Becoming a Faithful Steward

Originally published in BOARDWISE, used by permission

“Stewardship is nothing less than a complete lifestyle, a total accountability and responsibility
before God.  Stewardship is what we do after we say we believe, that is, after we give our love,
loyalty, and trust to God, from whom each and every aspect of our lives comes as a gift.”  Ronald Vallet

God loves a cheerful giver and one of the most joyous aspects of being a believer
is being generous with God’s provisions..  The effective board member realizes that if
they expect others to give, they need to start by modeling generosity in their own life as
an extension of their faith.  Here are ten ways to become a faithful steward.

1. Decide who is Lord of your life - Jesus’ says, “No one can serve two masters . . .  You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt. 6:24).  The starting point to become a generous steward is to decide in your mind and heart that you will serve God first with your possessions.

2. Understand your role as a faithful steward – In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus is personally interested in his followers use of possessions entrusted to them. If we are smart we will treat our possessions as tools by which God’s kingdom and our soul can be grown.  The wise person will consider
carefully how their possessions can be used in the spiritual world. 

3. Count your blessings—you have more than you realize – Take an inventory of all of your blessings.  Consider your family, friends, home, work, money, and faith. 
Ask yourself questions such as, “How has God blessed me?” Thank Him for the provisions he has so graciously provided you, and for the opportunity He has given you to work and provide for yourself and your family.  Generosity starts with appreciation for the blessings you have, both materially and spiritually.

4. Give to God first—just do it! – Just as time is a gift entrusted to us by God, so are our possessions.  God commands us to give off the top—not from the leftovers. 
As we wait to pay the bills, buy groceries, and pay for all the incidentals that come up, there is no longer money left to be given to God and our giving becomes sporadic and ineffective, rather than generous.  (Malachi 1:13-14 and 3:7-11)

5. Give to God systematically – Once we understand the importance of giving, we should develop a plan to give systematically and faithfully.  In this way, giving becomes a pattern of our life.  (1 Corinthians 16:2)

6. Give according to your means - Christians are called to give in proportion to how God has blessed them.  Every Christian is called to examine their life with honesty and strive to become a generous giver, according to their individual means.  (II Corinthians 8:8-12)

7. Give cheerfully – In II Corinthians 9:6-8 Paul looks for people who are compelled to give from their own internal convictions not by rules and manipulation.  Many Christians are unable to be cheerful when they give because they have never known this inner change.  Once giving becomes a natural extension of your faith, then it is a joyous act as unto the Lord.

8. Give regularly – In I Corinthians 16:1-2, Paul recommends that the money for giving be set aside on the first day of each week, which was the day when Christians met together.  Paul exhorts regular giving to God’s work.  Regular and consistent giving is also a way that God uses to make giving a trademark of the
Christian life.  (I Corinthians 16:1-2)

9. Give to God generously and quietly – In the story of the widow (Mark 12:41-44), she gave out of her poverty, trusting that God would provide.  She did not give for the sake of being seen by others, nor for the effect that her gift would have on the ministry of her church, but rather in gratitude to God.  This was a woman who understood that giving was a tool used by God to shape her into the spiritual
person God wanted her to be.  This woman exemplifies true generosity.  

10. Give regardless of your circumstances - Where we put our treasure is an undeniable indicator of what our heart values. The best way to break out of this pattern is to give our first fruits to God, and live off what remains.  Until we learn to give to God regardless of our circumstances we will never be fully committed to Christ and his Kingdom.  (I Kings 17:7-16) Only when the Christians of the world become generous and release the resources God has provided them, will God’s work be fully funded.  One responsibility of a board member is to give personally and encourage others to give as scripture instructs—as faithful stewards.

Wesley K. Willmer, Ph.D., is Vice President for University Advancement and Professor at Biola University.  This is the fourth of a six part series excerpted from God and Your
Stuff: The Vital Link Between Your Possessions and Your Soul (NavPress, 2002)

Justification and Imputed Righteousness (R.C. Sproul)

The Antidote to Contemporary Evangelicalism's Addiction to Novelty

 

by Phil Johnson
"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

n all of Paul's instructions to Timothy and Titus, there is not an ounce of encouragement for the person who thinks innovation is the key to an effective ministry philosophy.
Much less is there any room for the pulpiteers of today who like to exegete the latest movies, or preach on moral lessons drawn from television sitcoms, or build their sermons on themes borrowed from popular culture. You know what I mean: the kind of preachers who insist they are being "missional" when they are merely being worldly.
Still less is there any warrant for the celebrity rock-star pastor who continually makes himself the focus of his preaching. "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5). "Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16).
Paul's focus is extremely narrow—stiflingly narrow for the typical young-and-restless church planter for whom "style" is everything; and whose style (let's be honest) is conspicuously dictated by secular fashion rather than by the worldview Paul was exhorting Timothy to embrace.

"Preach the word."That's the centerpiece and the key to everything Paul tells Timothy about how to shepherd God's flock. That command is followed immediately by a second imperative that simply makes the first one more emphatic: "Be ready in season and out of season." The Greek verb means "stand by," and it does have the sense of readiness. (In fact, in radio, that is exactly what the expression "stand by" means: "Be ready." But the word Paul uses is richer and stronger than that.) It also carries the connotation of expressions like: "take a stand," "stand upon it," "stick to it," "stand up to it," or simply "carry on."

Paul is urging Timothy to be absolutely, unswervingly devoted to the truth of the Word and to the task of proclaiming it. "Stand firm, and stand ready. Keep at the task, no matter what." That's the idea. And the proof is in the rest of the phrase: "Be ready in season and out of season"—literally, "when it's timely and when it's untimely": when it's popular and when it's not.

 

 

 

Or to contextualize the phrase for the current crop of evangelicalfashionistas: Preach the Word even when preaching the Word seems hopelessly uncool and unstylish.

