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Hello. I just have a few questions. Could you define Biblical Theology for me? Does OPC teach Biblical Theology? I don't know if the following question makes sense, but, here it goes. I have heard sermons (I guess you can say in a Biblical Theological way). In most cases, however, applications are usually not mentioned. If they are, it's minimal. In contrast, evangelicals preach with applications, examples, and so forth. Do you feel that this is a "watered-down" preaching or is it entirely wrong for preachers to add those in to a sermon?
Since you're asking what I think, I can tell you:
The term Biblical Theology is used in a couple of ways. The best definition and that one that has most affected the OPC is found in the Preface of Biblical Theology, Old and New Testaments, by Geerhardus Vos.
"Biblical Theology occupies a position between Exegesis and Systematic Theology in the encyclopedia of theological disciplines. It differs from Systematic Theology not in being more Biblical, or adhering more closely to the truths of Scripture, but in that its principle of organizing the Biblical material is historical rather than logical. Whereas Systematic Theology takes the Bible as completed whole and endeavors to exhibit its total teaching in an orderly, systematic form, Biblical Theology deals with the material from the historical standpoint, seeking to exhibit the organic growth or development of the truths of Special Revelation from the primitive preredemptive Special Revelation given in Eden to the close of the New Testament canon."
Biblical theology, in this sense, refers to a science for the study of Scripture. In other words, it helps us to look at a particular passage in its historical context in the history of revelation. For instance, we do not read justification by faith alone as it is completely unpacked by Paul in Romans 4 back into Genesis 15:6, when we read, "Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness." Certainly the seeds of what Paul would call justification were known to Abraham but nothing like what would be understood after the law and the sacrifices and prophets and finally the revelation of Jesus. Biblical theology helps us to see how God expanded on and caused His revelation to grow in the Old Testament until it reached its climax in the fullness of the revelation of Jesus.
Although, as you can see from that definition, Biblical Theology is actually a science for studying the scripture, sometimes the term is used to refer to a particular preaching style. Sometimes the preaching style is also called Redemptive Historical. There are several approaches to preaching represented in the OPC. There are those who preach topically, in which their sermon focuses on a topic or doctrine rather than a particular passage of Scripture. Then there are those who focus on a particular passage in their sermons. Some arrange their sermon around a theme in the text and look at the text in a systematic or analytical way. Then there are those who preach Redemptive Historically, arranging their sermon around its historical context and internal development.
The analytical approach to the text is going to lend itself to application that is also analytic. The passage is going to be shown to instruct us in one thing or several things we must believe or things we must do. This may be the sort of sermons that you are most familiar with. The application of a redemptive historical sermon, on the other hand, is quite different. It should show the believer what they already have been made in Christ (a new creation), what Christ has done for them (by virtue of their union with Him) and therefore what they should believe or how they should behave (because they are being renewed in the image of God, in Christ).
While the application of a redemptive historical sermon may sound different, as might the whole style of the sermon, from an analytic approach, there should be application in the sense that I have described. The OPC does call the minister to apply the Word of God in his sermon. Here is, in part, what our Directory for Worship 3.3 says:
A text may not be used merely to introduce a sermon but must be painstakingly expounded. In the sermon the minister should explain the Word of God for the instruction of his hearers and then apply it for their exhortation. Care should be taken in preaching that Christian duty be not divorced from Christian truth. That minister fails to perform his task as a God appointed watchman on Zion's walls who neglects to warn the congregation of prevalent soul destroying teachings by enemies of the gospel.
This is not, as you can see, the sort of thing that you are able to find in very many "evangelical" churches.
While every minister in the OPC is carefully examined and tested, we are men of varying abilities. Not every minister is as able to preach as well as another and not every sermon that is preached by the same man is as good as another (how we wish they were). Your problems, therefore, may have to do more with a particular man's abilities within his style and type of preaching than they do with his particular approach.
"Questions and Answers" is a weekly feature of the OPC website. The answers come from individual ministers in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church expressing their own convictions and do not necessarily represent an "official" position of the Church, especially in areas where the Standards of the Church (the Scriptures and the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms) are silent.
