New Resources Help You See God by Connecting Scripture (with Ben Gladd)

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0:00:00 – (Collin Hansen): How can we show continuity? And the answer would be just try to use the same words when possible. Try, just make that extra effort right there. Try to line up these texts as best you can. Even though it’s not going to be done perfectly, just try to do it. And it’s going to help the reader so much. Because honestly, when we do this, you feel the rub, I feel the rub. It’s very disconcerting.

0:00:41 – (Benjamin Gladd): Different preachers get excited about different aspects of the sermon. Some will collect and deploy excellent illustrations. Others just nail the application week after week. And others are just so gifted at being able to really reach your heart. What really fires me up are the connections between the Old and New Testaments, the way God’s plan of redemption unfolds in familiar and new ways from Genesis to Revelation.

0:01:09 – (Benjamin Gladd): So, you know, I’d be excited about an excellent new resource, the CSB Connecting Scripture New Testament, edited by G.K. beale and Benjamin Gleb. This study Bible includes a robust cross reference system that will help you see Old Testament quotations, allusions and parallels within the New Testament. So you can see all 66 books as a unified story from God. You’ll also find book introductions, study note, commentary, articles, charts and infographics.

0:01:39 – (Benjamin Gladd): I’m joined now on Gospel Bound by Benjamin. Glad to delight in these connections or maybe also in some ways, where to tamp down my enthusiasm. Ben, thanks for joining me.

0:01:50 – (Collin Hansen): Hey, it’s so good to be here. Colin, thanks for having me on.

0:01:53 – (Benjamin Gladd): Well, in addition, Ben, to all of the many, many books and book series that you write and that you edit, you’ve also been working with me, leading T. Carson center for theological renewal since 2024. You left Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi to take up this important new post. I thought it’d just be helpful, Ben, to bring us up to speed on what the center does and what the center is planning.

0:02:18 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, sure. So I took this post because I want to see biblical theology to the ends of the earth. That’s what gets me super excited about what I do, what I edit, what I write, and what this study Bible is about. And that’s precisely Don Carson is about. And the Carson center is trying to do. We create resources for pastors for the church and whether most of them are biblical theological in its focus.

0:02:46 – (Collin Hansen): And we create them, we upload them, and we give them away, which is just who does that? And the answer is, well, nobody. Nobody their right mind would do that. So that’s really what we’re trying to pull off here, is to create these, these resources that the church desperately needs. Everybody has an Internet connection, but not everybody has a seminary or college level education. So we’re trying to create these things and then distribute them freely.

0:03:14 – (Benjamin Gladd): Just as I was walking into my office to record this interview, I ran into a new student at Beeson Divinity School, and she’d gone to Covenant College and she’s from Malaysia. And she said, I just want to stop and say thank you. The Gospel Coalition’s resources, especially those published in Chinese in this case, are just a huge help to my church. And as I heard that story, I thought about, of course, the work that you do, Ben, and the work that we get to collaborate on and the work that Carson pioneered. And I remember hearing that vision from him really about six to eight years ago, really crystallizing the way that we could use the accessibility of the Internet and really the cheaper costs of distribution to be able to take resources that are good, solid, historic, confessional, biblical, and spread them around the world.

0:04:06 – (Benjamin Gladd): And that is just what Don was so passionate about over his career. What you and I both learned from him and what we get to do together. Then through the Carson Center, Thinking about the csb, connecting scripture and New Testament, an obvious question would be, why do we need another study Bible? And I’m wondering, are we supposed to use this one in place of others? You know, there’s only a limited room on the shelf, Ben. We don’t have all these behind you. We don’t all have that room. I got a big blank wall behind me.

0:04:40 – (Collin Hansen): Look at it. That’s a lot of space. A lot of study Bibles could go up there.

0:04:44 – (Benjamin Gladd): It’s an invitation to publisher, send me your study Bibles. We’ll put them up behind here. So, yeah, how is this meant to be used alongside some other resources that especially for those of us in the west, especially in the United States, we’re blessed to have an abundance of resources. How does this one fit in?

0:05:00 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, when I was working on this thing, the study Bible, often I thought, why am I doing this? Whenever you write, I’m sure you feel the same way. Whenever you write a book, you’re going. You have these moments. It’s 2am you’re in bed and you’re like, what am I doing? At the time, it sounded like a good idea. And the publisher’s like, yeah, this is a great idea. But then a year later, two years later, you’re like, I’m not sure this is a good idea.

0:05:28 – (Collin Hansen): You have these moments of, of colossal doubt. And you’re like, well, I’m Already a year in, I might as well keep going. And if it fails, it fails. What are you going to do? So there really were moments when I was like, why am I doing this? Surely, surely somebody else is going to do this better than I can do it. Or, or for, for me, my anxiety was if I’m doing this the way that I think I’m doing this or it should be done.

0:05:58 – (Collin Hansen): I feel like I’m alone here because nobody has attempted to quite pull off what I’m doing. Because yes, there are. I actually googled this the other day how many study Bibles there are, and it’s like over a hundred, which is terrifying. But out of those hundred, there’s not one that’s anywhere close to what I and Greg Beal tried to pull off. And that is to just change the entire reading experience. So most study Bibles are just better notes at the bottom, better graphics, better maps or whatever.

0:06:31 – (Collin Hansen): We went beyond that. We’re actually trying to change the reading experience of the text itself. We’re not manipulating the content of the text, but the formatting, whether it’s green or blue text, and change how you read the text itself. So does that make sense? So, yes, it is very cluttered. But, but for really what it is, it still is alone. It’s not mutually exclusive. I mean, the ESV Study Bible was just terrific. The CSB niv, all those are just terrific. And yes, please use them in tandem with this.

0:07:06 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah, let’s talk about the green and the blue fonts just to give people some handholds on what’s going on there and put that in the context also, Ben, of the broader reading experience, which I think you just alluded to. Well, there, when I’m sitting down in a small group that I’m leading, when I’m preaching, when I’m doing all sorts of different work, teaching in cultural apologetics or whatnot, I find that the biggest challenge consistently is to take people into the world of the Bible.

0:07:37 – (Benjamin Gladd): And I think it’s one of the major challenges, especially in the United States. Evangelical culture tends to have an application. We tend to look for application. We tend to want it to be individual, focused on, you know, what does this mean for me right now? And it’s. And it’s not non contextual. There’s not a lot of regard for the original place, original, original setting, let alone the backstory of that.

