An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
Greetings, I’m Fred Zaspel, and welcome to another Author Interview here at Books At a Glance. Today we have three authors who collaborated on a very helpful new book in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series. It’s entitled, Biblical Theology According to the Apostles: How the Earliest Christians Told the Story of Israel. The authors are Chris Bruno, Jared Compton, and Kevin McFadden, and we’re glad to have them with us today.
Chris, Jared, Kevin – welcome, and congratulations on your book!
Zaspel:
First off, so our listeners can identify your voices, each of you introduce yourself – tell us your name, where you teach, and anything else you’d like to mention that may be of interest.
Bruno:
I teach at that time Bethlehem College and Seminary, teaching New Testament and Biblical Theology. I do not know what factoids are interesting about me. I have four sons, and I graduated from high school in 1998 with the other two interviewees.
Compton:
Fred. Thanks for what you do. There’s a ton to read. Too much, perhaps. And you make things seem not so overwhelming. I’m Jared Compton. Until two weeks ago I was a pastor at CrossWay Community Church, Bristol WI. Now—like the dust is still settling—I’m the assistant professor of NT and Greek @ Bethlehem College and Seminary. I’ve been reunited with Chris. (We actually haven’t worked together since we were student council P and VP our senior year of H.S.!
Bruno:
This summer I saw a picture online from 20 years ago this summer when Jared and I did some counseling together at a camp in Hawaii, so it’s actually on the 22 years.
McFadden:
I am a professor of New Testament at Cairn University in Philadelphia, not too far from you Fred.
Zaspel:
We are practically neighbors, and we never see each other.
Zaspel:
I was interested to see in your Preface that you guys have been acquainted for some time, eh?
Bruno:
We went to high school together. We went all the way from kindergarten to high school together and all, and by God’s grace we been able to keep in touch over the years.
Zaspel:
And you’re still friends after all that?!
Did you go separate ways to college and seminary?
Compton:
We ended up going to separate colleges and then to separate doctoral programs. It is interesting that the three of us all earned advanced degrees with the (in our opinion) leading lights of conservative evangelicalism, Chris with Doug Moo, Kevin with Tom Schreiner, and me with Don Carson.
Bruno:
I should say that we dedicate the book to the Patrick Griffiths who was our high school Bible teacher. It is not an accident in God’s providence that God used Pat and his teaching to the set all three of us, along with many others, on a trajectory toward ministry and teaching. We happily dedicate the book to Pat who still pastors to this day in southern Wisconsin. We had a nice time with him. A few weeks ago, we presented him with a copy of the book and thanked him for his influence. We hope that this is an encouragement to all those pastors and teachers out there that as you invest in the lives of your students, you never know how God might use your investment in them.
Zaspel:
So how did this book come about?
Compton:
Well, I’ll take a little bit of credit for it, but not all the credit. I was preparing Gospel lectures when I was teaching at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. And I was noticing how at the beginning of the Gospels, specifically Matthew and Luke, the authors show how the story they’re telling corresponds to—continues– the story just finished in Malachi, the story everybody in first-century Palestine inhabited. And at about the same time I came across an article in CBR (Currents in Biblical Research) by Matthew Emerson and Jason Hood that talked about this genre—they call it a compositional category—called summaries of Israel’s story (SIS). These are places in the biblical and extrabiblical literature that deliberately and explicitly tells Israel’s story.
I remember reading this article and thinking that this thing—this phenomenon—I’d just noticed had a label and, according to the authors of the article, wasn’t receiving a lot of attention. And I thought this is a really important place—kind of text–for understanding how the Bible fits together, for understanding how the testaments relate. And so I came to ETS in 2014 all excited and shared the idea with Chris and Kevin. And that was the genesis of the book. And over the last five years, we’ve been slowly writing it.
Just over a year ago we came together in Kenosha, WI—where I was living—for a grueling weekend to button up the book, wondering throughout, “Is this going to work?” We spent a couple 14-hour days together talking about the chapters, where we were going, and how to structure them, and God gave us a lot of grace to get on the same page–for the most part!
Zaspel:
I hope to narrow this in a minute, but first, when you raise the question, “How did the apostles do Biblical Theology?” what do you mean?
Bruno:
The discipline of biblical theology has become increasingly popular. There has been a resurgence of biblical theology over the last 20-30 years in the evangelical world with all kinds of contributors from Graham Goldsworthy to our PhD supervisors that we mentioned earlier, Greg Beale and many others. Along with that, there is a growing interest in the Old Testament in the New. We were trying to put those two things together to observe that when we talk about biblical theology, usually what we mean is something like how the NT writers trace the story of redemption or trace a theme in redemption, and how they are looking at God’s progressive revelation from Adam or Abraham to Christ to the church.