The questions come from individuals like yourself. If you have questions about biblical and theological matters, you are invited to send them by e-mail by using the "Pose a Question" link on the OPC home page or by clicking here.
At least one new question is posted each week, so there should always be something new here for you to read. (For those people who would like to look at previous questions and answers, they will continue to be available as well.)
The purpose of the OPC website's "Questions and Answers" is to respond to biblical and theological questions. Matters of church discipline, disputes, or debates go beyond the scope of our work. We recommend that you present your concerns in these areas to the appropriate judicatory. In most cases this will be to a local pastor, elder, or session. We do not want the website to replace personal involvement in, or commitment to, the local, visible church.
While we will respond to every serious questioner, we are not bound to give a substantive answer to every question, should we deem the question to be beyond the scope of our purpose or our own ability to answer.
You will receive an answer by e-mail. Please be patient as many of our respondents are busy pastors. The response to your question may take up to two (2) weeks. Some of the questions submitted will be chosen to be posted here, along with the corresponding answers.
Note that the "Questions and Answers" posted on the site have been editedall personal references are removed, Scripture references or from some source may be added, and sometimes portions are expandedto make the questions and answers more useful to a larger audience.
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Chaplains and Military Personnel


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Posted by Editoress on 01/13/12
The Tour de l'Abitibi organizers have announced that they will no longer be a part of the Nations Cup international series for Junior men. Abitibi, which will celebrate its 44th edition in 2012, takes place in the in Rouyn-Noranda region of northern Québec, and has long been considered the premier stage race for Junior men in North America. This year, it will take place from July 16th to 22nd. The race will still retain an international sanction.
The UCI decided in 2008 that the Nations Cup would be open to national squads, but gave Abitibi permission to continue to invite smaller, regional teams (often provincial and composite teams). However, the UCI will no longer make that exception for the race, so organizers decided to forego the Nations Cup status, and continue to foster local rider development. With its international sanction, Abitibi can still accept national squads.
"It is with pride and conviction that the board of directors of the Tour has decided to continue its mission to promote the development of young riders, rather than continue to hold the title of the Nations Cup," said the organizers in a statement.
The President of the Tour de l'Abitibi, Suzanne Fortin, told the local newspaper Abitibi Express that "The Tour de l'Abitibi should remain an event where the international elite meet, but it must also remain focused on the development of young riders from regional clubs."
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subset: commoncrawl


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Mint salsa verde
THIS weekend being Easter, many Americans will sit down to a Sunday dinner of roast lamb. And that will be the last time they try the meat until the same time next year.
Lamb is to this holiday what turkey once was to Thanksgiving, something served once a year and, for many, eaten more for ceremony than for pleasure.
This isn't idle speculation; I've got statistics to back me up. Americans' annual per capita consumption of lamb stands at four-fifths of a pound. Because a 5-pound leg will serve about eight people, that works out to about a dinner a year, give or take a sandwich the next day.
But if it is prepared the right way, what a dinner that will be. There is no roast better than a leg of lamb -- golden brown skin, moist pink flesh. The flavor is a compelling blend of something like beef but with a distinctive, gamy note thrown in. The aroma is entrancing.
What's more, lamb marries so well with so many other flavors: Garlic seems to become sweeter when cooked with it and black olives meatier. Lamb wears capers like diamonds and the perfume of fresh herbs like some beautiful women wear Chanel No. 5.
This is the thing that has always puzzled me: Why is it that one of the most flavorful meats you can buy is so often ignored? If we have embraced turkey as a year-round ingredient, can't we do the same for lamb?
The reason more Americans don't love lamb, I have come to believe, is that most of the time that Easter leg is roasted wrong. That's not just the fault of the cooks involved, but also of many of the recipes they follow.
The problem is pretty simple: Most recipes call for leg of lamb to be served underdone. Thumb through your library -- you'll find cookbooks calling for a leg of lamb to be served at 120, 115 and even 110 degrees.
This, in my opinion, is horrible advice. Leg of lamb at these temperatures is stringy in texture, even gristly. To be at its best, lamb needs to be cooked to the high end of the medium-rare scale, even to low medium. That means temperatures from 130 to 135 degrees.
