Fanning the Flame – Book Reviews

Exegetical Fallacies by D.A. Carson is one of the most influential books on hermeneutics written in the last twenty years. The word “exegetical” simply means “an explanation or interpretation of the text of Scripture.” Carson’s book reconnoiters, dissevers, and analyzes the reasoning interpreters of the Bible use to arrive at conclusions. In the book Carson covers grammatical fallacies, word-study fallacies, presuppositional fallacies, logical fallacies, and historical fallacies. These four fallacies are laid out in five easy to follow chapters. Carson says this when speaking of the importance of properly exegeting the Bible, “Make a mistake in the interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s plays, falsely scan a piece of Spenserian verse, and there is unlikely to be an entailment of eternal consequence; but we cannot lightly accept a similar laxity in the interpretation of Scripture.” The book does an outstanding job going past simple doctrinal variances that exist in the church, this book defies the differences that exist simply because of inadequate research. Carson takes aim at this poor research logically working through its problems and incuding many examples. The book is less of a ‘how to do something’ book and more of a ‘how not to do something’ book. The book addresses more examples of bad logic and reasoning than it does giving an in-depth study of how to properly exegete. Exegetical Fallacies is a must read for any Pastor, teacher, student, or anyone who is interacting with the text in a public speaking format. 

Chapters one and two are a bit more technical especially for someone who has not taken any New Testament Greek classes. These two chapters deal with word study and grammar fallacies. The chapters could be beneficial for someone who has not taken Greek if for no other reason than the reader being able to detect the fallacies addressed in the chapters when they are fashioned by others. I found these chapters beneficial but also a slow read. Carson is at his exegetical best in the book.

Chapters three, four, and five could very easily be read by anyone interested in hermeneutical study. These three chapters address the fallacies of Logic, History, and Presuppositions.

Word Study and Grammatical fallacies are very prevalent in today’s preaching and teaching. Part of the reason that word studies are so popular is because of how easy they are to obtain. Word studies can be found easily in available resources like commentaries, study Bibles, and all kinds of electronic media sources. Because of the availability of word studies the fallacy of word studies pop up a lot in sermons at churches all around the globe. The problem with word studies are that they are often subject to radical extrapolations and flawed applications.

Carson addresses several common fallacies in word study. First he addresses “the root fallacy.” Carson says the root fallacy is the fallacy that “presupposes that every word actually has a meaning bound with its shape or its components.” The most prevalent root fallacy I had heard that Carson addressed was when preachers compare agapao with phileo and say that the text is saying something about a special kind of loving for no other purpose than that agapao is used. Carson says this to make his point clear: “There is nothing intrinsic to the verb agapao or the noun agape to prove its real meaning or hidden meaning refers to some special kind of love.” He prefaced that statement by proving that context. Another form of a word study fallacy is what Carson calls “semantic anachronism.” This is when you read a use of a word you see in this age back into a word you see in early literature. The most humorous example of this fallacy was the relationship of our word dynamite and the Greek word dynamis. Carson says this about this commonly used fallacy: “Did Paul think of dynamite when he penned this word [speaking of the use of dynamis in Romans 1:16]? And in any case, even to mention dynamite as a kind of analogy is singularly inappropriate. Dynamite blows things up . . . The power which Paul speaks he often identifies with the power that raised Jesus from the dead (e.g. Eph. 1:18-20) . . . dynamite appears inadequate as a means of raising Jesus from the dead.” Carson also addressed Semantic obsolescence which is when the interpreter assigns “to a word in his text a meaning that the word in questions used to have in earlier time, but that is no longer found within the live, semantic range of the word.” Carson addresses other Word fallacies but for sake of space I will not elaborate on theme here. After reading the chapter on word fallacies it became abundantly clear to me that the study of words alone will not present us with a consistent or perfectly correct interpretation.

We could continue to go into deep study of the other fallacies but again for sake of space I will have to limit my review of this book. Upon first reading the book just about every study of the Bible is faced with the reality that you must try your very best to avoid fallacies and interpret the text as objectively as possible. The biggest reason a lot of these fallacies addressed in the book exist is because many students are lazy in their study. It is easy for the modern study of the Bible to take short-cuts that were perhaps not as easy to take years ago. For example, if a student was stuck on one particular passage he could very easily Google his passage and find out what someone else has to say and then use that persons work as his own. When using this approach you are first of all plagiarizing but you are also subjecting yourself to the possibility of having an exegetical fallacy in your sermon. The study of the Word must be careful not to take shortcuts in his study. Careful exegesis of the passage is the best way to avoid any kind of exegetical fallacy.

The examples of common fallacies Carson uses in his book are generally very useful, however, I feel that he sometimes goes a bit far in debunking the fallacy. In the introduction of the book Carson carefully laid out the reason for his book and said that he was not trying to scare the study of the Word away from critical interpretation. However, sometimes in the book it seemed that Carson came down so hard on a particular fallacy that he did exactly what he introduction said he didn’t want to do and that was scare the student away from critical interpretation of the text. As I alluded to earlier this book can be difficult to read for someone who has not taken a Greek class. This especially noted in Chapter 2 when Caron talks about grammatical fallacies most often used in preaching today.  Carson does say “I am keeping this chapter [2] briefer than the preceding one; and my examples will by and large be fairly easy ones.” However, I feel like if you have not taken Greek you will be lost in this chapter.