0:08:06 – (Benjamin Gladd): So I would assume then what you’re trying to do, and again explain the green and the blue fonts is they’re trying to help immerse people. Immerse people in the world of the Bible itself, as those people would have been receiving those, those, those letters, those. And then ultimately those, those manuscripts.

0:08:24 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah. So think of it like this. When you turn to the New Testament, publishers do a really good job of organizing the Old Testament quotations. And some of them put them in, in bold font. ESV puts them in quotations, so does niv. NASBE capitalizes. If you have a nasb, you’ capitalize Old Testament quotations so that when you’re reading the New Testament, you come across, oh, that’s Old Testament there. That’s some type of quotation. You may not know what that is, but you recognize, oh, they’ve flagged this.

0:08:55 – (Collin Hansen): Well, there are about 350 of those. However, that’s only 11% of what the New Testament authors are really doing. The other 89%, they are sprinkling in allusions throughout. These paragraphs and chapters there are right around in. And it’s actually a conservative number, colin, right around 3,000 allusions. So 350 quotations, 3,000 allusions. And so that’s where this study Bible comes in, is that Greg and I are trying to flag.

0:09:29 – (Collin Hansen): Hey, that’s an illusion. We put it in green font so that as you’re reading the text, reading the chapter, you are immediately confronted with, wait a minute, that’s green. That means Old Testament. There’s an Old Testament text right here. And the author wants me to put. Pull that text in. It’s the connective tissue between the Testaments. And you know, you’re very much into how does the Bible fit together? I’m very much into it.

0:09:58 – (Collin Hansen): Here’s the thing, we don’t have to guess how it fits together. These documents tell us, oh, this author’s leaning into Jeremiah 31 or Genesis 4. Or we can study these connections. We don’t have to guess. We don’t have to try the piece it together arbitrarily or whatever. We can actually just read the way that they want us to read these things.

0:10:22 – (Benjamin Gladd): Well, I guess I’m glad, Ben, that this resource is out now and not when I was in seminary. Because if you had given Don Carson the idea that we were also accountable in his acts in the Pauline epistles class on his quizzes for all Old Testament allusions and not just for all Old Testament quotations.

0:10:43 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, that would be a nightmare.

0:10:45 – (Benjamin Gladd): My C grade, honestly, quizzes would have been even worse. I don’t know what I possibly would have done there.

0:10:53 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, that would have been a really bad idea.

0:10:57 – (Benjamin Gladd): So again, grateful for this resource well into the 21st century and not a couple decades ago.

0:11:04 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, no kidding.

0:11:06 – (Benjamin Gladd): We’ve been talking here about. You believe that there are more allusions to the Old Testament from the New Testament than readers realize or that are clearly that are acknowledged in, in other study Bibles. And even, like you said, even, even beyond the, the footnotes, I guess that’s the closest parallel, right, to some editions that have all the kind of the, the different footnotes and illusions.

0:11:27 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, they would have the cross references. Cross references. But it’s, it’s hit or miss. I mean, these cross references are. They’re arbitrarily put together. They’re not. Every, not everybody does it the same way. Some of them are really good, some of them are really bad.

0:11:44 – (Benjamin Gladd): So I guess. So I’m not the only reader, so I’m not the only reader that’s had that experience of looking. And sometimes I’ll look and say, wow, that is right on the nose. And sometimes I’ll look and say, what are they thinking? What was going on there? What was that? Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone ever explaining how those come together. And of course, a lot of editions don’t have them at all.

0:12:09 – (Benjamin Gladd): But they’re more common in study Bibles, obviously. So in some ways they’re a step forward, but in some ways not. Let me give you an example that I had just the other day when I was leading my home group. I was teaching John six and I saw the word grumble and immediately, of course, I’m thinking about the Hebrews in the wilderness. Tell us a little bit more about what the payoff is for seeing these illusions. Like, why would I stop and emphasize that? I mean, again, it’s me, it’s you, we work together, so it’s kind of obvious. But that’s not necessarily how most people would do Bible study.

0:12:46 – (Benjamin Gladd): So why does it matter to stop and pause and say, this is what it’s alluding to?

0:12:51 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah. So there in John 6, I mean, you have Jesus. Whole point is that he goes, you know what? You all are just like Jesus’s audience that he’s speaking to. He’s saying, you all are just like the first generation of Israelites. You’re repeating their behavior. You’ve got to cut it out. You are missing God’s provision, which would be Jesus. You’re missing it. You’re not trusting in what God is doing.

0:13:14 – (Collin Hansen): In other words, we see history repeating itself in a very bad way. Sometimes history repeats itself in a good Way. In this particular instance, it’s in a bad way. One of my favorite ones that I like to give is in Mark 1:7, when John the Baptist declares that he is not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. And that’s an odd. It’s. It’s an odd way to say that he is unworthy. Some people take it to be a reference to his. His status as a servant.

0:13:46 – (Collin Hansen): It’s possible. But I think it actually goes back to Exodus 3. 5 or Exodus. Yeah, Exodus 3:5, with Moses at the burning bush. And God says, take off your sandals. And so he. He takes off his sandals, the strap of his sandals. Well, what’s probably going on here is that Jesus is Yahweh incarnate. This is this burning bush moment here in that everywhere Jesus steps in the Gospel of Mark, it’s the presence of God on earth.

0:14:17 – (Collin Hansen): It’s as though he’s the burning bush moving throughout the narrative. And it’s where, in other words, everywhere Jesus steps is holy ground. And this is the awesome presence of God. In fact, a little bit later on in Mark’s gospel, just like 15 verses later, the demon says that Jesus. Oh, you’re the holy One of God. Do you see? That’s Exodus 3. Those are the sorts of things that allusions. They’re so rich, they’re so powerful, and they really put things together very nicely for us.

0:14:51 – (Benjamin Gladd): We’ll put this in the. In the show notes, but people can check out. Your article for the Carson Center. Keep Watch for Biblical Allusions was published July 25, 2024.

0:15:02 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, how about that?

0:15:03 – (Benjamin Gladd): Not long after you got here.

0:15:05 – (Collin Hansen): I was such a wee lad then.

0:15:11 – (Benjamin Gladd): Different world. You’ve grown. You’ve grown so much.

0:15:15 – (Collin Hansen): That’s right. Finally eating steak and potatoes.

0:15:18 – (Benjamin Gladd): Exactly. Left behind. Now the solid food. Okay, give us another illusion. I mean, one that. One of your favorites, one that it would just be easy to miss. And then afterward, this is how I often feel in Bible study afterward, I’m thinking, how could I have possibly missed that? How could I have overlooked it?