That may sound heretical -- somehow we've come to associate bloody meat with true gourmandism -- but give it a try.
The language of done-ness is notoriously vague -- one person's medium rare is another's nearly raw. So let's be explicit: When leg of lamb is cooked to around 130 degrees, the meat is still pink and moist but the stringy tendons have begun to melt and the spongy flesh has begun to firm.
So if this temperature works so well, why do recipes recommend lower ones? It's probably a combination of several factors.
First, in the United States, lamb had for years traditionally been over-, rather than undercooked, which is even worse. In reaction to decades of Grandma's gray, dried-out lamb (well-done in name only), cookbook authors (and therefore cooks) have more recently gone to the opposite extreme.
There might be anatomical confusion as well. Lamb chops are often served rare to medium rare, so it might seem like a good idea to do the same with the leg. But that's ignoring the differences between the two cuts.
Chops come from the loin muscle, which gets very little exercise and is naturally tender. Legs are heavily worked, even in lambs, and so they are full of fibrous muscles and connective tissues that need to be cooked to a higher temperature to become palatable.
Finally, there just might be some confusion about what exactly is meant by "lamb." Of course it means a young sheep, but just how young?
Especially around Easter, when people talk about lamb, they're often thinking of newborn or milk-fed lamb, the kind that is sometimes called spring lamb. These are only weeks old. They have very fine flesh (and very mild flavor), and they need to be cooked extremely pink -- to medium rare at the very most -- to avoid drying out.
A rare find
BUT spring lamb is very hard to find these days, particularly in the United States. In fact, unless you've got a connection in the wool or sheep's milk cheese business, you'll probably never see it. I have a friend in Northern California who has a friend who has a friend who ... well, anyway, he is able to get one spring lamb a year.
The loin chops are about the size of a silver dollar, and they are absolutely delicious grilled very quickly over hardwood.
The lamb the rest of us get can be as much as a year old. Different countries have different methods for determining the exact maturity. In the United States, inspectors check the degree of calcification in the knee; in New Zealand, where a rapidly increasing percentage of our lamb comes from, they count the number of adult incisors.
This isn't a lesser lamb. In fact, it has a more fully developed flavor than spring lamb. But it is lamb that has been around the block a time or two, at least enough to acquire fully developed leg muscles, which require a little more cooking.
Beyond the lamb stage, sheep mature first into hogget -- essentially 1 to 2 years old -- and then to mutton. These animals can also be fine eating, but in the United States they are just as hard to find as spring lamb.
In the U.S., the choices are much more limited -- basically, where the lamb was grown and whether you want that leg on the bone.
Most of the lamb we buy comes from either Colorado or Australia and New Zealand. And more and more of it is coming from the latter. Imported lamb from New Zealand and Australia makes up more than 40% of what we eat. In fact, even though California is the second-leading lamb-producing state in the country, finding local lamb can be tough (Superior Farms, the largest producer in the state, says its meat is available at Smart & Final and Wal-Mart).
Bristol Farms, which has always sold domestic lamb, says it probably will switch to New Zealand meat in the near future. Its biggest competitor, Whole Foods, is already selling it.
"We've been selling domestic lamb since I've been with the company, that's going on 17 years, and changing is not something we do lightly," says Bristol's senior meat manager Pete Davis. "But we've done extensive testing, including blind taste tests, and the New Zealand lamb always won. So we're probably going to switch in the next couple of months."
The imported lamb is also cheaper.
Indeed, New Zealand lamb is one of the more interesting success stories in global agriculture. Just 20 years ago, the lamb industry there was in the pits. The meat wasn't much good, and there was way too much of it to get a decent price.
What turned things around, according to a recent paper by two Iowa State University agricultural economists, was the lifting of government subsidies that underwrote much of the cost of sheep farming.
Without subsidies, the size of New Zealand's sheep herd shrunk dramatically. (Relatively speaking anyway: There are now 10 sheep per person in New Zealand, whereas in 1982 there were 20.) The smaller individual herds were concentrated onto only the best pastures, and meat quality rather than quantity became the producers' prime focus.
