Beeson podcast, Episode 439 Paul House April 9, 2019 Announcer: Welcome to The Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. Well, today I have the privilege of having a conversation with a dear friend, colleague, and former student of mine, Dr. Paul House. I first met Paul House at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, way back when he was an MDIV student sitting in my classes. He was brilliant even then, you knew it. He's gone on to do a wonderful work of teaching, of scholarship, of leadership in The Lord's Church in several different institutions. Wheaton College, Taylor University, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, and for a number of years now here at Beeson Divinity School. Dr. House came to be our Associate Dean, and he continues to be a very valuable member of our faculty and leader as a Professor of Old Testament Theology and Hebrew here at Beeson. Timothy George: Dr. House, thank you for this conversation. Paul House: Thank you. It's good to be with you. Timothy George: What do you remember about being a student of mine years ago? Paul House: I was a student of yours I believe in the winter term of 1981 in Church History I. Andy Manis was your grader. He's gone on to write a biography of Fred Shuttlesworth and so forth. I remember you gave us extra credit for memorizing The Apostles' Creed. I remember that we were supposed to get almost to The Reformation and I think we got to Pope Urban III and then made a dead run in the last two weeks to try to get up to Luther, but it was you could say a memorable experience. The Church History courses at Southern those days were very, very interesting, very informative, and often very helpful to the faith. Timothy George: We had a good Church History Department. In fact, I think the whole faculty in those days at Southern was just outstanding in many ways. You turned out not to be a Church historian. I mean, that was not the field in which you invested your graduate study, but Old Testament, and I remembered that you are a student in particular of Dr. John D.W. Watts. Paul House: That's correct. John was a great friend and supporter and teacher. He was an exegete of Isaiah, among other books. His father had been an Old Testament teacher. John had been a missionary kid in Israel. Became a missionary to Switzerland after World War II, then went on to places like Lebanon and India, and so that was very helpful to me. I want to go ahead and say in case anyone remembers John or knows his son Jim, when I went to teach at Southern Seminary, I bought Dr. Watts' home. He accompanied me down to the loan office to make sure I got the loan. He was really a father doctor to me in ways that you can't quite put into the scholarship you do. Timothy George: Yeah, yeah. He was a real ... I would call him a Christian gentleman as well as a very fine scholar of The Old Testament, of course. Paul House: Yes, and you didn't have to agree with John, you just had to have a reason to for what you had to say, and so he was a very generous kind of mentor, or at least he was to me. Timothy George: Lets' talk a little bit about your scholarship in The Old Testament, in particular two commentaries you have written fairly recently. You can tell us a little bit about what it's like to write a commentary, for one thing. A lot of our listeners read them I know, but what's it like to write a commentary? We're gonna start with your two volumes on Isaiah. How did you come to write this? What would you say about Isaiah? Paul House: I came to write it as we often do, when a publisher comes and says, "We need an author for our commentary series. Isaiah's open. We'd like you to do that. Would you be willing?" Many years ago, I agreed to do that. The first assignment was to write a shorter commentary with less scholarship and that sort of thing, and so I began that and then unexpectedly, they got a manuscript that was ideal for that. They asked me to switch, so this changed the direction I was going to do, but I taught the class in Isaiah at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. I began studying and developing and working on these things, and by the time I got to Beeson, I was Associate Dean, as you said, and so it's a lot of mornings getting up, it's being in the study at 6 or 6:30 in the morning to go over the work. Toil on it with joy and sometimes not with joy. Paul House: Writing a commentary ... You've written a commentary, you know it's consistent, ongoing, persevering, correcting your own mistakes kind of work. It's joyous in the sense of what you learn as you go. That's the exciting point so that you can learn things as you go, and then you get to share them with other people. Timothy George: One of the things that I admire about your scholarship ... I would aspire for myself to have this kind of ideal, is that you write for the academy but also for the Church. You're concerned with how this commentary is going to impact the life and ministry of proclaimers of the Gospel, preachers, pastors. When I wrote my commentary on Galatians, I had in front of me an empty little pitcher. I mean, it was a place where you'd put a photograph, but there's no one in there, but it was in my mind the pastor who would be reading this commentary. I was writing for that person. Why is that an important thing for a person like you? Paul House: We want to help our brothers and sisters understand the Word of God and share it, so we want to be a bridge between scholarship and the church. For me, because the assignment came from a Scottish publisher and my daughter and son-in-law live in Scotland and Christianity has been ebbing there, I had in mind helping people like that, pastors and