0:15:41 – (Collin Hansen): Yes. Ooh. So another one let’s talk about. I have my Bible out here, so we could, you know, we can just explore this really quickly. Oh, here’s one. Since we’re in Mark 1, I guess I’ll just keep ticking along here. Jesus tells his disciples, he says, follow me. Jesus told them, and I will make you fish for people. And that odd expression. You read it and you’re like, fish for people. What is. What is that?

0:16:12 – (Collin Hansen): Well, that’s Right out of Jeremiah 16:16. Because in Jeremiah 16, the God is sending in these, these. They’re probably Babylonian soldiers and they are going to hunt down and they are going to fish for people. That is unbelievers and that they’re going to judge these unbelievers, unbelieving Israelites. But it’s not just total annihilation. It’s not just total judgment in order to refine God’s people, to root out these idolatry, these idolatrous Israelites. So if we put that together here with what’s going on with Jesus, then the disciples are hunting down idolatrous Israelites who do not believe in him.

0:17:02 – (Collin Hansen): And so they are bringing some level of judgment against them. On the other hand, they are restoring the Israelites and bringing them into a healthy relationship with God. So it’s really a dual. It’s a both and it’s fishing for people can be a negative thing if you’re in idolatry, but it can be a positive thing if you respond well to the gospel. That’s the kind of thing that illusions do.

0:17:26 – (Benjamin Gladd): Oh, that’s very helpful. That is something I’ve never thought about before. I have not come back to see what the origin of that was. But now all of a sudden I’m recognizing the connection here to the prophets in general. Because one of the things I teach most often with the prophets is the relationship between the prophets and the parables. And then Jesus as a prophet. And the point of the parables being not illumination, but judgment against their humans.

0:17:54 – (Collin Hansen): If you reject it, if you reject

0:17:55 – (Benjamin Gladd): it, if you reject it. But usually they’re being taught to the Pharisees, who are the ones who are rejecting them. And so then you see the message coming, especially from Isaiah. I’m saying these things so that you will not believe. So interesting going back then to the fishers of men. That fits within that prophetic tradition of yes, some will be spared, some will be plucked out and saved, and others for this will be a word of warning, of judgment.

0:18:21 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, that’s right. You know, a lot of this, Colin, is Jesus or the apostles. They say they’ll have like weird expressions. Whether it’s fishers of men. It’s very often it’s these weird expressions that goes back to the Old Testament. Sometimes it’s a cultural thing, but 8, 70 to 80% of the time, whenever you get these goofy, like, what in the world? That doesn’t even make sense. There’s probably an Old Testament background behind that expression that you just need to work out Let me then give you

0:18:55 – (Benjamin Gladd): the softball of all softballs. It seems as though a lot of people find Revelation to be impenetrable, impossible to understand. Well, Greg Beal, probably more than anyone else in our generation, has helped to bring that open to people to say, this is not impossible to understand at all. It’s just. You just need to know the Old Testament. So give us an example of how that plays out in Revelation.

0:19:25 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, so if you were to turn. In fact, when I gave Don Carson one of these connecting scriptures, study Bibles a couple weeks ago, and we were in his house, and he immediately turned the Revelation one, he’s like, I gotta see Revelation one. And he turns to it and it’s all green. Like, all the words are green. And I tell. I tell my students that the green. The green here in Revelation, which is there are a lot.

0:19:57 – (Collin Hansen): It’s about 400 allusions just in the book. It’s the most amount of allusions in any New Testament book. Of course it is. A lot of these are. I call them Old Testament emojis. So in our culture, we don’t know what the word symbol is. Like, if you were. If you were to talk to people about symbols, that word symbol, I mean, it’s really. It shows you. It shows you our illiteracy. But even that word symbol is not even used in our discourse. But you know what word is used?

0:20:27 – (Collin Hansen): Emoji. And emoji communicates very well the idea of a symbol because it’s a picture that does different things with it. And so really, the book of Revelation is filled with Old Testament emojis. And the trick is to recognize them, to see how they function in the Old Testament, and then you just bring them on into the New Testament, bring them into the book. And what’s so unique with Revelation is how the emojis are clustered. This is why Revelations, utterly unique in many ways.

0:21:01 – (Collin Hansen): It’s John’s brilliance of he’ll take three different emojis that are scattered in the Old Testament and he will put them on top of each other, and he’ll let the emojis communicate with each other in the new. And it’s that brilliance right there which actually makes the book a little tricky at times.

0:21:19 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah, tricky for sure, but helpful when you have.

0:21:23 – (Collin Hansen): But you can figure it out. You just go back to the Old Testament, you figure out, how was that Old Testament emoji working? What’s it talking about? Then you bring it back in and you’re like, oh, it actually wasn’t that difficult.

0:21:33 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah, except when it Sends you back to Ezekiel. And then that’s really confusing.

0:21:37 – (Collin Hansen): It’s a little tricky. It’s a little confusing. I got all wheels, lots of wheels. A lot of wheels spinning.

0:21:42 – (Benjamin Gladd): A lot of what’s going on with these wheels.

0:21:46 – (Collin Hansen): That’s right.

0:21:46 – (Benjamin Gladd): How many people diving in preaching on that part? All right, so let’s try the opposite. I’m going to put you on the spot. An illusion or connection that everyone else seems to assume, but you’re not buying. You kind of alluded to this earlier with Exodus as an example.

0:22:05 – (Collin Hansen): That’s tricky.

0:22:06 – (Benjamin Gladd): So is there another one?

0:22:07 – (Collin Hansen): How about I give you this one? I think it’s there, but I think it’s doing. I think it’s more radical than what people think. And that’s in John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I mean, you turn to any cross reference that’s going to say Genesis 1:1. And I think most people get that. They’re like, okay, they open up John’s Gospel and you’re like, yes, Genesis 1. Jesus is the Word. Got it.

0:22:32 – (Collin Hansen): But I’m like, no, no, no, hold on. Let’s stop and think about what John is doing. He’s doing something that’s pretty radical. He’s turning in his Bible. He doesn’t have this, but let’s say he turns into this Old Testament Bible that he has. He opens it up, he goes to Genesis 1:1, and he proceeds to reread Genesis 1. But he’s going to do it in a way where Jesus is in Genesis 1:1. He’s not saying, oh, Jesus is kind of connected to Genesis 1:1, that he’s loosely associated with the God of Genesis 1:1. He’s rereading Genesis 1:1, and he’s inserting Jesus into the very fabric of.