The expression is ambiguous as to whether Timothy or his audience is the barometer declaring what's "in season [or] out of season." It doesn't matter. Regardless of how you or your audience—or anyone else—feels about it, keep preaching the Word.
Preach the word whether the timing seems opportune or awkward. Preach it whether it's convenient or inconvenient. Preach it whether you feel like it or not. Preach it whether the door is open or closed. Preach it no matter how much resistance you encounter. Preach it whether or not people say they want it. Preach it—and make it the heart and soul of your ministry strategy—no matter how many church-growth experts tell you otherwise.

Paul goes on to give several more imperatives, and all of them expand on or modify this initial command: "Preach the Word."

In a follow-up post or two we'll look at the whole series of imperatives, and I think you'll see in a graphic way that Paul's ideas about ministry philosophy church growth run fairly contrary to the received wisdom of most who claim expertise in these matters today.

 

 

---

The Rape of Solomon's Song, Part 3

April 16, 2009

John MacArthur

[Editor's Note: Readers should be warned that this article contains offensive material. Nonetheless, it isincluded here for the sake of substantiating the thesis of this article.]

I emphatically agree with those who say the Song of Solomon is not mere allegory. It is best understood when we take it at face value, like any other text of Scripture. Many interpreters whom I otherwise hold in high esteem (including Spurgeon and most of the Puritans) have unfortunately done more to confuse than clarify the Song's message by treating it in a purely allegorical fashion that eliminates itsprimarymeaning.

Solomon's Song is, as I've said from the outset, a love poem between Solomon and his bride, celebrating their mutual love for one another, including the delights of the marriage bed. To interpret this—or any other portion of Scripture—in a purely allegorical fashion is to treat the interpreter's own imagination as more authoritative than the plain meaning of the text.

However, those who pretend to know the meanings of poetic symbols that are not clearly identifiable from the text itself commit the very same error. Their speculation is likewise a way of exalting their own imaginations to a higher level of authority than the plain sense of the text.

That's a particular problem when the interpreter sees a mandate for oral sex in the simple metaphor of a fruit tree or imagines that the best way to contextualize and illustrate portions of the text is by verbally undressing his own wife in order to make the point as vivid as possible. In such a case, not only has the speaker given far too much weight to his own speculative imagination; he has given a fairly clear signal that his imagination is not altogether pure (Luke 6:45).

And that is a far more serious problem than merely allegorizing the text.

By no means do I want to minimize the dangers of allegorizing the text. That approach to hermeneutics is full of mischief, even in the hands of pure-minded men who are generally sound in their doctrine. I don't approve of allegorical flights of fancy, especially with a text like Song of Solomon, which poses enough difficulties with the obvious built-in metaphors and poetic language it features.

Allegorizers of the Song of Solomon generally see it as an expression of tender mutual love between Christ and His church. Most of them would say that Christ is represented by the voice of Solomon; the church is represented by the voice of the Shulamite. Some interpreters go further yet and imagine they hear three or more voices speaking out of the text. (Invariably those who multiply the voices try to make the verses fit some complex libretto that arises more out of their own personal agenda than from the text itself.)

Still, regardless of how many voices are heard and who is supposedly speaking, nearly all who allegorize this poem see it as a canticle of love between Christ and the church. It's probably fair to say that this allegorical view focusing on Christ and the church has been the dominant interpretation of the poem throughout church history.

That, of course, doesn't make it right. I happen to think it is not the correct approach to interpreting this text. But it's not a view that ought to be dismissed with vulgar contempt—especiallywith a coarse joke attributing homosexual behavior to Christ.

If you have heard any of Mark Driscoll's teaching on the Song of Solomon, you have surely heard his joke in that vein. For example, in the sermon that prompted me to write these articles, Driscoll says, "Some have allegorized this book, and in so doing, they have destroyed it. They have destroyed it. They will say that it is an allegory between Jesus and his bride the church. Which if true, is weird. Because Jesus is having sex with me and puts his hand up my shirt. And that feels weird. I love Jesus, but not in that way."

Driscoll has said almost the exact same thing in at least three other sermons. For example: “Jesus keeps making out with me and touching me in inappropriate places.” “Now I’m gay, or highly troubled, or both.” “As a guy, I do not feel comfortable with Jesus, like you know, kissing me and touching me and taking me to bed. Okay? I feel sort of very homo-erotic about that kind of view of Song of Solomon.”

Even in his most recentPeasant Princessseries, he repeats a version of that very same joke:

Now what happens is some say "Well, we do believe in the book [of Song of Solomon], and we will teach it, but we're gonna teach it allegorically." And there's a literal and an allegorical interpretation. They'll say, "Well the allegorical interpretation, it's not between a husband and a wife, Song of Solomon, love and romance and intimacy; what it is, it's about us and Jesus." Really? I hope not. [Laughter from crowd] If I get to heaven and this goes down, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I mean it's gonna be a bad day. Right? I mean seriously. You dudes know what I'm talking about. You're like, "No, I'm not doing that. You know I'm not doing that. I love Him [Jesus] but not like that." [Laughter from crowd]

Driscoll blew off criticism about that kind of joking by claiming it's not blasphemy because it has nothing to do with the "real" Jesus. He says he is simply making fun of a false notion about Jesus. And he continues making the joke.Here's the problem with that: Scripture clearly teaches that the love between a husband and wife in all its aspects is a metaphor for Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32).

Thus even a non-allegorical interpretation of Song of Solomon, (simply taking the love-song between Solomon and the Shulamite at face value) ultimately points us to Christ and his love for the church. The text ought to be handled by the preacher accordingly, not as an excuse to bathe in the gutter of our culture's easygoing obsession with crude sex-talk and graphic sexual imagery.

Some who have commented on these articles have suggested that I ought to give a full exposition of Solomon's Song rather than merely critiquing the bad interpreters and decrying the contemporary church's fixation with sex.

That would require a long series, and I'd prefer not to devote weeks of time on this blog to a topic that I have raised only in order to make a simple, single-pointed admonition. But those wondering what my exposition of Solomon's Song would be like will find full notes on the text inThe MacArthur Study Bible.

Those notes should be a sufficient answer to the commenter who pretended to wonder if I am saying it would be better not to comment on Song of Solomon at all.