theological students in Scotland and beyond who would be sharing the Gospel with the hope of growth and renewal and with Biblical fidelity. Timothy George: Now this ... You mentioned the Scottish publisher, it's really good friends of ours. A man named William MacKenzie. His wife, his children are involved in this wonderful publishing house called Christian Focus. Say a little bit about them because I think I'm so indebted to what they have done to encourage this kind of Biblical scholarship. Paul House: Yeah, so they have a pretty broad publishing program in that they have this Mentor Series commentaries for pastors and teachers in a serious approach to Scripture in a way that you can preach it and teach it. They also have everything down to books about Christian living, and then they have a pretty impressive line of children's material for Sunday school, Bible clubs, and things like that. They don't dumb things down, but it's a very attractive kind of publication. They've grown over the last 20 years that I've known them to be I think a very helpful and serious publisher. They do a lot, too, of work in Africa that in other countries where the Gospel isn't as well known or they don't have money for resources. It's an impressive group. Timothy George: The MacKenzies are Presbyterians, as a lot of Christians in Scotland historically have been, but they have a kind of evangelical ecumenical brith. They publish Anglicans like Jim Packer, Baptists like you and me, and so I appreciate they have a ministry to the whole Body of Christ. Paul House: Right. I think their question's one my father once asked me when I was going to teach at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. He asked one question, so right? "Are they Bible people?" I think Christian Focus leans toward Bible people for their writers and Bible people in what they're trying to do to build Bible people for the next generation. Timothy George: Absolutely. Now, let's talk a little bit about your work on Isaiah, and we're now in the season of Lent, leading up to Holy Week and the celebration of Jesus' Resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday. There's one passage in Isaiah that's quoted often in The New Testament, and you've given a lot of attention to it. The suffering servant of Isaiah 52-53. How does this passage fit within Isaiah, number one, and then within the whole scope of Scripture? Paul House: Right. Just a bit about Isaiah as a whole. As I studied the book, I noticed the book is shaped in the following way. Isaiah is always moving in from sin to Zion. There's several of these movements in the book, so you'll have this great Zion passage like Chapter 4, and then Chapter 5, you're back to the sin and the muck of things, then the Redemptive Work of God in Isaiah. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Book of Isaiah redeems and takes people to Zion, but as I say, Isaiah is a Gospel book where The New Testament gets the idea of Gospel comes from five Isaiah passages really. Paul House: What is Gospel? It's moving creation from where we are in sin to new creation where sin has no place through God's Redemptive Work, and the key point which He shares with His people, with His servants later on in the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah 52-53 that you mentioned comes in about the fourth of those cycles and it comes as the way of good news in 52:7, then is expressed in 52:13 to 53:12. The suffering servant passage you mentioned is in the context of good news following right up from 52:7. After 53 ends, we're headed to Zion again for a great conclusion in which Jews and Gentiles alike are in Zion in Chapter 56. Paul House: This passage is not an addition to the text as a lot of 19th, 20th Century scholars thought, but right at the heart of God's Redemptive Work, Chapter 42, 49, 50, 52 and 3, so we have these servant passages. The great thing about this passage, it opens up with kings being amazed. Again, plural, peoples, so that the Gospel that is mentioned in 52:7 is reaching the nations, it's one of Isaiah's chief concerns that the good news reach the nations. The kings are astounded and they're not saying anything, but then 53:1 through 53:10a or so, first half of that, you have this witness who says, "Well, we didn't get it. We thought this, we thought that, we didn't get it." Paul House: It actually sounds like the Apostles and the way they tell the story. We were getting this piece and this piece, and then He was crucified and then we had this awful understanding that ... Or misunderstanding that Jesus ... It was all over. Jesus was dead and so forth, but then in the last two verses there, this servant is somehow alive. His days are prolonged after he's been put to death, then he justifies the many and or him. Paul House: Really, this is the pattern of the Gospel, and New Testament writers in part know how to tell the story because of this, but they also cite individual passages on a variety of subject. How Jesus heals people, how Jesus dies for people, how we can learn to suffer fruitfully, the Apostle Peter tells us. All because of Isaiah 53, so it fits the book, it fits Isaiah's purpose, and it fits Biblical theology. It's a marvelous passage. You can't go wrong expounding to your people. You also ... I mean, if you don't know how to preach it, just read it aloud slowly. It'll do people some good, you know? Timothy George: It's a powerful and classic passage of Scripture, and one that has also been controversial as we think about the meaning of The Messiah's redemption death for us. What we sometimes call The Penal Substitutionary Death of Jesus Christ, in so far as there is a heart of that in the Bible. I think