Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 22:3 (Fall 2018)
Article: Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Response to Daniel Block, Elliott Johnson and Vern Poythress
Author: Craig A. Carter

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Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Response to Daniel Block, Elliott Johnson and Vern Poythress

Craig A. Carter

Craig A. Carter is Professor of Theology at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He earned his PhD from the University of St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto. Dr. Carter is the author of numerous articles and books including Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Baker Academic, 2018).

My assignment given by the editor is to respond to the papers by Daniel Block, Elliott Johnson and Vern Poythress and to discuss what I take to be their strengths and weaknesses in the light of the approach to interpreting Scripture that I describe in my book, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition.1 It might be helpful if I quickly summarize a few of the main points of that book before moving to critique.

The Interpretation of Scripture in the Great Tradition

The basic thesis of the book is that a great deal of the best Evangelical preaching in the contemporary church is at odds with much of the hermeneutical theory taught in modern, Evangelical seminaries. This situation results from the fact that academic hermeneutics has been more influenced by Enlightenment-inspired historical criticism, whereas church preaching has been more indebted to an oral tradition of Great Tradition

SBJT 22:3 (Fall 2018) p. 130

hermeneutics handed down from generation to generation and connecting the best evangelical preaching of today to traditional orthodoxy. With apologies to any professors of hermeneutics who may read these lines, it must be said that many preachers park their hermeneutical theories at the door of the seminary as they leave and proceed to preach the way their revered mentors in ministry do. My proposed solution, however, is not to call for preaching to be brought into line with academic theory (which currently is in a state of considerable confusion), but instead to reform academic hermeneutical theory in such a way that it becomes more suitable for supporting and enhancing the great evangelical preaching of the church—a tradition that stretches all the way from Irenaeus and Athanasius to Augustine and Calvin and on to Wesley and Whitefield and down to Charles Spurgeon, W. A. Criswell and John R. W. Stott.

The Christ-centered preaching of the Old Testament (OT) has nourished the faith of the people of God and has linked the church in every age to the apostles. However, it appears that many modern Evangelicals have been influenced by the rise of historical criticism and, as a result, have become hesit...