Periodical Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 156:622 (Apr 1999)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Periodical Reviews

By the Faculty and Library Staff of Dallas Theological Seminary

“Confessions of a Reformed Scholastic,” Bruce L. McCormack, Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought 13 (June-July 1998): 12-14.

In some quarters of Christendom “doctrine” is a dirty word. For those evangelicals intensely focused on relevance to today’s culture, concentration on doctrinal truth is often viewed as a waste of time-a pursuit fitting for the ivory tower, perhaps, but not for the average Christian struggling to live the reality of faith in an increasingly secularized world.

For others who lament this attitude, McCormack’s article provides a refreshing counterpoint. Describing himself as a “Reformed scholastic” (p. 12), he proceeds to make a compelling case for the assertion that doctrine does indeed matter, and not merely for those in the halls of academia. He relates an encounter with a former student who had embarked on an inner-city ministry. In the midst of the most practical of concerns the young man had come to realize that “passion for the truth was a moral passion” (p. 12), and truth, after all, was what the musty old dogmaticians and doctrinal systematizers were all about.

Theology is necessary because “God has made himself known” (p. 14), McCormack argues, but it is also necessary because its fundamental mission is to seek out and expound the truth, the opposite of which, of course, is falsehood. What about those who eschew such an endeavor in favor of relevance to culture? “A theology that exists as an act of divine worship,” writes McCormack, “cannot worry itself over whether it is pleasing to a watching world” (p. 14). God is watching too, however, and that makes all the difference.

Jefferson P. Webster

“The Church and Israel,” Stanley Toussaint, Conservative Theological Journal 2 (December 1998): 350-74.

Toussaint argues for the view that the “kingdom” in the New Testament “always refers to the promised, yet future fulfillment of Israel’s Old Testament covenants, promises, and prophecies” (p. 354). He says the kingdom was not present when Christ was here on earth and it is not here in even a “mystery form” in the church age. “It is totally future, awaiting fulfillment in the millennium and eternity” (ibid.).

Though John the Baptist and Jesus both said the kingdom was at hand (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15), it had not arrived. Toussaint suggests that the verb “...

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