John Piper’s Critique of Instone-Brewer

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/tragically-widening-the-grounds-of-legitimate-divorce 

Robert Gagnon’s Critique of Instone-Brewer

http://www.robgagnon.net/DivorceOUPEntrySexuality.htm 

Why People Choose Incompetent Leaders

 https://youtu.be/Ix4nKNDKhTQ?si=zwwhvYUGV4WCrW1U

I think I would acknowledge the problem but give different reasons as to why people choose incompetent leaders. I think it’s because people choose who they like and they like those who make them feel most comfortable. Intellectual people make people uncomfortable and stir up a host of insecurities, and so they are the least liked among leaders. We often want to associate good leadership skills to those who make us feel comfortable and bad leadership skills to those who make us feel uncomfortable. Ironically, it would be the opposite, as a true leader causes discomfort in a person so that it becomes a catalyst for change. But that is not how most people choose their leaders which, ironically, means they choose leaders contrary to their often theoretical goals to change and become better. 

Evaluating the Council of Trent, Part I

 The decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-63) are the pinnacle of the counterreformation launched by the traditional medieval church that wanted to both preserve what they saw as correct developments within the Christianity of the Middle Ages but to reform practices that were obviously corrupt. My purpose with this series is to go through the council and critique where I think the council erred. It may be assumed that those things I do not critique are things with which I either agree or that I find adiaphora (e.g., meeting on Thursdays for communion). 

The council opens up in its first sessions (Sessions 1-2, 1545-46) to both inaugurate the council, state its purpose for reform against heresy and improper conduct by its own members, and to make sure all members of the council are repentant and living out lives dedicated to the Lord through the church.

The Third Session held in 1546 is where the council describes what it is doing is setting forth a confession of faith that had not been set forth before. It declares, 

"Wherefore, that this its pious solicitude may begin and proceed by the grace of God, It ordains and decrees that, before all other things, a confession of faith is to be set forth; following herein the examples of the Fathers, who have been wont, in the most sacred coucils [sic], at the beginning of the Actions thereof, to oppose this shield against heresies; and with this alone, at times, have they drawn the unbelieving to the faith, overthrown heretics, and confirmed the faithful." 

Herein is an admission that anything in the confession is not something set down before. There is nothing wrong with this as I would agree that it is necessary to further combat any new heresy that comes along, but it does need to be noted that when a new heresy does not stem from an old one, one cannot establish their continuity with the early church merely be forming a new confession. The case must be made that the new teaching is, in fact, both new and a heresy if the confession should delcare it as such. Otherwise, the confession itself is an innovation. 

Hence, the council begins from the Nicene Creed as the foundation of orthodoxy and cites the creed as its foundation.

The Fourth Session (April 8, 1546) is really where the council begins to set down its confession, and it does so by beginning with the canon of Scripture, as well as stating its foundational authority as not being sola Scriptura.

"The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,–lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic Sec presiding therein,–keeping this always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament–seeing that one God is the author of both –as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ’s own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession."

So both the Scripture and tradition are equally received and venerated with an equal affection of piety and reverence. Trent claims that both the Scripture and tradition have come from the mouth of Christ or the apostles or the Holy Spirit and so both have God as their author. It further claims that it has preserved all of these equally through continuous succession. 

I'm going to assume that this means a continuous succession of popes, which historically seems unviable. Scripture was not preserved by popes (it was largely preserved by monks), doctrines which are viewed as heretical by the RCC have been taught by popes, and tradition has changed and added innovations over the years. Hence, the need to say that the Holy Spirit speaks things into tradition to explain these observations ends up as a hail-Mary that contradicts the idea of preservation by continuous succession. One can say that some things were preserved by continuous succession but obviously the idea that they came from Christ or the Apostles or the Holy Spirit is just a religious claim that has no verifiable backing. One must simply trust that the church has the same credence to its claims that the Bible does and exercise the same faith toward it that he or she does toward the Scripture. 