it's Isaiah 53, and it's, of course, as we said quoted also in The New Testament, so it isn't only in Isaiah, but that very striking phrase. We saw him stricken, struck by God. Afflicted, pierced for our transgressions, bruised for our inequities. Bearing our chastisement. Whatever you want to call that takes seriously the gravity of sin and the deep provision of God in providing atonement for us. Paul House: Absolutely. I mean, the whole Bible ... Every substitution is a penalty, isn't it? Substitution for sin. We don't think about ... It's not just the animal had to die, but this was an expensive sacrifice for an offer who had to put his hand on the head of the animal and say, "These are my sins, this is what it's cost me and mine to sin." The extraordinary thing in the Bible is that all of these sacrifices roll into one sacrifice, which is Jesus on the Cross, so every guilt offering, every sin offering, every offering, they continue on in the sense that Jesus took them all. They all rolled into Him. Paul House: The extraordinary thing The Book of Hebrews points out is this means atonement has been made permanent, not annual, which would be a great benefit. Most all of us would take our debts forgiven annually if we could get it. It's a marvelous thing, but the bottom line is now there is this one sacrifice, all sin has been taken upon Him, and it is permanent. Once for all, we need no other. Timothy George: That Greek word "Hapax", and "einmalig" in German. It happened once but with continuing, in fact, eternal consequences. Paul House: Yes, for all times past, all times future, all people, all times. Yes. Timothy George: Yeah, wonderful. Well, we could go on and talk about Isaiah. I want to get to Daniel in a minute, but if you're speaking to a pastor or listening to this podcast who is preparing to teach or preach Isaiah, what advice would you give? Paul House: Well, I would say first of all it is a great book to work in and to attempt, and my pattern was through the years as I studied the book and learned things and that's what I would preach individual portions, I think that's how most of us start. If you've not done that, preach the richness of these Messiah texts. Preach an advent, Isaiah 7, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 11. During this time of year, 42, 49, 50, and 53, these are great passages, so you could do worse than preach a series just on those. Paul House: When I wrote the commentary, I was also teaching a home group Bible study of about 15 senior adults, and we worked all the way through the book and so I was writing a handout, an account line that I gave when I was teaching real people all the way through. I have ... I did that and then was writing the commentary. I would say to pastors, as I did a couple of weeks ago to Oklahoma Baptist pastors, start say with something like Chapter 5 to 12 if you want to do a series. It's a section of Isaiah. It's a reasonable length. You're not committing to 14 years of preaching through Isaiah. It's a great place to start, so take a piece of it about like that and I think you'll see the usefulness. Timothy George: Wonderful. Let's switch now to another commentary you've written, and this is in The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary Series, published in this country by Inter-Varsity Press. It's The Book of Daniel. Tell us about Daniel. In your commentary you say that you want to focus on the book's strengths and possibilities. What are the strengths and possibilities of Daniel? Paul House: Well, I think rather than trying to understand the future of judgment or the End Times and things, which I've read often, Daniel is a man of wisdom. That was his job. That was what he was doing, and so I learned I think to grow in wisdom by his example, seeing how, for instance his faith when he was young would lead him to stand in Chapter 1, but in a way that was a win-win situation for the people he was with. I think he had faith fueled by Chapter 2, which is God's Kingdom rising, always rising. You have this image of a statue that's slowly being brought down by a shelf rock slowly penetrating the surface, undermining the feet and bringing the whole thing down. "So though God's Kingdom rise slowly, it is rising inexorably", which helped him I think with patience and hope in a really difficult situation. Paul House: If I read Daniel, I think I need to learn and hope I've learned to grow an intercessory prayer. You read Chapter 9 and he is just pouring out his heart for people that he is sharing suffering with, and I guess to ... In contentious days we live in, I turn to Daniel 4 and see how much he loved his enemy, how much he loved Nebuchadnezzar. He did not wish him ill. He wished him to know The King of Kings, so he ministered to him. There's a lot of other things you can say. The other thing decisive about Daniel if you'll pay attention, he was young in Chapter 1, he's quite old in Chapter 6, so when you see artwork of this young, strong Daniel, you know [crosstalk 00:17:43]- Timothy George: Daniel in the Lion's Den. Paul House: You think of a very old man in the lion's den, who maybe just say, "Well, what have I got to lose?" On the other hand, I think of all the persecuted old people now. I keep a card of Daniel in the Lion's Den of Bernini's statue of it, and it ... I remind myself that there are not just suffering Christians all over the world, but a lot of them are old and what that would be like. He's sustaining his faith all the way to the end and he never gives up, even though he knows he won't go home, and I think that's pretty ... That's what I mean by the possibilities of learning from what this book has to offer. Timothy George: I like