New Perspective or Just Another Distortion

posted by Kirk M. Wellum @ http://redeemingthetime.blogspot.com/

The so-called New Perspective on Paul is a pernicious misreading of the Bible that needs so be debunked once for all. Those who have imbibed this error tend to carry on as though they have discovered some new truth and has evaded the Christian church for thousands of years, or at least from the time of Luther. They carry on as if the Holy Spirit has led so many of God's people in the wrong direction and blessed the preaching of justification by grace through faith alone in spite of it being a misrepresentation of Paul. The fact of that matter is that the Holy Spirit has not blessed the preaching of the New Perspective in any kind of revival. It is a doctrine that has emerged out of liberal theological institutions and from the writings of men whose on standing in the gospel and possession of the Holy Spirit is questionable based on their stubborn refusal to hold to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Closely tied to the New Perspective on Paul is a New Hermeneutic which does not interpret Scripture by Scripture but instead pursues novel understandings of the biblical text based on extra-biblical documents which they use as a grid and through which they read the Bible. In practice, this is the same error as the traditional Roman Catholic insistence putting the official teachings of the church on a par with the Scriptures. Or Islam, when it regards the Koran as a revelation of God alongside the Bible. Or the Mormons, or any other cult, who puts the writings of their founder on a par with Scripture. The New Perspective with its New Hermeneutic elevates ancient extra-biblical writings too high when they use them to re-interpret the Bible in ways that are not consistent with interpretations that are derived from the Old and New Testaments alone. The end result is the tyranny of a new priesthood of academic specialists who claim to know what the Bible really teaches based on their understanding of 2nd Temple Judaism. My own conviction is that this re-interpretation for all of its scholarly bravado will prove to be far too simplistic in the end. The Bible is more profound than unbelieving scholars realize and more than they are equipped to handle no matter how intelligent they might be.

All of this to say... that I came across a very helpful article by John Piper on Jesus, Islam, Pharisees and the New Perspective on Paul . It is definitely worth reading and taking to heart.