Of course that is not what I am saying, nor can anyone claim that I have even implied anything of the sort—without twisting my words or puttingtheirwords in my mouth. (That literally happened in a string of comments at another blog where this issue was under discussion. An early commenter accused me of opposing line-by-line exposition of the Song. Halfway down the comments, people were putting that claim in quotation marks, attributing it to me.)

What Iamsaying is that the bounds of propriety—especially when dealing with subjects like sex—should be set by whatever text we are dealing with. To interpret beautiful poetry by translating it into scurrilous soft-porn is to corrupt the most fundamentalintentof the text.

This is nowhere near as difficult to grasp as some are pretending, but perhaps a simple parallel will suffice: There are other private body functions and "less honorable" or "unpresentable" body parts (1 Corinthians 12:23). We find these mentioned or alluded to at times in Scripture without ever being too specific. We all would be rightly offended if the preacher gave a long, descriptive discourse or how-to instructions in the Sunday worship service, outlining these "unpresentable" things.

For stronger reasons than simple modesty, certain acts involving fornication, autoeroticism, and other things people commonly "do in secret" are shameful to talk about inanypublic context (Ephesians 5:12), much less a church service. They may be suitable subjects for a private counseling session, or the doctor's office, or a college biology lecture, but they are not fitting topics for a worship service where God should be glorified, Christ should be uplifted, women should be shown respect, children's innocence should be guarded, and single people's prurient curiosities should not unnecessarily be enflamed.

When a speaker deliberately arouses lusts that cannot possibly be righteously fulfilled in unmarried college students, or when his personal illustrations fail to guard the privacy and honor of his own wife, that isfar worsethan merely inappropriate. When done repeatedly and with the demeanor of an immature bad-boy, such a practice reflects a major character defect that is spiritually disqualifying. Any man who makes such things the main trademark of his style is quite simply not above reproach.

As recently as a decade ago, that point of view would not have raised a peep of controversy.

The fact that it is so controversial now is simply more proof that evangelicals have become too much like the world, and too comfortable with the evil characteristics of our culture.

Tomorrow, Lord willing, I'll post the final installment in this series. Several questions have come up repeatedly from people who have commented on these articles, and in tomorrow's final installment, I want to answer as many of them as possible.

The Rape of Solomon's Song, Part 2

John MacArthur

It's frankly hard to think of a more appalling misuse of Scripture than turning the Song of Solomon into soft porn. When people can no longer read that portion of Scripture without pornographic imagery entering their minds, the beauty of the book has been corrupted, its description of righteous love perverted, and its role in sanctifying and elevating the marriage relationship deflected. Thatpreacherswould do this in public worship services is unconscionable.

Song of Solomon is deliberately veiled in poetic euphemisms that are beautiful by any measure. Some of the imagery is fairly obvious, some highly debatable. In many places the meaning is indistinct enough to permit a great deal of hermeneutical imagination, and wisdom would seem to teach that here—especiallyhere—it is best for the preacher not to be a lot more explicit than the Holy Spirit was.

And let's face it: overall, the Song is about asfarfrom explicit as the writer can get.

Moreover, since the symbolism is obviously about passion, romance, love, desire, and tenderness, its ambiguity serves a deliberate purpose: it speaks in secret terms about that which should be kept secret. The language is clearly designed to communicate intimate affection privately through veiled, confidential, almost clandestine terms.

This is a vital point: The style of communication between these two lovers beautifully conceals all but the most essential meaning of their love songs in a way that guards the deeply personal (and divinely intended) privacy of the marriage bed.

Song of Solomon is incredibly beautiful precisely because it is so carefully veiled. It is a perfect description of the wonderful, tender, intimate discovery that God designed to take place between a young man and his bride in a place of secrecy. We are not told in vivid terms what all the metaphors mean, because the beauty of marital passion is in the eye of the beholder—where it should stay.

Tom Gledhill wisely sums up this point in his IVP commentary on Song of Solomon (pp. 29-31):

To unpack metaphors and unwrap euphemisms [in Songof Solomon]may mean that our thoughts spiral out of control, and we end up by committing adultery in our imaginations. So if the interpretation of Scripture proves to be a stumbling block, and a cause of offence to some who believe, what then? . . . Once a particular line of interpretation has been suggested, it is difficult to avoid seeing explicit sexual allusions everywhere, until the whole work becomes saturated in references to genitalia, intercourse and explicit sex.

. . . TheNew Testament answer is very clear and straightforward. Jesus said, 'If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out . . . It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." In other words, we are not to walk into temptation open eyed when we know our particular areas of weakness .

. . . The language we use to describe various parts of the human anatomy (what the Apostle Paul describes as our 'unpresentable parts') is a matter for delicate sensitivity . . . . When [inappropriately explicit] words are used in verbal discourse, a profound disorientation takes place in the hearer, which has a tendency to block off to a large degree any further capacity for rational discussion. They act, so to speak, as verbal hand grenades. Their use is a terrorist activity, causing wanton destruction.

Tremper Longman III says this about preachers and commentators who interpret the Song's poetic imagery in overtly explicit ways: "[Their] free association with the images of the Song is so prevalent that we learn far more about the interpreters than we do about the text" (NICOT, p. 14).

Consider, for instance, the following passage from Song of Solomon 4:12-16. Here Solomon depicts his bride with a complex metaphor employing flowery symbols, and she responds by echoing the imagery:

A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
A rock garden locked, a spring sealed up.
Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates
With choice fruits, henna with nard plants,
Nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
With all the trees of frankincense,
Myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest spices.
You are a garden spring,
A well of fresh water,
And streams flowing from Lebanon."
Awake, O north wind,
And come, wind of the south;
Make my garden breathe out fragrance,
Let its spices be wafted abroad.
May my beloved come into his garden
And eat its choice fruits!"

Solomon thusdescribes his bride as a locked, gated garden. To him, she is a pleasant place full of charming fragrances and soothing substances. The word-picture he paints is beautiful on every level. The details ("choice fruits, henna with nard plants, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon . . . trees of frankincense, myrrh," etc.) may or may not have specific meanings that would have been known to the bride.