This is where I have a problem with Trent in the same way that I have a problem with cults and cult leaders, individuals claiming to be led by the Spirit, etc. There is no external verification that can take place. The Scripture claims to be from God and one must have faith that it is, but I would also argue that Scripture is not self-defeating in its claims. If it can be shown that the church did not preserve even the verifiable teachings of Christ and the apostles or that its religion is self-defeating or ultimately contradicts itself in some way then the claim can actually be shown to be false, but there is no way to show whether it is true as secret teachings cannot be verified and whether God has given new teachings to the church by the Holy Spirit is equally unverifiable even if they did not contradict the teachings found in the Scripture. This is because a claim that God said X can only be verified by something that one knows God said. The entire Christian church agrees that God said X in Scripture but whether He also said Additional Teaching Y secretly cannot be confirmed just because it may not contradict X. For instance, if the Trent claimed that we can affirm that God said unicorns exist just because it does not contradict anything the Bible teaches, we cannot confirm that God actually said unicorns exist because He did not say anything of the sort in the Bible. Hence, we are left to merely trusting the person or institution claiming that God spoke X by Christ, the apostles, or the Holy Spirit without any proof that He did. 

However, as said before, we are able to evaluate anything that Trent claims God said by the work in which we both agree God spoke. This means that the claim that any doctrine that contradicts Scripture is from God can be evaluated, and it must be evaluated by both parties by Scripture, not tradition since whether or not it is truly a tradition of God is the thing under dispute.

The counter to my claim might be laid by arguing that tradition sets the canon, and therefore, must be superior to it. I will argue in my next post why both the tradition contradicts the claim that it is uniform and passed on/preserved by succession and why it is self-defeating. 

Wenham’s Critique of Instone-Brewer’s Argument

https://www.academia.edu/87697466/Gordon_Wenham_critique_of_David_Instone_Brewer

Cleanliness Is Godliness

In my youth, my house was warm and kept.

I wandered far and wide to find another but such was never found that was mine.

Returning home, I found it in ruin and taken by a squatter who let his friends deface it.

I could not expel him but was allowed to put it back in order.

I cleaned out the mold, the filth on the walls and the floor.

I fixed the holes in the roof and in the walls and painted it with beautiful colors.

The squatter would constantly track mud in and let his children rub feces on the walls.

But I would clean it up so that my house was clean.

And so it was. My house was clean again.

But the squatter became jealous and wanted my home. 

He spray-painted the walls and told his friends to wreck whatever they could.

Finally, he left and took his companions of chaos with him. 

We cleaned up the mess.

My house is restored. It is warm and kept. 

My house is clean and I may now rest.

Chrysostom on Timothy's Chronic Illness and Fitness for Ministry

 "But the subject of enquiry is not only, that being a holy man he was sick, and sick so continually, but that he was at the same time entrusted with the public affairs of the world. For if he had been one of those who have retreated to the tops of mountains; who have fixed their cells in solitude, and who have chosen that life which is free from all business, the matter now enquired into were no such difficulty; but that one thrust forward in the throng, and in whose hands the care of so many Churches was placed, and who superintended whole cities and nations; nay, the world at large, with so much alacrity and diligence, should be subjected to the straitening of infirmities! This it is which may most of all bewilder one who does not duly consider it. Because, even if not for himself, yet for others at least, it was necessary he should have health. He was the best general, says the objector. The war was waged by him, not only against the unbeliever, but against demons, and against the devil himself. All the enemy contended with much vehemence, scattering the forces, and capturing prisoners; 2 Timothy 2:26 but this man was able to bring back myriads to the truth, and yet he was sick! For if, he says, no other injury to the cause had come of this sickness, yet this alone was sufficient to discourage and relax the faithful. If soldiers, when they see their general detained in bed, become discouraged and slack for the fight, much rather was it probable that the faithful should betray somewhat of human nature, when they saw that teacher, who had wrought so many signs, in continual sickness and suffering of body.