0:23:20 – (Collin Hansen): Of what God is doing in Genesis 1. I mean, you talk about a Christological reading of the Old Testament that’s absolutely fundamental to the identity of God. John is saying, yes, Jesus did that. He’s right there in Genesis 1:1 in that he participates in this process of creating all things. In other words, people are right to see Genesis 1:1 behind John 1:1, but they fail to appreciate the gravity, the depth of what John is actually doing.

0:23:55 – (Benjamin Gladd): Interesting. Maybe a little, a little help from Paul on Colossians 1:16, maybe.

0:24:00 – (Collin Hansen): Yes. How about that? You know, the test would be this, to have an old. If you imagine writing a paper. So let’s say you’re at a seminary, at a borderline evangelical seminary. And you’re in an Old Testament class and you argue. You argue that Jesus is doing what God does in Genesis 1. That Old Testament proph is probably going to fail you. I think a lot of Old Testament props would fail John at that move. And I think that’s wrong. I think John is hitting the nail on the head, but it’s pretty amazing what he’s doing.

0:24:38 – (Benjamin Gladd): I almost failed my Hebrew Bible class in undergraduate. I have the midterm over here, right in my cabinet. I think I got a D minus or something like that. Part of it was the fact that I did not study well. I ended up with an okay grade because I aced the final midterm. Was turned it around. I turned it completely around. But I’ll never forget the discussion group with the TA when we were talking about Genesis 1:3 and I mentioned the Trinity as a possible explanation for the pronouns and he went nuts.

0:25:23 – (Benjamin Gladd): She had never heard of such a thing before. It was not. I mean, actually I caught her completely off guard. She wasn’t angry. She was just, um. Well, just like. I guess maybe that’s possible. And understand, I’m not trying to overread that stuff as if it’s like a real. A simple little thing. That’s not the point that I’m trying to make here. It’s somewhat similar to the Yahweh name and the I ams in there. The same problem where the Old Testament folks are often really negative about that.

0:26:00 – (Benjamin Gladd): Right.

0:26:03 – (Collin Hansen): We have. Colin, we have text after text that reads those creation texts. And they put Jesus right there. And it’s not just like one or two texts. It’s all over the place. Hebrews, you really have. I just showed you John 1 or John 1. Revelation does this. Paul does it in Colossians. This is baked into the fabric of how the New Testament authors are reading the Old Testament. And if you don’t like that, I’m like, look, I understand what you’re trying to do, but just know that the apostles did not read it like that.

0:26:41 – (Collin Hansen): And I’m going to go with them 10 out of 10 times.

0:26:44 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah, well, just to give an example here from Hebrews, I’m going to pull here from the csb. The sun is the radiance of God’s glory in the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Is that not intended to be read into John 1 as well? Or part of the Christological milieu?

0:27:08 – (Collin Hansen): Part of it’s gotta be.

0:27:10 – (Benjamin Gladd): I mean, again, here, no surprise, one of the courses that there were some really famous courses that Don Carson taught over the years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I’ve mentioned Acts and the Pauline epistles. One that was available all the way for PhD students would be the New Testament use of the Old Testament, which would be something he collaborated on also with GK Beale. And then third would be his course on Hebrews.

0:27:36 – (Benjamin Gladd): It’s no surprise because Hebrews is so immersed in all these illusions as well.

0:27:45 – (Collin Hansen): That’s right.

0:27:47 – (Benjamin Gladd): Both explicitly and otherwise. Now let’s talk about how the apostles read the Old Testament. And I’ve been mentioning here, you’ve got Hebrews, you’ve got John, you’ve got Paul, just referred to several of them. Do they read the Old Testament the same way as each other? And here’s an example here. Most readers assume that the apostles only read the Old Testament in a promise fulfillment manner. So talk about how the apostles approached the Old Testament, both. What’s in common? Maybe.

0:28:21 – (Benjamin Gladd): Any differences?

0:28:22 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, so that’s a huge question. I mean, you really have to go back, right? So you’d have to compare them. You’d have to study all those allusions and you have to compare and contrast. Broadly speaking, they are in general sync with one another. They love to. They take the Old Testament and they’re going to work it through Jesus, through his life, and then through, through Jesus. They’ll then place it upon the church in God’s people. So there’s a ton of continuity between the old and the new here. So they, they’re pretty much all in agreement with how they do that. The question is, are they always thinking promise fulfillment?

0:29:00 – (Collin Hansen): I. I don’t have a percentage here. My guess is that half the time, that half the time it is, the other half it’s not. They’re not. But most pastors. How about this? Let me just approach from this. I think most pastors in seminary students, when they talk about the Old and the new, or when they think about it, they’re always thinking, promise, Old Testament fulfillment, New Testament. Is that a major category? Of course it’s a major category, but it’s not the only category.

0:29:33 – (Collin Hansen): There are probably a dozen or so different ways that the apostles are reading the Old Testament. And that’s maybe two of those 12 categories. So the trick here is to think in terms of, well, if it’s not promised fulfillment, well, what is it? Sometimes a New Testament author will reach into the Old Testament, say, you know what you need to do, what these Old Testament authors were doing. So they get it. They really like ethics. They’ll say, like, oh, don’t be like that bad guy, be like this good guy. So that’s just an ethical concern. They’re not reading it typologically. They’re not reading it promise fulfillment.

0:30:07 – (Collin Hansen): They’re just saying, do what this guy did. So it’s ethics. They, they or, or they or they work with the category of analogy. Just as God did it like this, so now he’s doing it like this. There’s not promised fulfillment. We can see that in the text. It’s just this happens like that happens. It’s just analogy. And that’s okay. We don’t have to make everything promise fulfillment. I think especially in the Reformed tradition, it leans so hard in promise fulfillment that it can really distort the text and it can create problems for us that we just don’t need to create. We already have enough problems. We don’t need more problems.

0:30:47 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah, yeah. I mean, you mentioned this already, but patterns, patterns of salvation, lots of patterns. Continuities of God’s character, continuation of his promises. I mean, yes, that is the promise fulfillment there, but I just mean the continuation of his revelation of who he is, but then also the discontinuities. That’s one thing Carson always emphasizes from the Old Testament and New Testament you’re looking for. How is it similar?

0:31:19 – (Benjamin Gladd): But there are clear differences. There are changes that happen in there as well. I wonder, Ben, do we run the risk of reading too much into the intent of the New Testament writers or even ultimately what God’s intending for that passage? Another way of asking this might be what kind of guardrails do you put on identifying a legitimate illusion.

