:37] And if we don't watch what will happen, it's that you like that with colleges which are giving some tips on teachers.

[41:48] And if you don't have a high school, I think that's a long time to wait for them to hurry.

[42:04] And so people will be wanting short of coaches, of course, that's natural enough for you to want them. But you can't be trained on tips. You can't say you can't command as tips for commanders.

[42:17] You can't train on some kind of boot camp or other. And I think that some of our guys found college a boot camp. I don't know if David would agree with that, but that's how some have found a boot camp.

[42:30] Do any of you admit that you are enamored of biblical theology, but of Protestantism and theology?

[42:50] Or do you not find any tension between these two? Are you suspicious of systematics?

[43:01] I've certainly told more than once to, as a preacher, you might just focus on the specific text that comes to you. So if you're preaching, chapter 15 of Luke, verse 1, where you don't let your system out of the or of you come in and kind of take over the text.

[43:23] Or there's a telling suspicion, sometimes, that theology undermines exegesis. Yeah. I think I'll come back to that later, not if you don't mind.

[43:34] It's a very important point in the ways there, so we put it on hold for a little. Okay. Just a question just from something before.

[43:50] You said that we have to let the kind of object to study in format. Yeah. So that it was every aspect of science and all these things.

[44:02] But just the knowledge that we don't come to anything mutually, that we all come with our own by presupposition, our own by baggage, so whether it's a scientific endeavour or even we've got to work with, just how does that affect how we, how do we do that?

[44:17] How do we do that? How do we do that? How do we do that? I'm a little bit about that in my stead because what is led to that emphasis is, again, a kind of value of scepticism that all knowledge is subject to condition, but therefore, you know, we can never know the truth.

[44:35] And I said simply with that, we always have presuppositions, and that will come back to that in a lot of square. But people that are in science that are absolute truths, that are established laws.

[44:50] And despite all our post-modernism, we still accept these laws as laws. But yes, I must always be aware that when I come to a text, that I come and go with my own biases and petitions to the text, and I must be glad I was just there for that bias in my own inflection.

[45:11] So, on the other hand, of course, if one brings what's taught to itself to it, what's taught to itself is our religious self, you know, we have lived and experienced with the pen of a God's grace and so on.

[45:27] So, they're not necessarily drawbacks, the baggage we bring. We think good baggage as well as bad baggage in the text. But yes, we have to be aware all the time that our standpoint will affect the way we see things and our experience affects our standpoint.

[45:47] And also, there's a difference in the other hand, that when we actually come to expounding a preaching of text, we have to be audio specific.

[45:58] You know, no two pictures address the same audience at the same time, the same space. So, I allowed my own subjectivity, and I allowed my own subjectivity, and I allowed my own subjectivity for the audience I was speaking to.

[46:13] And the emphasis will vary depending on that audience. You will suppress some this in some audiences, and you will emphasize them in other audiences, depending on the need of a particular congregation.

[46:26] So, I find that I'm suspicious of all theology and all Bible commentary, when it tends to become an end in itself, and fails to remember that the purpose of all of our theology and all of our Bible study is to enable us to love God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength, and to love our neighbors and our self.

[47:04] And whenever that end is forgotten, then I am worried. I am worried, this is what I guess. I think that's a story too, but of course, it works for the way.

[47:16] You can't love God in your own hope. What? You can't love the other hope. And I think that the whole point is that we want to know more to evermore.

[47:29] So, as you say, the object is to come off to your business ever later than now. But there should be a tension between theological progress and personal spiritual progress, and one should treat the other.

[47:46] Because it is like eternal to know God. And certainly we can have demons who believe at the temple, we can have academics who are very erudite and very ambitious, and they have a career focus for us.

[48:11] But on the other hand, every believer, the simplest child God needs knowledge. That's why God knew that the spiritual push was to us, that through knowledge in the mind would come to the affective and emotional state.

[48:28] It's a truth that to use Islam, it is joy and hope and confidence. I've got a question here.

[48:44] You mentioned about preaching the Old Testament, and making sure that one of the parts of the biblical theology is to understand the unfolding nature of that.

[48:58] And so, to remember that Old Testament saints, well, how much did they know, and to give them to Job. I wonder if you were going to say a little bit more about that, how we actually, how you would preach on Job when you say, I know that my Redeemer lives.

[49:17] When ministers of the new covenant and so, we want to bring things through to the new covenant context. Can you say a little bit more about those?

[49:30] Yeah, of course, with Job we don't quite know, or pretty good sin, just to admit on the story of the Bible, the first verse, you know, in the Old Testament, and we're not on that line. But we know that he's an old covenant saint.

[49:43] He's an incarnation saint, and by all accounts, he comes in a very, very point in the timeline. And so his knowledge of life after death and so on, is not at all compromise, or knowledge of all these doctrines.

[50:00] The incarnation, for example, the cross, these things were not part of the biblical movement. Even, you can't always have a error from the fact that these words, which point to the cross, that they understood themselves in the message that were actually coming in words.

[50:17] The first people warned advice in that, that the prophets asked, what do these words mean? So, I'm just, I was trying to suggest, what I'm going to say to myself.

[50:29] These Old Testament saints, in so many ways, those give us in their fortitude and courage, and the closeness of their walk with God.

[50:43] And yet, the objective knowledge of their procession was not equal to our objective knowledge. It's possible, the approach that the wave between time and eternity was very much thinner for them than it is for us.

[50:59] We can ask part of it. But I'm seeing really that it's really astonishing, remarkable, that knowing in a way so little, yet they display such fortitude.

[51:12] And I'm saying, don't treat them as if they were Paul's contemporaries, they weren't, or Charles contemporaries. Treat them in their own sort of context, and try to pitch from the Vietnam and Euro context.

[51:28] Anybody want to come back to that or two? In our way, John, and Charles? What did you mean by the veil between time and eternity? Pardon?

[51:39] Pardon? What did you mean when you said the veil between time and eternity? It must be thinner for them? I think that it's a possibility that God was near on them.

[51:57] I think that what goes back, at times of the Bible, for example, in the New Testament church, one finds, less than the veiled pre-densdens when people did seem to carry intimately and bear a copy beside them.

[52:10] And for someone like Jeho, perhaps, who was with such anguish, although theology itself was undeveloped, that there was, nevertheless, a closeness, a sense of the dearness of God, and of the same sense and distance that we have ourselves, that I have myself, between myself and God.

[52:35] Now, of course, there was no exception, but we had to remind as well that these were not to be the Old Testament saints. They were, like, normally the Old Testament saints, but yet there was very much less equipment that we have theologically.

[52:50] This veil to the time of eternity, ourselves and God, I mean, in your own minds you'll find that same variation.

[53:04] But sometimes you are, maybe in constant accomplishment, or in other times you are in constant accomplishment, because the veil is perhaps thicker sometimes in other times.

[53:20] Anything else you would like to raise? Yes? I've been hearing you say that the biblical theology and the biblical theology are in competition with each other.

[53:36] How do they move together? Well, I'm hoping to come back over that, but I'm coming at this whole thing from that standpoint, that they are set against each other by so many today.

[53:48] And I've tried to argue, or come through, that they are feeling complimenting. They are not at all in opposition to each other. But the very word biblical gives, shall I say, them an advantage over me.

[54:06]  Because system and our events are going, we don't, we don't like systems.