All a careful interpreter can say with certainty is that Solomon finds his bride pleasurable to all his sensory perceptions. He therefore likens her to the most pleasant and beautiful imagery he can think of—ointments and fragrances and visual delights—all concentrated together in one well-cultivated spot. A garden. The garden is "locked," which, again, underscores the intimate privacy of pure marital love. Nothing requires the exegete to take it any further than that. Scripture itselfdoesn'tgo further than that.

"It's frank but not crass," Mark Driscoll told aSunday congregationin Scotland just less than 18 months ago. But then he continued by paraphrasing Solomon in a way that was totally crass and not even remotely close to what the Holy Spirit intended. (A CD copy of that shocking message, entitledSex: A Study of the Good Bits of Song of Solomonwas recently sent to me by some deeply offended and concerned Christians in the UK. It is primarily the reason I'm doing this series.)

In Driscoll's mind, it's not the bride herself who is a garden, but a specific part of her anatomy. As he re-imagines the passage, it is not a poem about the delightful privacy the marriage partners enjoy; it's a sneaky way of openly exposing that intimacy for all to see.

In essence, he treats Song of Solomon like the old urban legend about the lyrics to "Louie, Louie." Only those with the secret knowledge can really understand it; and therefore its true meaningmustbe something dirty.

That approach caters to prurient ears. It is hard to see it as anything other than sheer exhibitionism. Worst of all, it turns the whole purpose of Song of Solomon on its head.

Tremper Longman was right: eisegesis like that reveals nothing about the book but everything about the interpreter.

http://www.gty.org/resources/Articles/A397/The-Rape-of-Solomons-Song-Part-2#.TrBV97Lk-uI

The Rape of Solomon's Song, Part 1 by John MacArthur

 

Apparently the shortest route to relevance in church ministry right now is for the pastor to talk about sex in garishly explicit terms during the Sunday morning service. If he can shock parishioners with crude words and sophomoric humor, so much the better. The defenders of this trend solemnly inform us that without such a strategy it is well-nigh impossible to connect with today's "culture." (In contemporary evangelicalism that term has become a convenient label for just about everything that is un cultured and uncouth.)

Sermons about sex have suddenly become a bigger fad in the evangelical world than the prayer of Jabez ever was. Everywhere, it seems, churches are featuring special series on the subject. Some of them advertise with suggestive billboards purposely designed to offend their communities' conservative sensibilities.

Quite a few pastors have earned widespread media coverage by issuing "sex challenges" to church members. These are schemes that make daily sex obligatory for married couples over a specified time—usually between seven and forty days. (How people are made accountable for this is a question I'm afraid to raise.)

I would be the last to suggest that preachers should totally avoid the topic of sex. Scripture has quite a lot to say about the subject, starting with God's first words to Adam and Eve ("Be fruitful and multiply"—Genesis 1:22). God's law has numerous commands that govern sexual behavior, and the New Testament repeatedly reaffirms the Old Testament standard of sexual purity. Finally, in the closing chapters of Scripture we are told that sexually immoral people will be cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). So there's simply no way to preach the whole counsel of God without mentioning sex.

But the language Scripture employs when dealing with the physical relationship between husband and wife is always careful—often plain, sometimes poetic, usually delicate, frequently muted by euphemisms, and never fully explicit. There is no hint of sophomoric lewdness in the Bible, even when the prophet's clear purpose is to shock (such as when Ezekiel 23:20 likens Israel's apostasy to an act of gross fornication motivated by the lust of bestiality). When an act of adultery is part of the narrative (such as David's sin with Bathsheba), it is never described in way that would gratify a lascivious imagination or arouse lustful thoughts.

The message of Scripture regarding sex is simple and consistent throughout: total physical intimacy within marriage is pure and ought to be enjoyed (Hebrews 13:4); but remove the marriage covenant from the equation and all sexual activity (including that which occurs only in the imagination) is nothing but fornication, a serious sin that is especially defiling and shameful—so much so that merely talking about it inappropriately is a disgrace (Ephesians 5:12).

Above all, Scripture never stoops to the lurid level of contemporary sex education. The Bible has no counterpart to the Hindu Kama Sutra (an ancient Sanskrit sex manual supposedly transmitted by Hindu deities.) Nothing in Scripture gives any vivid how-to instructions regarding the physical relationship within marriage.

That includes the Song of Solomon.

In fact, Solomon's love-poem epitomizes the exact opposite approach. It is, of course, a lengthy poem about courtship and marital love. It is filled with euphemisms and word pictures. Its whole point is gently, subtly, and elegantly to express the emotional and physical intimacy of marital love—in language suitable for any audience.

But it has become popular in certain circles to employ extremely graphic descriptions of physical intimacy as a way of expounding on the euphemisms in Solomon's poem. As this trend develops, each new speaker seems to find something more shocking in the metaphors than any of his predecessors ever imagined.

Thus we are told that the Shulammite's poetic language invoking the delights of an apple tree (Song 2:3) is a metaphor for oral sex. The comfort and delight of a simple embrace (2:6) is not what it seems to be at all. Apparently it's impossible to describe what that verse really means without mentioning certain unmentionable body parts.

We're assured moreover that the shocking hidden meanings of these texts aren't merely descriptive; they are prescriptive. The secret gnosis of Solomon's Song portray obligatory acts wives must do if this is what satisfies their husbands, regardless of the wife's own desire or conscience. I was recently given a recording of one of these messages, where the speaker said, "Ladies, let me assure you of this: if you think you're being dirty, he's pretty happy."

Such pronouncements are usually made amid raucous laughter, but evidently we are expected to take them seriously. When the laughter died away, that speaker added, “Jesus Christ commands you to do this.”

That approach is not exegesis; it is exploitation. It is contrary to the literary style of the book itself. It is spiritually tantamount to an act of rape. It tears the beautiful poetic dress off Song of Solomon, strips that portion of Scripture of its dignity, and holds it up to be laughed at and leered at in a carnal way.

