The men who endured the fiery test: Erik Schmaltz, Jesse Varnado, Brian McCarty, Chris Roberts, Steve Roberts, Todd Tucker, Nic Francis, Dave Widener, Daniel Ford, David Ford, Evan May, Nick Missios, Kurt Roberts, Aaron Simms.

Well, almost right on schedule – at 6:33am – we dropped the books and I announced our test. Nick Missios immediately said, “I’ve got Evan.” We broke up into 3 groups of 5 and the questions began. The first one was for each group to count 3 points for each man who has kept up to date on the reading (Intro through Chapter 7 as of this morning). A few moans. Next question was for the group to discuss and then choose a group ‘champion’ to go to bat for their definition of “biblical theology”. They got extra points if they could contrast it with ‘historical’ and ‘systematic’ theology. They feverishly discussed for about 4 or 5 minutes refining the answer, writing down key terms and phrases and choosing their ‘champion’ for that question. The champion would have to, at times, spontaneously defend or tighten focus on his answer depending on how much I wanted to badger him. Two groups nailed it. One survived but moved on with a limp. We moved from there to the subject of Canon.

They had to fill in the blank for a quote from Grudem’s chapter. It went like this. “The ________ formed the beginning of the biblical canon.” The answer being Ten Commandments. Two groups missed this.

The next question was about the Apocrypha, asking at what point it was that the Roman Catholic church deemed these books to be part of the Canon. This was multiple choice and the answer was The Council of Trent, 1546. 2 out of 3 got it.

Then, another multiple choice: “Martin Luther was hesitant to accept this book into the Canon.” Everyone got this right, answering James. However, they would get extra credit if they could tell me what made Luther hesitate. They all got the extra points, explaining how Martin Luther was worried about the idea of “justification by works” and how he couldn’t square that with “faith alone.” One team used the Latin phrase (sola fide) in their answer which meant, of course, extra points. To that, Nick Missios predictably used his entire Spanish vocabulary (including numbers, “uno, dos…”) to give his answer. His team did end up getting extra points since they gave Scripture references to correspond to the answer.

From there, we moved into the Authority of Scripture. I asked the groups to give me a working definition of the authority of Scripture. Dave Widener brought game, almost reciting Grudem’s exact words and winning his team maximum points on the question. All the teams did very well on this one.

Next, we asked for a more literal translation of 2 Timothy 3:16 where other translations say that all Scripture is “inspired“. They all got it. The term God-breathed is the most literal and best expression of the broader idea behind the term inspiration. One group even gave the biblical Greek word for God-breathed and, of course, got extra points. Another group tried. It was a near miss. They remembered only the second half of the term. They all got this one right.

Finally, I asked for a ‘champion’ from each group to talk about the term ‘dictation’ and how it relates to the concept of inspiration. And followed up with the question about whether it is appropriate to speak of the ‘dual authorship’ of Scripture. The wording of the question was not all that great, so part of the reason for one group’s stumbling here was my fault. The other two groups were spot on, as the Englishmen like to say.

I think the men were encouraged that our study so far has enabled them to engage in intelligent and informed conversation about some important and in-depth issues related to Systematic Theology, Canon, and the Authority of Scripture.

We’ll have one more test. They know this so they’ll be more prepared. Of course this means I’ll make the next one more difficult. Once again, any Latin and Greek (Spanish won’t count, guys) will simply make things better. One more note: it was really cool to see the guys working through these questions together, refining answers, thinking out loud. At the outset, I banned the establishing of a group-Bible-answer-man, asking them to be quiet if they knew the answer immediately, and make their team “work” for it. As I walked around and listened and snapped a couple of pics, it was tremendously exciting to see our men diving into the deeps with 3 inch textbooks (closed, by the way) on their laps. I’ll post more pics from the morning in the future. Here’s one peek for now, and then on to final scores.

Final scores were as follows:

Team Tucker (Todd, Nic, Dave, Daniel, David) = 79 C+

Team Varnado (Jesse, Erik, Brian, Chris, Steve) = 81 B-

Team Missios/May (Nick, Evan, Kurt, Aaron) = 109 A+

Great work fellas. Study hard. The bar goes higher still.

If you’re up early this morning, pray for our TheoForum II class members. At around 6:30, we’ll be dropping the books and taking a pop quiz to see how much their holding onto as we study the Doctrine of Scripture section of Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

They’ll be in groups so that should help, but all but about half of the questions are essay/oral answers. Should be pretty fun. I actually suspect they’ll do well. Stay tuned for test scores.