There are a lot of people who study the use of the Old Testament in the New. But the analogy we use is that it is the underside of an iceberg. When we think of the whole thing as an iceberg underneath, we have these fascinating deep-sea explorations of the use of the Old Testament in the New, but the top side of the iceberg that is coming out from the ocean that is exposed, it is part of the iceberg. That is really the explicit biblical theology of the New Testament writers. We see that in the stories of Israel.
So, we were looking for places where the New Testament writers actually tell the story of Israel. If we define biblical theology as the tracing of God’s progressive revelation throughout redemptive history, then the stories of Israel are places where that is clear. They are retelling the progressive story of Israel in different ways, yes, but there is a consistency to them on the way they trace out usually from Abraham or some aspect of the patriarchs all the way up to Christ.
Compton:
One of the things that we can trace is how the early Christians understood Israel’s story to find what they assume, e. g., the covenantal structure. They assume the story climaxes in Jesus and continues in the church. If we can find these assumptions, this will go a long way toward establishing a solid foundation for our own biblical-theological understanding. These assumptions create guardrails or, as we put it, “a rule of faith” for the way we Christians can and, we think, should read the Old Testament.
Zaspel:
What, then, is the contribution you hope to make? There are lots of books on Biblical Theology now, and they differ widely – situate yours in all this for us.
McFadden:
The book draws together every single place in the New Testament where the New Testament authors tell the full story of Israel in the Old Testament. Between two covers, we have looked at each one of these summaries of Israel’s story in the New Testament and then tried to draw out the contributions and compared and contrasted them.
Bruno:
It also helps see the way biblical theology can be done both consistently and contextually. So, there is a consistency as we look at Matthew’s Gospel and then Luke-Acts, and in Paul’s writings in Galatians and Romans, and particularly in Hebrews, we see consistency in the midst of four different authors. But in the midst of that consistency in that the story of Israel climaxes in Christ continues in the church will be consummated in the new creation. That is our use of the three C’s.
In the midst of that consistency, there is also what we might say contextualization. That is, they tell the story in a way that makes sense to their particular argument that is directly pointed at their particular audience and then leaves their audience by making a pastoral application. As we think about doing biblical theology ourselves, following the pattern of the apostles, there is going to be consistency to the way we tell the story of Israel. We will hit some of the same high notes, but we also must think about how to apply that story to invite our people into that story in such a way that makes sense for them.
Compton:
There’s a mountain of literature on the relationship between the testaments—too much to read. None of it, as far as we could see, takes its cues from this genre—from the SISs in the NT—from the places in the NT which straightforwardly answer tell us how the NT understands—tells—Israel’s story. That’s a huge lacuna in scholarship.
Zaspel:
Give us a quick, birds-eye-view kind of overview so our listeners can know how you go about your work, and then I’ll ask you for some specific samples.
Bruno:
Each chapter has a consistent structure when we look at the context of the summary of Israel’s story and focus on the content of it. We ask briefly at the end of the chapter, “What’s the contribution to biblical theology?” We start the book with an introduction to the summaries of Israel’s story.
We have a chapter on Matthew, specifically on the genealogy in Matthew 1 and then the parable of the tenants. We have a chapter on Luke-Acts, specifically Stephen’s speech and then Paul’s sermon at the city Antioch. We have a chapter on Galatians 3-4, and Paul’s wrestling with the law in Israel’s story. We have a chapter on Romans 9-11. Then our final chapter is on Hebrews 11. In the conclusion, we try to draw together all the contributions to see if there are any points of consistency.
Zaspel:
You mention that the NT writers pick up Israel’s story in various ways, both directly and allusively. Explain that for us, perhaps with some samples.
Bruno:
In Matthew’s Gospel, at the beginning is a well-known genealogy going from Abraham to David to Christ. Some people do not think that is a story—it is just a list of names, but Matthew has shaped that genealogy. It is well-known that he leaves some names out, and he doubles up in the middle with a 14, 14, 14 sequence of 3, 14 generation segments. What is he doing with that? Some of the conclusions we landed on are that from Abraham to David, there is a kind of an upward trajectory, from David to the exile, there is a downward trajectory, from exile to Christ, there is a holding pattern.
Then later in Matthew’s Gospel, the parable of the tenants is an allusive story. You have allusions to Isaiah 5 in the vineyard that is Israel. And then the father going away, leaving them to judgments, and then the son returns together in the harvest and what happens to the son? He is put to death. We have the stone that the builders rejected as the head of the corner. Again, there is a lot of detail, but we see the same climax in both of those stories—it is Christ who is then rejected by the people but vindicated.