Mark Driscoll has boldly led the parade down this carnal path. He is by far the best-known and most prolific popular proponent of handling the Song of Solomon that way. He has said repeatedly that this is his favorite passage of Scripture, and he has come back to it again and again in recent years, culminating in a highly publicized series released on video via the Internet last year.

I keep encountering young pastors who are now following that same example, and I'm rather surprised that the trend has been so well received in the church with practically no significant critics raising any serious objections. So we're going to analyze and critique this approach to Song of Solomon over the next couple of days, including a look at some specific examples where the line of propriety has clearly been breached.

http://www.gty.org/resources/Articles/A396/The-Rape-of-Solomons-Song-Part-1#.TqVTw7Lk-uI

Did None of Jesus' Disciples Live Long Enough to Write a Gospel?

“’You are not yet fifty years old,’ they said to him.” (John 8:57a NIV)

I’m not sure which is more disturbing: the ridiculously specious arguments that some supposedly bona fide scholars put forth in their desperate efforts to undermine confidence in Scripture or the inability of rank-and-file Christians to see through them and the speed with which they allow their faith to be threatened.

Several people have contacted me recently about the apparently widely circulating claim that life expectancies were too low in Jesus’ day for any of the eyewitnesses of his life to have written the four New Testament Gospels on the standard liberal dates that place Mark in the 70s, Matthew and Luke in the 80s and John in the 90s. Of course, evangelicals, more trusting of the testimony of the second-century Church Fathers, typically place Matthew, Mark and Luke all in the 60s but often accept that it’s likely that John was written in the 90s. Some of these people have apparently been skeptics; others have apparently been Christians. What’s frightening is their seeming inability to think of any way to address the question and smug comments or helpless fears that 2000-year-old claims have been suddenly disproved by “new evidence.”

Some of the forms of the attack on the traditional ascription of Gospel authorship claim that even the 60s are too late for apostolic authorship. Seriously? The claim boils down to this—the average life expectancy in Israel was about 40. Jesus was said to be about thirty when he began his ministry (Luke 3:1). Presumably his followers were about his age. But even if some were as young as 20, they would have been at least in their fifties by the decade of the sixties. Hence the traditional Christian claim is impossible.

When was the last time anyone reflected on the meaning of the word “average”? The average age of Denver Seminary students in recent years has been about 29. But we have oodles of people in their thirties, forties, fifties and even a few in their sixties. How can this be? Because the single biggest cluster of students, age-wise, are in their early to mid-twenties. That’s how averages work.

So even if you didn’t know a whit of history about the first-century, you ought to recognize the argument fails right out of the gate. But if you do realize from the study of any culture of any point in time prior to the twentieth-century West, that large numbers of children died in infancy or childhood, then you’d realize that an average life span of forty would mean more people significantly older than 40 than is true in the U.S. today when the average life span of people is late 70s and yet almost no one lives more than thirty years beyond that average.

Biblical illiteracy also comes into play here. Can anyone tell me the age of anybody according to the New Testament? And even if you don’t know, how about typing in to BibleWorks or Logos (or even google for that matter) or using a hard-copy concordance and looking up words like “thirty,” “forty,” “fifty,” “sixty,” etc.?

When Jesus claimed to have seen Abraham’s day, certain Jewish leaders responded with disbelief and outrage because, as they pointed out, he wasn’t even yet fifty (John 8:57). They could have said he wasn’t even yet forty, but perhaps they weren’t sure of his age and were playing it safe. Obviously it wouldn’t have been unusual for someone to have lived to fifty, or they wouldn’t have chosen the number.

How about the widows that Paul tells Timothy the church must take care if they meet a variety of qualifications. One is that they are over sixty (1 Tim 5:9). Obviously there had to be enough people of this age in Ephesus alone, where Timothy is pastoring, so that even after many of them are disqualified because they have younger family members to care for them (as almost all would have) there are still enough to make this a formal church roll call.

We really don’t have to go any further to see that the New Testament writers themselves knew that it was not implausible for lots of people to live into their fifties and sixties. Even someone as old as Jesus could easily have written a Gospel in the 60s, while someone ten years younger than Jesus could have easily written a Gospel in the 70s.

But what about John in the 90s? Here questions are more understandable. The average person probably doesn’t have a quick way to answer for themselves if people in the first-century Roman empire lived into their eighties or nineties. But hopefully many Christians who read and reread their Bibles will recall that Anna, the elderly prophet ministering in the temple when Jesus was born. Luke 2:36 says that “she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four” (NIV). It is even possible to translate the Greek here as saying that she had been a widow for eighty-four years (NIV mg)! Jewish women often married at or soon after puberty, but even on a “youngest-case scenario”—say age 13 plus seven plus 84, this would have made her 104! Although this is not as likely a rendering, it is not impossible. The Mishnah, a compilation of older Jewish traditions, written down in about A.D. 200, gives a characterization in its tractate known as PirkeAboth of what we might call stereotypes of people in each decade of life going all the way up to 100, at which point it says these people live as if they were already dead!

Interestingly, ancient Christian art regularly depicts John as the one disciple painted without facial hair. Does this reflect knowledge that he was perhaps only a mid-teen when he followed Christ? If so, he could have been fifteen years younger. That would have meant he wouldn’t have turned 80 until the mid-90s. Does any of this mean that lots of people lived to these ripe old ages in the first-century? Not at all. A far higher percentage of the population today does so than at any time in human history. But no Christian ever claimed that more than one apostle wrote a Gospel at an old age. No Gospel writer ever claimed that anyone else they knew lived to be as old as Anna.

Even if you dismiss every shred of evidence written by a Christian, wouldn’t you be curious to know what other historians said? Anyone who’s ever studied an introduction to world civilization knows that we know the life spans of countless important people from the ancient Mediterranean world. How about checking those lengths of time again? For example, google “age of Roman emperors” and the first site listed will give you all the ages of the Roman emperors at the time they came to power and the years during which they reigned. From that it’s a simple calculation to see those that lived into their sixties, seventies and beyond. With a little creativity you can find a lot more evidence of ancient life spans.