that approach. Now, in your opening statement about Daniel, you sort of downplayed a little bit this idea of Daniel with the images and the numbers and the End Times and The Eschatology, which is actually how I first learned Daniel, as Dr. W.A. Criswell used to expound it, and I guess that's still how I think of Daniel to some degree. You're not, of course, denying that Daniel has some Eschatological relevance are you? Paul House: No [crosstalk 00:18:48]- Timothy George: What would you say about that? Paul House: No, I think the problem that I was trying to address was, is that all we're gonna do with Daniel? I think that is part of it, but not the whole of it. As you interpret Daniel, it helps to have some basics down. All these twisted beasts are human rulers who because of their actions, their lack of character, their oppressive nature, they look like some sort of animal in a movie than they do a human ruler, whereas Chapter 7, The Lord's Ruler, The Son of Man, He looks like he's supposed to look. You have twisted beasts. You also have basic things like the symbolic importance of three and seven, so forth. Paul House: One thing a lot of people don't know is you have lots of fours in Daniel, so four kingdoms and four visions and all that sort of thing. That was a standard historical approach in that time, so the idea was the fourth kingdom is the most important one in this series, and if there's something beyond that it's the most important of all. You have four kingdoms in Daniel 2, for instance. Beyond that, what kingdom endures? That's The Kingdom of God, and It endures forever. Beyond these four kingdoms, however important, there's always The Kingdom of God. It ... You can ... The four scheme is a moveable thing. Paul House: Beyond all that lies The Kingdom of God, and God tells Daniel ... After He tells him so much, He tells him, "I won't give you the specific dates and time." What he does learn is he won't live to see the coming of The Kingdom of God on Earth. Chapter 12, "Go rest. You'll be raised from the dead." As I work with senior adults and as I shape into a senior adult now, I know people have all sorts of reasons for wanting Jesus to come again. They may have a ... I've seen a lot of folks ... Their spouse is going into dementia or something. They don't want to watch this. They don't want to see this. They don't want to suffer this. They'd like Jesus to come again. Then they think, "Well, but I have an unbelieving son. Maybe I'm not so sure I want Jesus to come again." Paul House: What they slowly realize is, "I may have to go to my grave before Jesus comes again." Well, I have an example here of hope and a person who stood the test of time in Daniel. I think there's a lot that we can learn to read on the symbolism and that sort of thing, but I think in the end, even if you are able to piece all of that together, what would you find? God saying, "But I won't tell you the end of the matter. You must trust beyond the fourth kingdom comes The Kingdom of God." Timothy George: That's good. Now, let me ask you the same question about Daniel I asked you about Isaiah, and that is, what advice would you give to pastors, preachers? I suppose a lot of people kind of avoid Daniel, and many of the apocalyptic sort of literature in the Bible because it's difficult. It's hard to pin down what exactly is meant by this or that. What advice would you give a pastor, a teacher who has been charged or who has felt led to teach on Daniel? Paul House: Yeah, I would try to find ... First of all, study the book and learn some key dates, because Daniel gives you a series of dates that are in order, so it would help you to know what's going on in Babylon in relationship to Judah. Then I would say, and I did this, I would read the book repeatedly for about two years. I read at least one chapter of Daniel every day going through the book, Chapter 1 to 12, and that shaped my thinking, and then I taught a class at Beeson, so which was kind of ... If I were going to preach it, I might first teach it in a Bible study, a small group. Most pastors have to have three or four preparations a week, and then I would say, "Well, if you just want to get started, I would begin with Chapters 1 to 7." Why add 7? Well, that's the son of man passage, that's the true end of the story, and then Chapter 8 puts Daniel back into history waiting for that result. Timothy George: My guest on The Beeson Podcast today has been Dr. Paul House. He's a friend of longstanding, a dear colleague, a wonderful, wonderful teacher, and also a distinguished scholar of The Lord's Word, especially The Old Testament. He's written a number of books. The Unity of the Twelve, Old Testament Survey, Old Testament Theology, A Commentary on Lamentations and The Word Biblical Commentary, and now these two commentaries we've talked about today, a two-volume commentary on Isaiah from Christian Focus Publications in Scotland and The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary on Daniel from Inter-Varsity Press. I don't want to get off this podcast without mentioning another book you've done that's not a commentary, but I think is a splendid study and every theological student and educator ought to know it called Bonhoeffer's Seminary Vision. Timothy George: Dr. House, you have served The Lord's Church in many wonderful ways, and we're grateful for you for your scholarship, for your ministry, for your friendship. May God bless you. Paul House: Thank you very much. Announcer: You've been listening to The Beeson Podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to The Beeson Podcast at our website, beesondivinty.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of The Beeson Podcast.