In Luke’s gospel, we see the same story in the same that shows up in Galatians, we see the same climax in Romans, we see the same climax so that they are telling the story in these different ways: sometimes with just a list of Old Testament names; sometimes with a kind of allusive story; sometimes with no detailed exegesis. They are all hitting the same high notes, although in different ways.
Compton:
Perhaps we should explain our criteria for what counts as a summary of Israel’s story.
McFadden:
It is a summary of Israel’s story is that is a short form of the rewritten Bible. Next, the short version of that is that it tells the plot line and the characters of Israel’s story in order and at some substantial length, and we have a more specific definition in the book.
Zaspel:
Okay, give us a sampling of how the NT writers tell the story of Israel and how it ties to Jesus.
Compton:
Hebrews tells Israel’s story all over the place. But—and other’s looking at the genre of SIS make this same point—Hebrews 11 is unique. It’s a pretty full telling of Israel’s story—in fact, the story extends even beyond the canonical period. At least that’s the way we read some of the hero-stories in vv. 35 and following. And in telling us Israel’s story we learn how the author of Hebrews—an apostolic associate who’ll remain unnamed—understood that story. We learn things as seemingly pedestrian as the fact that Rahab was an exemplary character and Samson too. But we also learn more profound things like the fact that the AH read God’s land-promise as something that will be fulfilled in another world—in a better, heavenly, God-built city that will come only after the present creation—heavens and earth—are shaken and removed. We also learn—and this one’s a bit more subtle—that the AH understood that only resurrected people would enter this heavenly city. That’s pretty interesting. And it has far-reaching implications for how we understand the OT. Canaan, e.g., the place to which Abraham emigrated cannot be the true, promised land. After all, it’s earthly; it’s part of this creation. What’s more only perfected—fully perfected people can enter the promised land, which is to say, only those with mortality-free bodies can enter it.
Zaspel:
How does Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 convey and apply Israel’s story?
McFadden:
One thing we noticed in Acts 7 is that there seems to be a kind of covenantal substructure. Though there is a story that seems to be told along the major covenants in Israel’s history which is explained. He highlights certain aspects of the story in Acts 7. Another thing we noticed in Acts 7 is that there is a lot of prefiguring of Jesus. That is not unique, of course; others have noticed this as well. But Moses, for example, the rejection of Moses prefigures the rejection of Christ, and so on.
Bruno:
Along with that, just add to that is that it is not simply the rejection of lawlessness of Joseph or for that matter, Stephen. But there is also the rejection and subsequent vindication that is picking up on a pattern that is highlighted and is retelling how Joseph was rejected but vindicated. Moses was rejected but vindicated. This pattern culminates in the righteous one who is rejected and vindicated. But then, we see in Hebrews the way that the church’s story continues the story of Israel, and that we have the same hope—we have the same expectation.
In Acts 7, the church’s story continues Israel story, and that whereas we see these pre-configurations of Christ in the Old Testament, we might say it is Paul as well in Acts 13. We who are united to Christ will then walk in his steps and will follow that same pattern. So, there is a consistency with the Old Testament in Christ and in the New Testament church. Acts 7 fits within that pattern well.
Zaspel:
What do you mean when you say we should read Israel’s story both backwards and forwards?
Bruno:
We are trying to chart a middle course between various positions. There between those would say that the gospel is entirely in the Old Testament and in that we do not even need the New Testament in a sense, for those who would say the New Testament authors had totally reread the Old Testament, we are totally reading backwards. We would say as we looked at all these summaries in Israel’s story. It seems that it is true. They are reading backwards from the coming of Christ but also reading forwards, looking and seeing to what was genuinely prophetic, and you proclaim the gospel.
Zaspel:
Yet it was in anticipation built into the Old Testament narrative.
Bruno:
Exactly, Christ is always there. But it is not clear to the people of God exactly how to use it until the light is shown back on it.
Compton:
D. A. Carson puts all this in another way in a chapter in Justification and Variegated Nomism. He talks about things being ‘hidden in plain sight’ in the OT, only able to be seen once salvation history had progressed.
Zaspel:
In brief, then, how did the apostles do Biblical Theology?
Compton:
These summaries instruct us about the climax of the glory with Christ, the continuation of the story in the church, and the conclusion of the story in the new creation.
Zaspel:
I’ve often said that in expository preaching we ought not only to handle each verse and passage in its immediate context; we ought also to tie each passage to the larger biblical context in order to convey the Bible’s “big picture” to our hearers. This book will be a great help to that end while preaching through these NT books and passages. It’s really an excellent work.
Again, the title is Biblical Theology According to the Apostles: How the Earliest Christians Told the Story of Israel, and the authors are Chris Bruno, Jared Compton, and Kevin McFadden.
Chris, Jared, Kevin – thanks so much for your good study and for talking to us today.
All:
Thank you so much, Fred; we appreciate the opportunity!