Let’s start thinking clearly on topics like these.

http://www.denverseminary.edu/craig-blombergs-blog-new-testament-musings/did-none-of-jesus-disciples-live-long-enough-to-write-a-gospel/

Does the bible clearly teach pre-, a-, or postmillennialism?

While the bible does clearly teach against the Dispensational variety of premillennialism (see questions 18-21 above), it is much more open to historic premillenialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. Both premillennialists and postmillennialists will look to Old Testament prophecies of a golden age of gospel success on the earth  (e.g. Psalm 22:25-31; Psalm 72; Isaiah 2:1-5), and say that the nature of these prophecies requires a time in which the earth will not be in its eternal state, when no one marries or dies any more, but vastly more prosperous than it is now, when the Church is always afflicted and persecuted. Amillennialists, on the other hand, look to the many New Testament passages that suggest that, when Christ returns, he will at once raise the wicked and righteous dead, enact his final judgment, dissolve the old heavens and earth, and bring in the new, eternal state. When he comes, the Church will still have her enemies and persecutors, and evil men and imposters will be waxing worse and worse (see Dan. 12:1-2; Mat. 24:29-31; 25:31-46; John 5:28-29; 2 Thes. 1:6-10; 1 Cor. 15:51-57; 2 Pet. 3:3-14). All of the Old Testament prophecies they would see as having either a spiritual fulfillment, so that the prophecy of a lion's lying down with a lamb, for instance, could be fulfilled by the gospel's bringing together in peace and love representatives of two different tribes that had historically hated and killed each other. Of course, this sort of thing is happening all over the world, wherever the gospel is going out. And then, amillennialists see the nature of some of those prophecies employed by post- and premillennialists as demanding a final fulfillment in the eternal state. Today in the Church, we receive a foretaste of those prophecies; but we will not see them perfectly fulfilled until God creates the new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness dwell.
Amillennialists probably have the most solid case for their interpretation of Revelation 20. Passages such as 2 Thes. 1:6-10, which clearly teach that Christ's coming and eternally judging the wicked, while glorifying the saints, will take place at a time when there is persecution of the Church. Against premillennialism, Christ's coming demands an immediate and final judgment and establishment of the eternal state. Against postmillennialism, his coming will not be after a golden era, but in the midst of the same sort of persecution that the Thessalonian church was even then experiencing. Then, the mention of Satan's binding, in Revelation 20, corresponds well with related New Testament teaching (see Mat. 12:26-29; Luke 10:17-18; John 12:31-33; 16:8-11; Heb. 2:14-15). And it is only reasonable that the highly symbolic, and most likely recapitulatory visions of John's Apocalypse should be interpreted in light of the clearer didactic teachings of the New Testament epistles. However, it should also be acknowledged that historic premillennialists and postmillennialists have reasonable arguments for their convictions, which should not be scoffed at.
Monergism Copyright © 2008 (http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/clearlyteach.html)

Does the bible teach that in the end times there will be a restored Jewish state and a restored temple?

In the Old Testament, the bible does indeed prophesy that Israel will be restored and a more glorious temple will be rebuilt (e.g. Amos 9:11-12; Ezekiel 40-48). The preliminary fulfillment of this prophecy came with the return from exile, and the rebuilding of the temple under Nehemiah and Ezra; however, this was just a taste, or down payment, of the ultimate fulfillment.
When Jesus came to this earth, his incarnation truly brought the presence of God to the world of men, as the tabernacle and temple had been designed to do; and hence, John says that he “tabernacled” among us (John 1:14). Thus, when he purged the temple, he prophesied that the temple would be destroyed and rebuilt after three days; but he was speaking of his own body, which is the true temple (John 2:13-22). After this ultimate temple-rebuilding, which occurred in the resurrection of Jesus, there was no longer a need for the typological temple of stone in Jerusalem, so Jesus prophesied its destruction, which happened in 70 AD (Matthew 24:1-2). Today, the prophecy of the restored temple and the restored Jewish people is being fulfilled, not in a temple of stone, for that has been destroyed in the presence of the body of Christ, which is the ultimate Temple of God, but in the spiritual body of Christ, the Church, which has become the “Israel of God” (see Gal. 6:16; and also Romans 2:28-29; 4:11-17; 9:6-8; Galatians 3:6-9, 26-29; 4:21-31; Ephesians 2:11-22; 3:6; Phil. 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:9-10; Rev. 2:9), and which God is now making into a holy Temple, built upon Christ the Cornerstone (see 1 Cor 6:19-20; Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Tim. 3:15; Rev. 3:12).
One of the clearest and most monumental Old Testament prophecies regarding the restoration of the tabernacle may be found in Amos 9:11-12; and in Acts 15:14-17, James clearly teaches that this passage is being fulfilled in the spreading of the gospel to the Gentiles; so in sum yes, the bible prophesies of a restored Jewish nation and temple, but then goes on to teach that this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus' becoming the true and final Temple of God, and subsequently in his making his people a holy temple in the Lord, where God's presence might dwell among them, even today.
Monergism Copyright © 2008

What does the Apostles' Creed mean when it says that Jesus descended into hell?

 

The Apostles’ Creed is used as an integral form of worship in many Christian bodies. One of the more puzzling statements in that creed is: [Jesus] descended into hell.

First of all, we have to look at the creed from a historical perspective. We know that the Apostles’ Creed was not written by the apostles, but it’s called the Apostles’ Creed because it was the early Christian community’s attempt to give a summary of apostolic teaching. This, like other creeds in the church’s history, was partly a response to distorted teachings that were present in some communities; it was statement of orthodox belief. The earliest reference we can find to that “descent into hell” element of the Creed is around the middle of the third century. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t in the original—we don’t know when the original was written—but it seems to be a later addition and has caused no small amount of controversy ever since. The reason for it is theological as well as biblical.