This was one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. It does take a lot of time and thought to work through each chapter and properly understand each fallacy but the reward is worth the labor. After reading the book I have become more alert to the examples of fallacies Carson gives (I have actually heard several of them used in sermons already) and I have become more careful in my own study and interpretation. I will no doubt read this book again someday because the material covered is so in depth it’s difficult to grasp everything the first time through. This book should be required reading for every person who would take a homiletics class or plans to preach the Word of God. I have benefited greatly from its contents. 

T. David Gordon brings to the table a troubling question, “Why Can’t Johnny Preach?” Dr. Gordon is former pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashua, NH and associate professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA. Gordon has self-consciously titled Why Johnny Can’t Preach after books that note societal trends that keep Johnny from being able to read and write. Gordon concludes that the same trends have kept a generation of ministers from being able to preach. It is essential to the context of this book to appreciate that, when he wrote this book, Gordon believed he had only months to live. He had stage III colorectal cancer and was told that he had approximately a 25 percent chance of survival. Gordon notes at the beginning of his book that mere 30% of men ordained to preach can actually preach a mediocre message. Gordon thanks those who actually can preach and then quickly moves to address the problem at hand.

The first part of the book sets out his evidence for his claim that preaching is ordinarily poor. The audience that Gordon is addressing is a conservative one. Says Gordon, “I don’t intend to throw stones at others; it is the conservative evangelical churches and conservative Reformed churches with which I am primarily acquainted.”  Gordon points out that he has sit through many a conservative preacher preach a conservative message only to leave not knowing what exactly the preacher was trying to get at. The thing that makes a message direct and applicable is when the audience can leave saying, “That message was about ______.” Gordon seeks to take a inward look at the problems of conservative preachers.

The reason men cannot preach today, says Gordon, owes not to a lack of caring or a lack of effort; instead it relates primarily to societal changes. As the subtitle of the book (The Media Have Shaped the Messengers) Gordon points to a growing trend of easy-to-obtain information that adheres to the lazy preacher. True preaching requires close examination and study of a quality text.

Gordon points out that people today don’t have the knowledge level to read and comprehend a book. “When people do read today (and they don’t read often), they read almost exclusively for information or content,” notes Gordon. This growing trend has shaped the way the preacher reads his own Bible, “They read the Bible the same way they read everything else: virtually speed-reading, scanning it for its most overt content.” People don’t read literature and so they aren’t equipped to really study a text. People read for content, but don’t learn to look at how a text communicates. This reading only grasps the overt principles that can stand out to any average reader. Gordon says that the inability to actually read and exposit is a lost art because of the overwhelming presence of electronic media. “As our culture has become a television culture, therefore, a large part of our waking life has been occupied by considering what is insignificant and unimportant.” So what kind of preachers does this culture produce? Well it produces preachers who are not familiar with what is significant. Preachers who have never obtained anything that would resemble an attention span. Preachers whose sermons, not surprisingly, are “mindlessly practical in the ‘how-to’ sence” and don’t go any deeper than the surface level of the text.

Furthermore, true preaching requires careful composition. True preaching requires a sensibility of the significant. It requires the minister to have the ability to not only write but to write well. A preacher should not be content to constantly read what someone else has said about a certain text. Instead, the preacher should step out and write for himself. Writing something requires the author the carefully construct an organized outline. Consequently, the preacher who is not skilled in the art of writing is not skilled in constructing an organized sermon.

The book is not solely concerned with capacity to study and compose.  Although the author does spend significant time addressing those two main areas he does take time to address the sermons themselves. The fourth chapter looks at the content of sermons and gives a fine confutation of four contemporary approaches. Gordon labels these four approaches to preaching as: moralism, how-to, introspection and “so-called culture wars”

This book is a real challenge to me personally. As a person set out to Lord-willing be used in a preaching ministry the book definitely hit home with me. However, at certain points it seems that Gordon’s view of preaching is a little narrow. Although I can agree with Gordon that there needs to be a structure to preaching I cannot agree that there is one structure that will connect with all listeners. I believe that there are times that simply reading the text will prick the heart better than a well constructed sermon can ever prick the heart. Perhaps the Bible text, if read carefully, might present the heart of God such that our hearts might be changed in response. I do think any preacher will benefit from reading Why Johnny Can’t Preach, though I would urge caution when considering some of the author’s points. There are times when Gordon will overstate his case for the purpose of driving home a point. I do think this is a valuable book and should be read by any aspiring preacher.

During his time on earth Chad enjoyed reading. Particularly he enjoyed reading Christian living books. On December 10, 2010 Chad posted to his own personal blog this book review on Paul Trips “Instruments in the Redeemers Hands.” 

