I spent most of the day studying for tomorrow’s class, except for when I was with repairmen at the house. One of them was fixing a broken window in my office and started asking me lots of questions about the Bible. I must not be in too isolated of an ivory tower!
Here’s a great quotation that I read today, by Robert H. Gundry in his article on Matthew in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible:
These emphases [of persevering to prove one’s salvation] pose the danger of legalism and need balancing by the doctrine of the indwelling Spirit, through whose life and power alone Jesus’s disciples can fulfill the righteous requirement of the law (Rom. 8:1-4). But it is good to have Matthew’s emphases without that balance; for in some situations to introduce the doctrine of the Spirit quickly is to dull the edge of the demands made on Jesus’s disciples. They might fail to feel the pain caused by the sharp edge of those demands. Only when that pain is felt will the Spirit’s enablement amount to more than a comfortable sanctification open to the incursion of antinomianism (491).
A Dallas student reading that heretic Gundy? Be careful who is watching.
I ran into Gundy a few times when I was in Santa Barbara ’76-’81. He had already been at Westmont since ’61. I had no idea what a important man in his field he was at the time. Almost bought his new commentary on John last month, but it looks a little weird.