We see this problem: Jesus, when he’s on the cross in his dying agony, speaks to the thief next to him and assures him that “today you will be with me in paradise.” Now that statement from Jesus on the cross would seem to indicate that Jesus was planning to go to paradise, which is not to be confused with hell. So in some sense Jesus goes to paradise. We know that his body goes into the tomb. His soul apparently is in paradise. When does he go to hell? Or does he go to hell?

In 1 Peter 3:19, Peter talks about “this Jesus, who by the same spirit by which he is raised from the dead goes and preaches to the lost spirits in prison.” That text has been used as the principal proof text to say that Jesus, at some point after his death, generally believed to be between his death and his resurrection, went to hell. Some people say that he went into hell to experience the fullness of the magnitude of suffering—the full penalty for human sin—in order to give complete atonement for sin. That is regarded by some as a necessary element of Christ’s passion.

But most churches that believe in an actual descent of Jesus into hell do not see him going to hell for further suffering because Jesus declares on the cross, “It is finished.” Rather, he goes to hell to liberate those spirits who, from antiquity, have been held in prison. His task in hell then is one of triumph, liberating Old Testament saints. I personally think that the Bible is less than clear on that point because the lost spirits in prison could very well refer to lost people in this world. Peter doesn’t tell us who the lost spirits in prison are or where the prison is. People are making a lot of assumptions when they consider that this is a reference to hell and that Jesus went there between his death and his resurrection.

©1996 by R.C. Sproul. Used by permission of Tyndale.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. ©1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Regeneration Precedes Faith

 

by R. C. Sproul

One of the most dramatic moments in my life for the shaping of my theology took place in a seminary classroom. One of my professors went to the blackboard and wrote these words in bold letters: "Regeneration Precedes Faith."

These words were a shock to my system. I had entered seminary believing that the key work of man to effect rebirth was faith. I thought that we first had to believe in Christ in order to be born again. I use the words in order here for a reason. I was thinking in terms of steps that must be taken in a certain sequence. I had put faith at the beginning. The order looked something like this:

"Faith - rebirth -justification."

I hadn’t thought that matter through very carefully. Nor had I listened carefully to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. I assumed that even though I was a sinner, a person born of the flesh and living in the flesh, I still had a little island of righteousness, a tiny deposit of spiritual power left within my soul to enable me to respond to the Gospel on my own. Perhaps I had been confused by the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome, and many other branches of Christendom, had taught that regeneration is gracious; it cannot happen apart from the help of God.

No man has the power to raise himself from spiritual death. Divine assistance is necessary. This grace, according to Rome, comes in the form of what is called prevenient grace. "Prevenient" means that which comes from something else. Rome adds to this prevenient grace the requirement that we must "cooperate with it and assent to it" before it can take hold in our hearts.

This concept of cooperation is at best a half-truth. Yes, the faith we exercise is our faith. God does not do the believing for us. When I respond to Christ, it is my response, my faith, my trust that is being exercised. The issue, however, goes deeper. The question still remains: "Do I cooperate with God's grace before I am born again, or does the cooperation occur after?" Another way of asking this question is to ask if regeneration is monergistic or synergistic. Is it operative or cooperative? Is it effectual or dependent? Some of these words are theological terms that require further explanation.

A monergistic work is a work produced singly, by one person. The prefix mono means one. The word erg refers to a unit of work. Words like energy are built upon this root. A synergistic work is one that involves cooperation between two or more persons or things. The prefix syn -

means "together with." I labor this distinction for a reason. The debate between Rome and Luther hung on this single point. At issue was this: Is regeneration a monergistic work of God or a synergistic work that requires cooperation between man and God? When my professor wrote "Regeneration precedes faith" on the blackboard, he was clearly siding with the monergistic answer. After a person is regenerated, that person cooperates by exercising faith and trust. But the first step is the work of God and of God alone.

The reason we do not cooperate with regenerating grace before it acts upon us and in us is because we can- not. We cannot because we are spiritually dead. We can no more assist the Holy Spirit in the quickening of our souls to spiritual life than Lazarus could help Jesus raise him for the dead.

When I began to wrestle with the Professor's argument, I was surprised to learn that his strange-sounding teaching was not novel. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield - even the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas taught this doctrine. Thomas Aquinas is the Doctor Angelicus of the Roman Catholic Church. For centuries his theological teaching was accepted as official dogma by most Catholics. So he was the last person I expected to hold such a view of regeneration. Yet Aquinas insisted that regenerating grace is operative grace, not cooperative grace. Aquinas spoke of prevenient grace, but he spoke of a grace that comes before faith, which is regeneration.

These giants of Christian history derived their view from Holy Scripture. The key phrase in Paul's Letter to the Ephesians is this: "...even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have you been saved)" (Eph. 2:5). Here Paul locates the time when regeneration occurs. It takes place 'when we were dead.' With one thunderbolt of apostolic revelation all attempts to give the initiative in regeneration to man are smashed. Again, dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith.

This says nothing different from what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Unless a man is born again first, he cannot possibly see or enter the kingdom of God. If we believe that faith precedes regeneration, then we set our thinking and therefore ourselves in direct opposition not only to giants of Christian history but also to the teaching of Paul and of our Lord Himself.

(Excerpt from the book, The Mystery of the Holy Spirit, by R.C. Sproul, Christian Focus

Was Jesus a Calvinist?

Was Jesus a Calvinist?

• Sam Storms
• Nov 6, 2006
• Series: Controversial Issues

John 6:37-40,44,65 (see also 17:1-2,6,9,24)

"All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. . . . No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. . . For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.'

On several occasions in John's Gospel divine election is described in terms of God the Father giving certain persons to God the Son (6:37, 39; 10:29; 17:1-2,6,9,24). In each of these cases the giving of men to Christ precedes and is the cause of their receiving eternal life. Those who are given to the Son include not only the present company of disciples who believe in Jesus but also the elect of future ages who will come to faith through the gospel. Jesus looks upon them as already his (John 17:20-21; see also John 10:16; Acts 18:10), even though they have not yet believed in his name. They are his because they were given to him by the Father in eternity past.