0:31:42 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, so this is the number one question I get whenever I talk about the old and the new is people love. They say in the South, I love me some illusions. But you can get, but you can really get yourself in trouble. When you start poking around. You’re like, oh, I think I leaned too hard. So there are two I, I, I do two things to keep the guardrails on, to keep, you know, try to keep things objective, try to vindicate, try to show, no, this is a real connection. And the first thing that I do is let’s go back, let’s go back to Exodus 3:5 in Mark 1 about the burning bush.

0:32:23 – (Collin Hansen): So the first thing that I have to do is I have to show that. Is Mark aware of the book of Exodus? Well, in verse two, just three verses before that allusion about John in his sandals. Three verses before that, he actually quotes the book of Exodus. He quotes Exodus 23:20. That tells me right off the bat that he is aware of Exodus. And by the way, commentators missed this. But later on in Mark’s gospel, in chapter 12, Listen to what Jesus says.

0:32:54 – (Collin Hansen): He says in 12:26, as for the dead being raised, haven’t you read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. That’s Exodus 3. 6. So I can show, I can demonstrate that Mark is aware of Exodus 3:6 because he quotes it, Jesus quotes it. He even says the burning bush. So I said, okay, there’s awareness there.

0:33:27 – (Collin Hansen): So then the second thing that I have to do is I have to show that the illusion makes sense. Like, you can’t. If an illusion is there, what’s there for a reason? The Old Testament in the New Testament passage will match up. Like, they will be in sync. The themes will resonate very well between the two texts. And so there I think that I can show thematic cohesion, that they gel together, that they work together.

0:34:02 – (Collin Hansen): In other words, if I’m arguing that Mark is using the Song of Songs, you’re like, well, does he use Song of Songs elsewhere? No, he doesn’t. Well, and then when you try to link up the text, well, they’re doing different things. Do you see? So things just start to fall apart. You’ve got to have a. You have to show awareness. You have to show thematic continuity. And if you, if you, and then the wording has to be unique enough. And if you can put all these things together, then I think you’ve got something there.

0:34:33 – (Benjamin Gladd): I do think some of us have been burned by the cross references a

0:34:37 – (Collin Hansen): hundred percent with, oh, without a doubt we’ve been let down.

0:34:42 – (Benjamin Gladd): I mean, flipping back to that Old Testament and saying, wait a minute, I can’t make any heads or tails of the connection here. Does somebody have a cross reference quota?

0:34:52 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah, yeah. We need at least four. Perverse.

0:34:59 – (Benjamin Gladd): Exactly.

0:34:59 – (Collin Hansen): I don’t know what’s going on here.

0:35:01 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah.

0:35:04 – (Collin Hansen): So many times, right? Yeah.

0:35:05 – (Benjamin Gladd): Both these passages mention God. Great.

0:35:12 – (Collin Hansen): And what’s hard too, is that sometimes it takes like 30 seconds to find that Old Testament text as you’re flipping through. And by the time you’re like, what am I? Like, where am I at? You forget what you’re doing and you’re like, oh, I’m just going to take a break. I’m going to take a nap. I’m tired.

0:35:27 – (Benjamin Gladd): That is one of the advantages of a digital Bible. The cross references are easier to find and reject.

0:35:35 – (Collin Hansen): That’s right.

0:35:36 – (Benjamin Gladd): I’ll have time for this or appreciate. We’re talking here with Ben Glad about the CSB connecting Scripture, New Testament Ben, does the English Bible translation make a difference in how readers can discern these allusions? You mentioned earlier how quotations are handled differently in different editions, and surely that’s in translations. Surely that’s the case now, and no doubt it’s the case over time.

0:36:03 – (Benjamin Gladd): But just talking about the illusions does, does the English Bible translation make a difference?

0:36:08 – (Collin Hansen): 100%. The problem here, Colin, is that when you have a translation, when you have a translation being produced, you have different teams. You have an Old Testament team, a New Testament team, a Pauline team, a Prophets team, and they work on different portions. Rarely do these teams work together. The problem is that the wording that’s found in the Old Testament isn’t always represented well in the New Testament.

0:36:34 – (Collin Hansen): So they’re not. In other words, the translation committees are not thinking, hey, how can we preserve this? Or how can we preserve this illusion? Or they’re just not thinking like that. And it creates, you just lose some of these connections right off the bat because they’re not trying to preserve them. It’s a very tricky conversation.

0:36:56 – (Benjamin Gladd): That is a huge pet peeve.

0:36:59 – (Collin Hansen): It’s a huge, it’s a huge issue.

0:37:01 – (Benjamin Gladd): Along with the cross references, it seems as though we’re losing something really significant here. And to be clear, there are a lot of complications here because you’re dealing with the Old Testament language of mostly Hebrew, then you’re jumping into the New Testament language of Koine Greek. You also have the Septuagint coming in there, which is itself, of course, a translation that is contemporary to the New Testament, but is a translation of the Old Testament.

0:37:33 – (Benjamin Gladd): And sometimes what the New Testament writer is quoting or alluding to is the

0:37:38 – (Collin Hansen): Septuagint, not the which is itself then

0:37:43 – (Benjamin Gladd): a translation, but also as every translation is by necessity, it is an interpretation, so a reliable one in many ways. But that’s one of the challenges when trying to jump back with these allusions and these quotations is you’ve got to be able to check that. And that jump between Hebrew to Greek and the Septuagint and then from there to the New Testament is actually a very helpful interpretation for us because we can see what other people have been thinking ahead of us there.

0:38:12 – (Benjamin Gladd): But one of the biggest problems I have then is when I see something that’s in the Old Testament and I know what it’s referencing in Hebrew and then I know what the concept is carried over into the New Testament. And they’re not going to be perfect overlaps, because that’s the challenge of semantic ranges of languages. But I know that they’re clearly linked, and yet the translator uses two different English words or phrases or idioms to be able to refer to them, in which case the average reader simply throws up their. They wouldn’t even notice that there’s a connection between the two.

0:38:52 – (Benjamin Gladd): I assume that’s part of the problem you’re describing here.

0:38:54 – (Collin Hansen): This is a huge problem. I think translations just need to do their best to realize we’re dealing Greek, Hebrew, Septuagint, but we need to do our best. It will always be imperfect, but I think the effort needs to be how can we show continuity as best we can, given our limitations? How can we show continuity? And the answer would be just try to use the same words when possible. Try. Just make that extra effort right there.

0:39:29 – (Collin Hansen): Try to line up these texts as best you can. Even though it’s not going to be done perfectly, just try to do it. And it’s going to help the reader so much. Because, honestly, when we do this, you feel the rub. I feel the rub. It’s very disconcerting because I’m like, no, this text is in mind in that Old Testament translation. You would never know in a million years that these texts were connected. And they really are.