In 2005, the U.S. imported more than 180 million pounds of lamb and sheep, 99% of that from Australia and New Zealand. That's almost half of all the lamb we eat -- as compared with only a little more than 10% in 1990. Even Superior Farms has a subsidiary called Country Meadow that imports Australian lamb.
Lamb, American style
AUStralian and New Zealand lamb tends to be smaller than American lamb. The American Lamb Council brags that domestic rib chops are 38% bigger than imported chops. American lamb also seems to be more variable in flavor; whereas New Zealand and Australian lamb is fed entirely on grass, much American lamb is finished on grain, which gives the meat a milder taste.
Other than that, your only choice in lamb will be whether you want the leg whole or with the bone removed and tied into a roll. Either can be roasted, and they can be used interchangeably in recipes except for a slight difference in timing. Because the bone conducts heat, the boneless roast will take slightly longer to cook.
For most roasts, I prefer to leave the bone in, strictly for appearance's sake (though boneless legs, untied and opened flat, are superlative for grilling as they offer so much surface area to sear a good crust).
If you're roasting with the bone in, look for legs that have had the hip bone removed for easier carving (as is automatically done at some markets), or have the butcher remove it. For a nicer presentation, I also "french" the shank -- that is, remove the last 1 1/2 to 2 inches of meat all the way around the bone. A butcher can also do this.
Roasting a leg is about as simple as good cooking can get. Season it liberally with salt and pepper. Rub it with olive oil. Brown it in a 450-degree oven for 20 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 325 to let it cook through to an interior temperature of 130 degrees. Let it rest so the juices can redistribute and then serve.
Roasted this way, a leg of lamb is a majestic piece of meat. Anything else you do to it is an elaboration -- not that that would be a bad thing, necessarily.
Pot roasting is usually quite distinct from oven roasting -- it normally means cooking a big piece of meat in a covered pot until it's falling apart. But you can make a delicious roast by braising the leg only briefly on a garlicky bed of fennel and potatoes before removing the lid to finish cooking. This way, the perfume of the vegetables penetrates the meat quickly, but you still get the nice brown crust of a roast.
With either type of roast, you might like a sauce. You can make a simple jus while the lamb is resting by pouring off most of the fat from the roasting pan, sizzling some shallots in what is left and deglazing with red wine. Taste, and if the wine is too intense, dilute it with a little water.
Or make a mint sauce. I really like this adaptation from British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's upcoming "The River Cottage Meat Book." Shake up chopped mint and minced shallot in vinegar and thicken it with yogurt. It's about as far from the stereotypical super-sweet English mint jelly as you can get -- there's just enough sugar to take the edge off of the acidity.
Italian salsa verde is usually made with a mixture of parsley and basil, but for serving with lamb, make it with parsley and mint. This is an exuberant sauce, like a very gutsy pesto, super-charged with pounded anchovies and capers.
On the other hand, maybe you don't want a sauce. One of the best lamb roasts I've made recently was served without one. The twist was that before roasting, I studded the leg with pieces of anchovy, sprigs of rosemary and splinters of garlic.
The effect was a little disconcerting at first; the regular tufts of herbs sprouting from the skin made the lamb look a little like it had just gotten a hair transplant. But during the roasting the anchovies and garlic melted into the meat, giving it a rich savor.
Even if the right approach to roast lamb wins over more Americans, we'd have to do a lot to catch up to New Zealanders -- they eat more than 50 pounds of lamb per person every year.
But at the very least, maybe we can get out of our only-on-Easter rut.
Pound the garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle to a smooth paste. Chop the anchovies (if using salted anchovies, first rinse them under cool running water and pat them dry). Add the anchovies and capers to the garlic and pound to a paste. Add the parsley and mint and pound until you have a slightly coarse paste. Stir in the vinegar.
Stirring with the pestle, slowly pour in the olive oil so it makes a fairly smooth paste, like pesto. After you've added one-half cup, begin tasting the sauce and stop when you like the texture and flavor.
Alternatively, puree the garlic, salt, anchovies (if using salted anchovies, first rinse them under cool running water and pat dry), capers, parsley, mint and vinegar in a blender. With the machine running, slowly add the olive oil. After you've added one-half cup, begin tasting the sauce and stop when you like the texture and flavor.
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