“Paul David Tripp’s book, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands is written in a simple, but understandable matter in which every Christian who desires to help people change can find some source of encouragement. Tripp opens up the book by introducing one of the main premises in the book as a whole. The stirring thought that the gospel is, as Tripp states, “The best news a human being could ever receive… something so significant that it makes everything we do worthwhile, even though we are just flawed people in a broken world (p. 1).” Many well-meaning counseling books that I have read have opened by spending much time focusing on tactics that will effect change in individuals (necessary though they may be), or ways in which biblical nouthetic counseling differs from integrationalism, secular humanism, modern psychology, and any number of secular counseling methods. Tripp, however, offers a refreshing perspective right from the start. He doesn’t make any pretense about having a magic wand to wave, or sure-fire words to say that will cut right to the heart of the counselee. He instead offers the simple proposition that the gospel, as revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the words of Scripture, is enough to cause totally depraved sinners to change through the work of the Holy Spirit.

The first six chapters of the book take on the task of breaking down the process of helping people change biblically. An accurate summary of chapters one through six would look something like this; Biblical change happens when the unbelievably sinful heart of an individual who recognizes the depth of his failure is targeted by the hope revealed when the gospel is portrayed through a Spirit-led Christ-follower

The remainder of the book is organized under four main headings; love, know, speak, and do. First, Tripp emphasizes the importance of loving the counselee. Tripp does an excellent job stressing the importance of building a strong relationship with the counselee. This happens when we focus not just on the problem, but on the person involved in the problem. We must understand them, enter into their world, and show them the love and empathy of Christ. Second, we must know the people. Here the importance of collecting data, asking poignant questions, and pinpointing where specifically change is needed is highlighted. Third, people must be confronted in love, and shown their biblical responsibility for change. In this section of the book, Tripp makes the strong point that the gospel is essential for biblical confrontation leading to repentance. On page 213, Tripp points out that “The grace of the gospel is what turns our hearts, because the gospel is God’s magnificent promise of forgiveness in Christ.” Finally, in the “do” section of the book, the key process of establishing an agenda for change, giving assignments, and holding the counselee accountable is covered.

When considering the strengths of this book, a few key thoughts immediately come to mind. First, a major strength of this book is the unveiling of the idea that all human beings are worshippers. We were created to worship something, and at the root of our heart problem fact that we really have a worship problem. Tripp allows that paradigm to shape the way that he addresses the issues that counselees face. Another obvious strength of the book is the integration of so many practical illustrations. The truths of this book are not just presented on a dry, surface level, but illustrations regarding the truths presented are portrayed. Mr. Tripp draws on a wealth of personal experience that I found to be incredibly valuable as I read his book. As I mentioned at the beginning, perhaps the biggest strength for me in the whole book was the idea of the gospel being the answer to every problem. Tripp used Scriptural principles to support the concept that in the gospel we have everything that we need to live a successful Christian life. This book is quite literally “soaked” in Scripture. A final strength that I will highlight here is the idea behind the book itself. This is the idea that believers don’t have to be super-humans in order to help people change. We simply must understand how to get to know and understand people, and then to compassionately confront them with the truth of the gospel that will surely help them to change.

Weaknesses in this book were few and far between. However, there were at least two that could be mentioned here. First, Tripp approaches the book with an obvious bent toward Covenant Theology. Tripp dogmatically states the idea that the kingdom is now in the hearts, and that believers are “covenant individuals.” While I understand that Tripp certainly has a right to those beliefs, and I don’t see the covenant/dispensational issue as an issue of separation, I do view that as a weakness of this book. Another weakness that I saw was the length of the book. At times it felt like he presented some of the main ideas repeatedly, merely stating them in differing ways. I realize that this is purely subjective, but I did feel as though the book could have been condensed a bit more efficiently.

There are a few aspects that immediately come to mind when I think of how this book will potentially shape my future pastoral ministry. Many of those ways are mirrored in what I saw to be strengths in this book. I believe that I came away from this book with a better understanding of those in my future congregation as worshipers. Every sin that needs to be dealt with is a sin that arises out of a worship problem. I also came away with an even better understanding of something that God has been teaching me for some time now. This is the idea that the gospel is the answer to every issue that I face, and to every issue that anyone that I work with will face. The good news of Jesus Christ is all that I need in order to effectively minister to those whom God has called me to work with. Tripp’s portrayal of Christ as an empathetic high priest who knows our feelings was very useful in the development of this thought. I’m sure that I will also frequently reference the practical suggestions made my Tripp. The ideas for data collection, questions that aid in getting to know individuals on a more personal level, practical suggestions for accountability, and many others cause this book to be a valuable reference material as much as anything else. I could also see myself using this book in pastoral ministry as a tool that I would give to a member of my congregation who was seeking to learn more concerning how he could help others to change. Overall, I would recommend Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands as a valuable resource to those with a heart towards helping others to be more like Christ.”

Posted by Caleb