Deeper Waters Podcast 6/23/2018: Danny Akin

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Running a seminary is hard work I am sure, and yet you want to go out and inform the church at the same time as well as your students. There are so many topics that one can write about. You look over all of them and you have to decide what matters so much to you. Is there a topic that is near and dear to your heart that you can share about?

My guest this Saturday who is a seminary president will be with me for an hour and he has written a book on such a topic. What did he choose? Sex. What else? He has a great love for the book of the Song of Songs and for building up marriages today.

He will be with me this Saturday to talk about this work. His name is Danny Akin and he is the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His book is God On Sex.

So who is he really?

According to his bio:

Dr. Akin is married to Charlotte Akin.

They have been married since May 27, 1978.  

They have four sons who all currently serve in the ministry.  He has 3 daughters-in-law and 12 grandchildren!

 

Dr. Akin currently serves as the President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a Professor of Preaching and Theology.

 

Dr. Akin and his wife Charlotte have traveled to Sudan, Turkey, Middle East, Kenya, Asia, Central Asia, Thailand, India and Paraguay serving our students and missionaries and helping share the gospel.

We’ll be talking about his work and how it is meant to help marriages and help our cultural wars. For instance, is there any real danger to living together before marriage or having sex before marriage? Does sex really play a difference in marriage or is this some kind of add-on that is really not needed?

What does a book of the Bible have to say about this? What can we get out of the Song of Songs that we might be missing? Some couples might want to spark things up somehow in the bedroom and get things more exciting, but does that really matter? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about things like the Gospel instead of how to have a really good time with our spouses in the bedroom?

Readers know that it’s been a stance of mine that the church needs to be doing marriage well. The reason I contend that the world is not treating marriage like it’s sacred is that the church did it first. I try to read many books on the topics of sex and marriage to try to learn as much as I can to be doing the best that I can do.

I hope you’ll be listening to this show as I am thankful to Dr. Akin for taking his time to be on the podcast to talk about this topic. Please be watching your podcast feed for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. If you haven’t, go on iTunes and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

SEBTS Denied

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’d like to take a look again at what has been going on in the controversy between Norman Geisler and my father-in-law, Mike Licona. (Yes. I am aware of a possible bias, hence I state it upfront) Though it has not been as widely discussed, Geisler has put up a letter stating why he is not meeting with SEBTS per Licona’s suggestion to have a round table discussion. A link will be at the end of the post.

To begin with, we are told that Geisler has interacted with Licona’s views, but how has this been done? Sure, there have been open letters, but would not face-to-face discussion before a panel of experts count as a better medium to discuss something? Furthermore, several of us have interacted with Geisler’s arguments and found them lacking, even though many of us disagree with Licona’s interpretation. As I have stated, I have no firm opinion on the matter. I am open, but I would want to examine the case closer.

The second is that the issue has been spoken of in two books that will turn out shortly. Now that’s fine to be releasing books on the issue, but if you’re going to do so, then surely one should be willing to face someone who you think disagrees with your view being presented in the book.

If the idea will stand up to scrutiny, then it will be fine and the books will further demonstrate that. If they do not stand up to scrutiny, then the books will only prove to be at best superfluous, at worst, monuments to an idea that could not stand up under scrutiny.

The third is that many Seminaries have spoken on this matter. Indeed they have, but what reasons have they stated? This is simply being an appeal to authority again which is what we have seen going on. We have seen ICBI and ETS pointed to again and again. Geisler has said that as a framer, he knows that Licona’s view was in mind. Well it looks like Moreland and Yamauchi who signed the document as well did not think Licona’s view was in mind. Geisler cannot speak as if he alone knows what was meant and Yamauchi and Moreland do not.

In fact, it seems that’s been something in all of this. Geisler knows what Matthew meant and Licona has it wrong. He knows what ETS and ICBI meant and thus Licona is wrong. What we are not seeing is the arguments that need to be there.

Keep in mind also that ICBI and ETS are not infallible groups. This is especially revealing since it seems ETS is not always as pleasing to Geisler as he’d like. ETS was right when they went against Gundry we are told. They were wrong when they went with Pinnock. They did not take as firm a stance on Inerrancy as they should. However, in this case, we are only to listen to the fact that they were supposedly right on Gundry. In other words, ignore those times they made a bad judgment. It just has the appearance that the reason they are used is because they could be seen as agreeing with Geisler.

As for ICBI, was it really composed of 300 scholars? Going through the list, as my ministry partner is doing at the moment, turns up a number of pastors and others who cannot really be found to have something substantial to them on Google. Very few have the qualifications to address Licona’s work.

Geisler says SEBTS should issue a statement on the matter. That would be fine. But what difference would it make? SEBTS comes out against Licona let’s suppose. Well what will that mean? It will mean they have, but it will not mean Licona is wrong. You can be sure it’d be sounded as a victory.

Let’s suppose however that SEBTS comes out in favor of Licona. What will that mean? Well they would be seen as suspect. Then would come the time to examine the reasons for why they are saying his view is not in conflict with Inerrancy.

Now there’s an idea. Examining the reasons. That’s the kind of thing that can be done at a round table discussion. Unfortunately, the option of meeting in discussion has been turned down. From this point on it would seem that nothing can be said against Licona for when Geisler speaks out it can be said “Well he offered to meet with you and discuss it and you said no.”

While at the start, I believe Geisler did what he did to further show the strength of ICBI, it has done the opposite. Its weakness has been shown. If someone like Licona can be said to be denying Inerrancy, then the statement needs to be amended. Note I am not saying we need to drop Inerrancy. Not at all. We need to have more there however concerning genre interpretation and the role of extra-biblical sources on interpretation.

That will be the work of this generation of scholarly apologists and will continue to be worked on by upcoming generations. We dare not throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one.

Geisler’s letter can be found on the front page of his website here:

http://normangeisler.net/index.htm