0:39:57 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah. There are a couple other factors that are involved for people to understand the frustration here. I’m trying to give the other side of the debate here. The English translators are also trying to focus on readability. So they’re trying to have something that is comprehensible in modern contemporary English language. They’re also depending on the edition, they’re trying to represent continuity with earlier English translations as well, so that every time a new translation doesn’t come out, you’re not having to feel as though this is a foreign new product or a new resource there.

0:40:39 – (Benjamin Gladd): My pastor was complaining the other day, and we don’t do this very often. It’s dangerous to complain too much about English translations because we are blessed with a lot of really good English translations, 100%. And the work of our friends and colleagues who have done this now and in the past is really remarkable. But he was complaining about something that he felt was pretty obviously mistranslated. So he went and looked up and they said, well, the reason we translate it this way is because this is the way it was translated earlier.

0:41:11 – (Benjamin Gladd): And we’re trying to represent continuity with the way that people hear it from earlier editions of The Bible. Now, again, not every translation has that policy, but that’s how you can end up in a situation where something like Psalm 23 can. I mean, if you focus on readability versus continuity with other English translations that are more familiar as common cultural idioms and certainly within the church, you’re balancing a lot of considerations at the same time.

0:41:44 – (Benjamin Gladd): So that can be one way that God is wrong.

0:41:48 – (Collin Hansen): I have not been part of a translation committee. I don’t know if that’s a desire. It’s not really a desire of mine. Just seems like a lot of work. It. But I suspect that these committees are not thinking, how can we align the Old Testament with the New Testament. Thinking in terms of allusions and quotations. I don’t think that’s. I don’t think that’s on their mind. I don’t think that’s on their radar.

0:42:15 – (Collin Hansen): And because of that, I think we have some disjointed texts at times, unfortunately.

0:42:22 – (Benjamin Gladd): I mean, we’re just talking about the need here for the resources.

0:42:24 – (Collin Hansen): The need here. I think there’s a huge need here produced. I think there’s a huge need.

0:42:27 – (Benjamin Gladd): Represent it visually the way that you do. Okay, let’s get practical for pastors here. How can they use this study Bible in preparing to preach and teach?

0:42:36 – (Collin Hansen): If I’m a pastor and I know Greek and Hebrew, I’m going to translate. Then after you get your translation, if you don’t know Greek and Hebrew, just, you know, get your English translation. Go line by line. You know, just write it out. Just, man, just read. Just write the Bible. Just, you know, do that a couple times. Get it in your brain. And then immediately, I’m always. I’m always asking the question, how is my text related to the Old Testament? So if I’m New Testament, I’m immediately thinking, how does this go back?

0:43:04 – (Collin Hansen): If I’m Old Testament, you have to think, how is my text going forward? Sometimes these are easy answers, like, oh, well, it tells me how it’s doing. Other times it’s like, wow, I have no clue. But you’ve got to ask that question. So if you’re using connecting scripture, we show you we use green words or blue words, depending on what it is. We’re making those connections for you. Just chase it down.

0:43:30 – (Collin Hansen): Just look up the words. One of the things that I tell my students now with connecting scripture is if you’re looking at a chapter, write out. Just have a. In your note, just write out all the Old Testament allusions and you will be shocked and at the patterns What New Testament authors like to do, they like to keep going back to that same book. So whether it’s, ooh, Exodus 3 or Exodus 20 or Exodus 15, you’ll see, like, wait a minute, there’s going.

0:43:59 – (Collin Hansen): Something’s going on here with the book of Exodus. That means you got to go back to the book of Exodus. You need to reread that section and think about why that author keeps bringing an Exodus. So these really interesting, big kind of questions struggle with that. Just you’re not going to figure it all out. But that’s okay. Just think about it.

0:44:19 – (Benjamin Gladd): Can I tell me if I’m on the right track here, because I want to make a case, an appeal to pastors who are watching and listening or even reading the transcript here to use the Old Testament more often for your illustrations. The personal illustrations are great. The contemporary illustrations are great. The, the popular funny story illustrations are great. A lot of these can be great. The Old Testament is full of illustrations and they’re not boring, and they’re not boring at all.

0:44:59 – (Benjamin Gladd): And you’re in the grain of the New Testament writers who are, of course, always pointing backward, using those illustrations in all sorts of illusions and in quotations, all of the above. So let’s follow their pattern. I think. You will not bore people. You will help people to understand the Old Testament, which is lacking across the board almost. And in the process, you will also be showing how the story of the Bible fits together.

0:45:33 – (Benjamin Gladd): Am I on the right track here?

0:45:35 – (Collin Hansen): Safe. So there are lots of books that have these funny illustrations. One is, have you ever heard of a book called Bad Boys of the Bible? Did you know this? There’s like a Bad Boys of the Bible. There’s a Bad Girls of the Bible. I’m like, I don’t know if that should be made, but they have. It’s funny because it’s. They have these stories. They, they just work through. They, they catalog all these crazy stories and you’re like, those. There’s something interesting there. There’s something there that jams the Bible in people’s minds so that you’re right. It’s with the grain. It’s. These are really important stories.

0:46:12 – (Benjamin Gladd): It’s human nature and how God relates to us and how he reveals himself to be. That seems pretty relevant and it’s inspiring. Oh, by the way.

0:46:22 – (Collin Hansen): And there’s that, there’s. That.

0:46:25 – (Benjamin Gladd): Can’t say that about the rest of the illustration. Much to many of our regret as preachers, especially the illustrations that just come to us in the moment this happened to me. I made the mistake at a recent conference. I’m teaching, and I decide I’ve got a great Star wars illustration here, and I’m not even a huge Star wars fan, so I go and I share it. And afterward, a guy comes up to me and he says, I need to correct you.

0:46:55 – (Benjamin Gladd): And, you know, as every preacher and teacher says, my heart starts to sink. I’m like, oh, what heretical thing did I say? He’s like, you were totally wrong. You confused something that Luke Skywalker did with something that Han Solo did. Say, at least you admitted ahead of time that you didn’t know what you were talking about.

0:47:15 – (Collin Hansen): At least you did that. There’s nothing worse than, like, getting halfway into an illustration. As you’re speaking, you’re like, what am I doing? This is not going well. This. This is not gonna go well. Why am I here? I’ve got to go to the bathroom. Like, there’s that.

0:47:31 – (Benjamin Gladd): Every pastor thinks that that happened in the same. In the same talk. I knew I shouldn’t do this. I was trying to explain a movie, and it just never works to talk

0:47:43 – (Collin Hansen): through the points of. Never works.