But this is not all. These sceptics propose yet a further enquiry, by asking for what reason Timothy neither healed himself, nor was healed by his instructor, when he was reduced to this state. Whilst the Apostles raised the dead, cast out devils, and conquered death with abundant ease, they could not even restore the body of one sick man! Although with respect to other bodies, both during their own lives and after death, they manifested such extraordinary power, they did not restore a stomach that had lost its vigour! And what is more than this, Paul is not ashamed, and does not blush, after the many and great signs which he had displayed even by a simple word; yet, in writing to Timothy, to bid him take refuge in the healing virtue of wine drinking. Not that to drink wine is shameful. God forbid! For such precepts belong to heretics; but the matter of astonishment is, that he accounted it no disgrace not to be able, without this kind of assistance, to set one member right when it was disordered. Nevertheless, he was so far from being ashamed of this, that he has made it manifest to all posterity. You see then to what a depth we have brought down the subject, and how that which seemed to be little, is full of innumerable questions. Well then, let us proceed to the solution; for we have explored the question thus deep, in order that, having excited your attention, we might lay up the explanation in a safe storehouse.

8. But before I proceed to solve these questions, permit me to say something of the virtue of Timothy, and of the loving care of Paul. For what was ever more tender hearted than this man, who being so far distant, and encircled with so many cares, exercised so much consideration for the health of his disciple's stomach, and wrote with exact attention about the correction of his disorder? And what could equal the virtue of Timothy? He so despised luxury, and derided the sumptuous table, as to fall into sickness from excessive austerity, and intense fasting. For that he was not naturally so infirm a person, but had overthrown the strength of his stomach by fasting and water drinking; you may hear Paul himself carefully making this plain. For he does not simply say, use a little wine; but having said before, drink no longer water, he then brings forward his counsel as to the drinking of wine. And this expression no longer was a manifest proof, that till then he had drunk water, and on that account was become infirm. Who then would not wonder at his divine wisdom and strictness? He laid hold on the very heavens, and sprang to the highest point of virtue. And his Teacher testifies this, when he thus speaks, I have sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord; 1 Corinthians 4:17 and when Paul calls him a son, and a faithful and beloved son, these words are sufficient to show that he possessed every kind of virtue. For the judgments of the saints are not given according to favour or enmity, but are free from all prejudice. Timothy would not have been so enviable, if he had been Paul's son naturally, as he was now admirable, inasmuch as having no connection with him according to the flesh, he introduced himself by the relationship of piety into the Apostle's adoption; preserving the marks of his spiritual wisdom with exactness in all things."

Reason Number 1,054 Why Jesus Wouldn't Be Popular in the Modern American Church: Lack of Modern Hygiene

In the words of one scholar, "The past was pretty dirty."

Modern culture within third world countries are filled with people who are dirty and stink by modern American standards. In fact, many people within first world countries would probably be considered dirty  by modern Americans. This is because we find ourselves in the religion of snobbery where the health and wealth cult thrives. Imagine becoming impoverished and homeless and separated from the modern luxuries of running water on a daily basis. Imagine living in an area where running water was not really something to which you had access. Now, imagine that you do have access to these things but hygiene is not a priority in the culture. 

You may think that Christianity changed all of this but it didn't. The event of bathing was contingent upon one's proximity to clean water. It was a rare event that may have taken place every month to once ever year. Instead, one might wash in the event that he had contact with something extra filthy, as you have in the law of Moses, but beyond that, the ancients largely covered over their lack of hygiene rather than washed it away every day or every other day as we often do. 

They employed things like incense and perfumes that covered the smell. This is seen throughout the Bible and even something that is given to Jesus. This implies that there was a smell and the smell implies that there was filthiness.