What is of special importance to us is what Jesus says about how those whom the Father has given to him come to him and whether or not those who come can ever lose their salvation. It will prove helpful to look at this in terms of three impossibilities.

The first impossibility. Jesus says that it is morally and spiritually impossible for a person to come to Christ apart from the "drawing" of that person by God the Father (6:44,65). May I strongly emphasize the words morally and spiritually. The reason people do not come to Christ is not because they lack a will, or a mind, or feelings, or even lack opportunity and occasion. Their not coming to Christ is due to their moral and spiritual refusal to do so, a refusal in which they willingly and freely delight. If they cannot come it is not because God will not let them. It is because it is their nature not to want to come.

The second impossibility. Jesus also says that it is impossible for someone whom the Father "draws" not to come to him. He says in verse 37, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me"' In other words, just as it is impossible for a person to come to Christ apart from the Father drawing him/her, so also is it impossible for a person not to come to Christ if the Father does draw him/her. Two crucial elements are involved here. On the one hand, if a man is to be saved he must come to Christ. An active, willing embrace of Jesus Christ in faith is essential. On the other hand, this active, willing embrace of Jesus Christ is guaranteed by virtue of the Father having given certain people to Jesus Christ. John Murray explains it this way:

"Jesus does not say: all that the Father giveth me are brought to me. He uses the term that denotes motion on the part of the person - 'will come to me.' Coming to Christ is the movement of commitment to Christ, coming that engages the whole-souled activity of the person coming. It is not that he may come, not that he has the opportunity to come, not that he will in all probability come, and not simply that he is empowered to come, but that he will come. There is absolute certainty; There is a divine necessity; the order of heaven insures the sequence.'

John Murray, 'Irresistible Grace', in Soli Deo Gloria: Essays in Reformed Theology, Festschrift for John H. Gerstner, ed. R. C. Sproul (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976), p. 59. The Greek word translated 'draw' (John 6:44) is found elsewhere in the NT only in John 12:32; 18:10; 21:6,11; Acts 16:19. Some believe that the use of the term in 12:32 indicates that the 'drawing' is not necessarily efficacious in all. But, as D. A. Carson (Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension [Atlanta: John Knox, 1981]) has noted, 'the all' whom Jesus will draw, and the drawing itself, cannot both be taken absolutely, because in the succeeding verses it becomes clear that not all are saved (12:35-41). In the context of the arrival of the Greeks (12:20-22), to whose request for an audience Jesus has not so far responded, the 'all' appears to mean 'all' as opposed to Jews only: Jesus does not talk to the Greeks because that which will draw all men is the climactic event of his own death/exaltation' (p. 174).

Therefore, it is impossible that an elect person, a "given-by-the-Father-to-the-Son" person, might fail to come to faith in Christ. Or to put it positively, all the elect shall come to faith in Christ. God's drawing of them is efficacious. The Father will never fail in drawing to salvation those whom he has given to the Son.

Before we move to the third impossibility, observe one more crucial fact. Since this drawing of people by the Father to the Son is always efficacious, it cannot refer to the so-called enabling grace of Arminianism. Do you recall what the Arminian believes? He believes that God restores in all men a power or an ability sufficient to enable them to come to Christ. Clearly this "universal enablement" cannot be the drawing that Jesus describes, Why not? Because millions and millions of men and women do not, in fact, come to Christ! And yet Jesus says that all who are given by the Father are drawn by the Father and shall come to Christ. There is no escaping the clear and unequivocal language of our Lord Jesus Christ: no one can come unless drawn by the Father; but if one is drawn by the Father he shall come.

Some may want to argue that there is significance in what Jesus does not say: He does not say that others have not been given to him by the Father. However, if in fact all are given, then all shall be saved, for Jesus does say that all whom the Father gives him shall come to him. In other words, if election/giving is universal, so is salvation.

The third impossibility. To the previous two impossibilities Jesus adds a third. He has already said it is impossible to come to him unless the Father draws. He has also said it is impossible not to come if the Father does draw. Now he says that when a man does come through the drawing of the Father it is impossible for him to be cast out. Look again at verse 37: "and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out." The point is that those whom the Father gives to the Son, who therefore come to the Son, will be received by the Son and shall never perish.

The verb translated "cast out" in verse 37 is used several times in John (2:15; 6:37; 9:34f.; 10:4; 12:31) and always means to cast out someone or something already in. Thus the emphasis here is not so much on receiving the one who comes (although that is true enough in itself) but on preserving him. In other words, "6:37 argues not only that the ones given to Jesus will inevitably come to him, but that Jesus will keep them individually . . . once there.'(Murray, 'Irresistible Grace', 184).

Who would dare suggest that Jesus Christ would refuse to accept what his Father has given him? If the Father was pleased to make a gift of certain sinners to his most blessed Son, you may rest assured that the Son will neither despise nor deny his Father's gracious generosity. The certainty of ultimate and absolute salvation for those who come to the Son is reaffirmed in verses 38-40. Their life in Christ is eternal and irrevocable because that is the will of the Father; a will or a purpose that the whole of Christ's person and work was designed to secure. What did Jesus come to do? He came to do the Father's will (v.38). What is the Father's will? The Father's will is that all those he has given to the Son be fully and finally saved (v. 39). Oh, what a glorious thought it is, that

"My name from the palms of His hands

Eternity will not erase;

Impress'd on His heart it remains,

In marks of indelible grace."

And still again we sing:

"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,

For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid;

I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand."

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I'll never, no never, no never forsake!"

So I ask you, have you experienced the invincible attraction of the Redeemer? Have you been entranced by His beauty? Have you been so drawn to him that you invest your all in Him?? (John Murray, 'The Father's Donation', in Collected Writings of John Murray, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 3:207). If so, you may be assured that the Father has given you to the Son and that the Son has given himself for you. Therefore, he has drawn you with an everlasting and efficacious love. Therefore, you have abandoned yourself to him in faith. 'This is why his attraction has become irresistible and you have fallen in love with the Savior of your soul' (ibid.).

My conclusion: Yes, Jesus was a Calvinist!