0:47:46 – (Benjamin Gladd): It’s like, this is a great illustration. Trust me. You just have to bear with me for five minutes while I explain all these characters. You don’t know anything about Knives Out.

0:47:54 – (Collin Hansen): I’m gonna give you Knives out in five minutes.

0:47:56 – (Benjamin Gladd): That’s what I did.

0:47:56 – (Collin Hansen): You did Knives Out?

0:47:57 – (Benjamin Gladd): That’s what I did. It was one of the worst decisions of my teaching life.

0:48:02 – (Collin Hansen): That’s so complicated.

0:48:04 – (Benjamin Gladd): I did Star wars on the fly and also did Knives out in the same talk.

0:48:09 – (Collin Hansen): I was just. I was just joking. Who would do Knives Out?

0:48:15 – (Benjamin Gladd): They will never invite me back. I am sure of it. Yeah, you should have. Did.

0:48:21 – (Collin Hansen): Should have done bad news of the Bible or bad guys in the Bible. I’m telling you, that’s a lot safer.

0:48:28 – (Benjamin Gladd): That’ll be our next collaboration, Ben.

0:48:30 – (Collin Hansen): That’s right.

0:48:31 – (Benjamin Gladd): Speaking of collaborations, we’re talking about csb Connecting Scripture and New Testament. GK Beale with Benjamin Glad. The Carson center has this year a major, major project. We’re very excited about the Concise Bible Commentary. Could you tell us a little bit about what people can expect from this really major work from the Carson Center?

0:48:56 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah. So it’s 1 million words, Collins. I mean, you. I mean, just think there are 1 million words out there that TGC put together that goes from. It’s a commentary, Genesis, the Revelation. The best thing is, is that it’s evangelical, it’s broadly reformed. It’s very good. It’s biblical, theological. It’s all the things that TGC is known for, all the things that Tim Keller and Don Carson love about the Bible.

0:49:24 – (Collin Hansen): And it’s distilled into one volume. So right now you can access it. In fact, we have millions of people have already read it online at the Carson Center. It’s Genesis all the way through Revelation. And Crossway took that manuscript, they cleaned it up, they turned it into a book and it’s going to come out in the fall, late fall of 26. You and I have seen some covers. Looks really, really good. It’s going to be a one volume thing and it is, it’s. We are very, very proud of it. I was not a part of TGC from the beginning for this. It’s. I’m sort of catching it on the back end, just trying to shepherd it through that whole process.

0:50:10 – (Collin Hansen): But it is a delight. I’m not quite sure that TGC has done something like this before and I can’t wait to give it to people so that they can say, look at what by God’s grace, look, a lot of people worked really, really hard for a long time to produce this thing and it, what a, you know, what a grace of God.

0:50:33 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah. A lot of people to, to thank about this. A lot of people to shout out. We think about our, our longtime colleague Phil Thompson, his work on this. Think about our friend at Crossway, Doug o’, Donnell, not only championing this project but also himself, editing and writing.

0:50:50 – (Collin Hansen): That’s right.

0:50:53 – (Benjamin Gladd): And then Don Carson is listed as the founding editor of this project and ultimately the original visionary behind it. And what I love about our partnerships with Crossway and we work with a lot of different publishers, a lot of different ways, of course, Lifeway B and H here with csb connecting Scripture, New Testament. But what I love about our partnership with Crossway is the way that we work on printing and digital both.

0:51:20 – (Collin Hansen): Distribution.

0:51:21 – (Benjamin Gladd): Right, distribution. And so it’s available for this student of mine in her church back in Malaysia, this commentary which. And yes, we’re also working on translations of this as well. Do you want to mention the translations on this one?

0:51:38 – (Collin Hansen): Yes, of course. So we’ve raised money, we’ve raised a good amount of money for Spanish and Arabic translation of this volume. And once the Arabic translation, there’s an initial one done of the Pentateuch and once those are completed, those will be available online for distribution to the ends of the earth. I mean we’re talking, this is a game changer. Nothing like this exists in Spanish and Arabic.

0:52:06 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah, I don’t know that people know that. I think we’re so awash in resources in English in the west, we don’t realize what just the abundance of riches and grateful for donors to the Gospel Coalition and to the Carson center who have made this possible in Spanish and Arabic. And again, it’s been a long process. It’s not an easy thing to be able to pull off any of this stuff. A lot of what we do at the Carson center is really slow burn behind the scenes, building out digital databases online, trying to figure out the role of artificial intelligence in this, getting those translations available, making folks aware of them. Just having a full Bible English commentary prepared for easy access to anybody who’s teaching and studying. And I think what I love about this one volume, I think a lot of pastors are going to want it on their shelves, but I think a lot of Bible study leaders and Sunday school teachers, the lay people that really make our churches run, are going to find this helpful as well, because I find it to be pretty broadly accessible.

0:53:18 – (Benjamin Gladd): It’s both scholarly in terms of its quality, but it’s also accessible in terms of you can open it up and you can get some of that help that you’re looking for to understand a passage with the perspective that you’re sharing here about the Connecting Scripture, New Testament. It’s going to be intercanonical, it’s going to be reliable and within understanding how the Bible fits together as understood in the Reformed tradition.

0:53:44 – (Benjamin Gladd): I want to close with this question and a personal question. I want to know a little bit more about your collaboration with Don Carson and then especially Greg Beal, who’s your collaborator here on the CSB Connecting Scripture, New Testament. When do those relationships and collaborations start? And maybe what stands out to you most about each of those men and learning from them, working with them.

0:54:08 – (Collin Hansen): Yeah. So I didn’t start working with Don until I did the dictionary project and can see it. Cedar Baker gave me a bunch of those. So it weighs like no less than £300. So you only know that because you’ve

0:54:22 – (Benjamin Gladd): moved a couple times recently.

0:54:27 – (Collin Hansen): My back is still sore. No kidding. No kidding.

0:54:33 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah.

0:54:34 – (Collin Hansen): Like, wait a minute, these are books were just in my same neighborhood like two years ago. Why did I take them up and

0:54:39 – (Benjamin Gladd): then bring them back to Michigan?

0:54:42 – (Collin Hansen): Should have just left them at my neighbor’s house. Yeah, so I didn’t start. Don and I had, you know, we would maybe if I saw him at a conference. We had dinner together just with faculty. I mean, you know, just brief. But we didn’t really work together per se until we had started working on that dictionary project together that started like in maybe 2016 or something. And we had, I mean, exchange no less than, it’s hundreds of emails. I mean, it’s a huge project.