Furthermore, there were very few mirrors the average peasant would own and so there wasn't a lot of checking of one's appearance every two seconds. Of course, a change of clothes every day was neither practiced in the ancient world nor in the most modern third world countries, again, unless one was rich. Even rich Roman soldiers, however, only tended to bathe once a month. When they did bathe, they used public baths that were filthy.  The average rich family in Rome of course bathed daily, but they once again bathed in these filthy baths. Their real baths were scraping the dirt and sweat off but not to discard but to use later for medicinal purposes. Talk about gross. 

As recent as last century many people only bathed once a year because they believed they would get sick from the bathing itself due to the fact that often the bathing source (a barrel, a pool, etc.) was contaminated by so many people using it. Hence, again, dry baths with things like ashes, scrubbers, dirt itself, flowers to cover smell, etc. were used, not to really clean oneself but to rid oneself cover over the smell. Modern first world bathing for cleanliness is just that: modern and first world.

Furthermore, most clothing throughout history has been "cleaned" by human urine. "What a lovely smell you've discovered" (Han Solo).

The fact that one can convince people that other people are the dirty ones is also displayed in our thinking of the Romans as very clean people and the Barbarians as filthy hordes of people when the Barbarians, at least those who lived along rivers (i.e., running water), were often cleaner than the Romans. 

Most of the poor had very few sets of clothing and many had only one set of clothes. This is implied when the Bible forbids one to take away a man's outer clothing which is his warmth at night. John the Baptist implies this when he refers to those who have no tunic (Luke 3). 

This is a desert culture and the desert is hot. Clothes are worn to sweat rather than to avoid sweat. Sweat brings bacteria and with dead bacteria, a smell. As one who lives in the desert, dirt is everywhere. They don't have nice rock or grass lawns to keep the dust down. The floors of their houses are dirt. Dirt was often scraped off, rubbed off with ashes, oils, etc. This would not get rid of the bacteria, and it was not meant to (no one even knew about bacteria). Instead, it was meant to give the appearance of cleanliness. The ancient Greeks, for instance, would make bath houses but so that they could show off their bodies, not to make themselves clean. It was to look clean. Most of this bathing took place in public bath houses, where nakedness would be uncovered, and so when the Seleucid kings built them in Jerusalem, they were rejected by the Jews as foul and places of corruption. 

Pools seem to have been made, not to bathe for physical hygiene, but to perform ritual cleanings that some even thought would be a means for God to heal them supernaturally (John 9). In fact, that particular pool was constructed, not to provide bathing for anyone but to restrict access to the spring waters that supplied it to any besieging armies. 

And this brings us to the ritual washing. The ritual washings in the law are not hygienic. I mean that the purpose of them is never said by the Bible to be that of making the Israelites healthy. Dirt, fungus, visible skin diseases, refuse, blood, dead things, etc. were already understood to be dirty things. God uses these as symbolic of what is physically dirty. He's not commanding hygiene. Hygiene is a concern for all people but it our hyper-concern for it has become an issue since the advent of discovering bacteria and its relationship with disease. This is not the issue in Israel any more than the food laws have to do with health.

In fact, this is a good example of people misunderstanding the purpose of food laws. It's not about health. Eating shellfish is some of the most healthy eating you can do. You'd lose tons of weight and have lots of nutrients for your body if you ate nothing but shellfish. Shellfish are used as an example of disgusting things because they look gross. They're giant bugs of the sea. It has nothing to do with health. 

This sort of eisegesis that reads our modern health and wealth cult back into the Bible is cultic.

But let's get back to Jesus. Traveling from town to town on dirt roads and speaking all day in the hot sun of the desert, fishing with his disciples, having little time to even catch his breath and pray because they people won't leave him alone. And those people? Can you imagine large ancient crowds in the desert pressing up against each other and then pressing up against the disciples and Jesus? No wonder perfume is such a commodity. But it isn't hygienic to cover up the smell of dead bacteria. It's physically unclean. Jesus was physically unclean. There's a statement hyper-antignostics can't stand. The health and wealth cult leaders who believe Jesus is just like them in the same way that modern Americans make Jesus movies with very American looking and sounding Jesuses, who believe can't distinguish between Jesus and a Mormon missionary, gasp in horror. "Not my Jesus," they think. "My Jesus would never smell from being dirty for any length of time. My Jesus cares as much about hygiene that I do. He would tear Himself away from the crowds, from the healings, from the teachings, from the children who need blessings, from the prayers to His Father, and go take a shower and change in the to clean clothes on a daily basis." After all, it only takes an hour or so to get dirty enough to stink. 

