David Instone-Brewer, Church Doctrine and the Bible: Theology in Ancient Context. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020.
David Instone-Brewer is a Baptist minister and has a PhD from Cambridge. His expertise is in the Rabbinic background of the New Testament.
This book is a collection of short essays on theology. Instone-Brewer divides the theological topics into three parts: doctrines that divide, doctrines that confuse, and doctrines that matter. The categories are arbitrary and, of course, controversial. He does have his stance on all these topics. “Divide”, “confuse”, and “matter” are how others conceive these topics. For example, churches are divided on baptism, confused on original sin, and the doctrine of the Trinity does matter. One can shuffle the topics into other categories, and the result may probably be the same.
He begins by pointing out that the discipline of biblical studies is different from theology. Biblical studies focus more on the text, whereas theology focuses more on the development of how ideas have been conceived. And he argues to allow knowledge of the original context of Scripture to inform the doctrine, which he attempts to do in every essay.
For some reason, I am always interested in the topic of the Rapture. He mentions an episode that he experienced: “In 1981, for example, the tenth nation joined the European Union – a thrilling match to the number of horns on Revelation’s beast (Rev 17:12).” I still remember this event, and I thought the End of the World would come immediately. Of course, the End did not come then. People then begin searching for new candidates, and published new books and now, YouTube videos. The 神棍 always makes sensational “prophecies” to make money, without studying the context and the background of the text. I think prophecy is more about promise than prediction, more about comfort than fear, unlike the modern day self-proclaimed prophets.
I find his essays on original sin and hell are interesting. And the topics in the section of Doctrines that Matter are excellent. The topics there are selected based on the sermons in Acts.
These days, YouTubers become prophets and theologians. Sensational videos replace sensible and serious work in theology. Woe to those who are addicted to YouTube sensational “prophets.”