Filthy Jesus. Not worthy of the fellowship of such highbrow folk who bathe every day. One should think Him not worthy enough to save anyone who will enter into the clean world to come. Perhaps the thought is that there is no dirt in that world so there should be none is this one. But that's just it. We do live in the dirty world. We are dirty because we have not yet entered the world where we all unbathed smell like roses. Jesus didn't smell that way in this world and a servant is not greater than his Master. A servant may smell better than Jesus but this doesn't make him better than Jesus, nor does it make him better than any of Jesus' servants who fail the hygiene test of the modern privileged snobs who think that cleanliness is next to godliness. If that's true, Jesus isn't that godly, and you are still dead in your sins.

Christianity never carried with it better hygiene practices. If anyone tells you that, they don't know history. The upper class has always had more access to smelling better (I doubt they were much cleaner but they would have looked cleaner--there is a lesson even in that statement). But this sort of modern snobbery doesn't come from the Bible. It's actually an Enlightenment tendency to desire progression in all things, including hygiene, and perfecting humanity through this progression of the human animal. This is why hygiene became a hyper-focus of Victorian society. Now, people tied their morality to their hygiene as they tied whether they drank alcohol, played cards, and were educated to how much they had progressed and therefore how moral they were.

If Jesus cared about hygiene, He should have told the Pharisees when they complained that the disciples ate without washing their hands, "It is important but these spiritual truths about cleanliness are more important, even though cleanliness is next to godliness." Instead, He argued that such an idea was part of the old covenant which was not something required in the new and that nothing that goes into a man defiles him. Why isn't good hygiene a part of the new? Oh that's right, because it the laws of cleanliness have nothing to do with hygiene. They're rituals that represent spiritual truths and now that those spiritual truths are realized, God doesn't require them anymore. 

Does this mean you shouldn't observe hygienic practices? Of course you should. There are obligations to take care of one's family and if one knows that something is unhealthy they should tend to it. However, I am argued against the hyper-hygienic health and wealth cult that looks at any dirt or smell as ungodly, and would have condemned Jesus Himself for being ungodly (you know, if they didn't know it was Jesus in front of them). This is a crazy cult where those who are saturated in sins of insurrection, adultery, slander, etc. get to judge others by their preferential minutia. So that while straining out gnats and swallowing camels they nit and pick at others to feel superior. This is true arrogance that the Bible condemns as true ungodliness. The greatest irony is that people who do this are usually guilty of it. I cannot tell you how many people I hear talk about cleanliness who I have smelled as dirty, have looked disheveled, and whose children have looked gross with sweat, snot, and dirt all over their faces. 

Those who live in glass showers probably shouldn't throw stones, and they definitely might want to think whether they are getting their tightly held beliefs from the Bible or reading their own culture back into it. There is only one Jesus, and for our sakes, He who was rich and clean became poor and dirty for our sakes; and He did so because He was better than we are, dirt, smell and all.

Now, this won't convince the brainwashed sheep within our modern cult because nothing convinces cult members, but perhaps those who have the mind of Christ can awaken and see that they've been distracted by things the devil has put in their way so that they would not receive the gold God had for them and so miss out on becoming like Christ in this world.

A Critique of Instone-Brewer’s Divorce and Remarriage

 I’m going to review his book and critique it myself in the future, but here’s another scholarly critique. 

https://www.academia.edu/35774310/Critique_of_the_David_Instone_Brewer_Divorce_and_Remarriage_Theory