0:55:14 – (Collin Hansen): It’s a million words, 150 essays, you know, over 100 contributors. It’s a gigantic thing. And so he and I had to work together. All been, all four of us, Greg, Beal and Inducelli. Don and I were all four talking to each other just throughout the length of that project. So that’s when he and I started working together. We had a friendship and then we would see each other, we’d have dinner, you know, this kind of thing.

0:55:36 – (Collin Hansen): And then over time, he’s like, hey, Ben, would you be interested in taking on or becoming a co author or co editor with the new series and the new studies in Biblical theology? And that was, I mean, I never thought about that, never aspired to, to do that. And I was like, oh, this is what a great, what a great thing. And I was, I mean, such an honor. So I worked with him in that and then the Pill series now and just over time, just work, learning with Don, learning how to, I, I that the way he works and edits and works with people. I have never seen somebody do that before. Not to that extent and not with his level of insight in care and gentleness and wise way of working.

0:56:27 – (Collin Hansen): People don’t, people don’t realize how much work in care goes into editing a series because you email somebody, hey, let’s write this book. Well, chances are something’s going to go wrong. It’s delayed, things happen. That person, you have got to find a substitute now, they can’t pull that off or they turned in a manuscript and you’re like, yeah, well, half of it’s good, the other half isn’t good. We’ve got to figure this thing out.

0:56:56 – (Collin Hansen): Like it really is shepherding and just learning how to work with scholars, talk to them, stay on top of things, things managed. But that’s just that, like, you have to think in terms of what is. Don has this great line. He has all these good lines. He says, when it comes to writing and publishing, you’ve got to think, what does the church need? Like, we have only one life here. So don’t spend your life writing things that the church doesn’t need.

0:57:25 – (Collin Hansen): Like maybe you can do that. But when it comes to what we do, I think we need to do things that the church really needs. And then the second thing is, and here it is. He goes, sometimes the church doesn’t know what she needs. Like, sometimes the church tells you give us this. And so the Carson center says, you know what? We’ve got to do that. We need to do a one volume commentary. We hear you loud and clear.

0:57:49 – (Collin Hansen): And then sometimes the church has a need, but she doesn’t tell us that. You kind of have to just be prophetic and read between the lines and study how pieces move, whether it’s AI. You’re like, you have to kind of get, get ahead of it and say, you know what? I know what you need. We need to do this. So you’re actually doing, you’re, you’re trying to answer both questions as a series editor and as, as somebody who, who shapes. So, so that’s how I started working with Don. It’s just, just incredible.

0:58:21 – (Collin Hansen): Greg B. And I, he was my doctoral supervisor at Wheaton College, 2004-2008. What is what. And he’s the one who taught me old and new. I mean, that’s, that’s his thing, Biblical theology, old and new. That’s what it’s common to both of these men. They know the Bible so well. I mean, we’re talking, it’s, it’s. Yes, of course they know commentators, but, but their, their main knowledge, it’s not what other people think about the Bible that’s outstanding.

0:58:53 – (Collin Hansen): It’s that they know the Bible themselves, like at a, at a level that is just incredible. I think scholars and pastors, they strive to read commentaries, they strive to get ahead of the literature and this and that. I’m like, no, no, no, no, you can do some of that, but you’ve got to spend your life working in Scripture, feeling it, getting it on the inside. And that’s why, that’s what’s common to both Greg and Don, is that they love the Bible, they submit to the Bible.

0:59:25 – (Collin Hansen): They’re trying to figure out how does the Bible work and then how do we explain it? I mean, it’s really incredible what they’ve done.

0:59:37 – (Benjamin Gladd): It’s a great calling, wonderful calling, one that just fires me up. And it was really supercharged in the time that I got to spend with Don. When I was in Wheaton, I was under the teaching of people who’d studied with Greg in the Biblical exegesis program there. So I got to benefit from that as well. And then when especially things were accelerated in 2023 for the Carson Center, I remember when we were talking about importance of biblical theology for the next generation.

1:00:11 – (Benjamin Gladd): Don brought you onto that Call that began the process, which then led to you being hired in 2024. So just to mention for people, of course, Ben is referring to the dictionary of the New Testament use of the Old Testament, just in case everybody doesn’t know that and already have that wonderful resource on their shelves, which is great. And then could you give us just one second? I mean, I think people are getting a sense, Ben, for wide range of what you’re up to, tell us just briefly about Biblical Theology Briefing.

1:00:44 – (Collin Hansen): Yes. So Biblical Theology Briefing, my good friend Matt Harmon and I, who’s a student of Doug Moo and then also Greg Beal. Greg has worked with Matt on a number of things. So Matt and I are very much in the same. We do the same thing. And so he and I started a podcast together called Biblical Theology Briefing. We talk about what is biblical theology. We talk about how does it relate to reading the Bible, what does, how does it relate to teaching, whether it’s preaching sermons or teaching Sunday school.

1:01:19 – (Collin Hansen): We talk about maybe some new books that have come out or we, we have discussions with guys like Tom Shriner. Hey, tell us about your love of biblical theology. How did you get here? How does this, how does this work? Tell us more about your, your life and, and these sorts of things. Yeah, so we have a really exciting podcast that we started. We’re on episode two now.

1:01:39 – (Benjamin Gladd): Find that on the Gospel Coalition’s YouTube channel. And also coming soon, maybe by the time this is out, it may already be available on the Carson Center’s Carson center podcast as well. So working to do that. I think you’ve got Jen Wilkin coming up, I think on an episode there as well.

1:01:59 – (Collin Hansen): Mary Hannah.

1:02:00 – (Benjamin Gladd): Yeah, Mary Hannah. And then one of the fellows, inaugural fellow at the Carson center. And I think looking forward to some future collaborations with you and Jen and Greg Beal as well on the agency. So lots of stuff going there. Okay. Any other study Bibles in the works, Ben, or are you in that mode of. Oh my gosh, this was a whole new idea, Colin.

1:02:22 – (Collin Hansen): You would think that it was like, hey, Ben, surely you’re not doing this again. I mean, obviously you didn’t have a good time. It was so hard. You’re like, why am I here?

1:02:29 – (Benjamin Gladd): You were selling this book so well at beginning of this interview.

1:02:34 – (Collin Hansen): So, so, so as I’m doing the new, as I was working on the New Testament, I’m sharing what I’m, I was sharing my results with B and H. And B and H is going, hey, this is so good. I think this is going to Work great. And then Andy McLean at B& H, he’s in charge of their Bible and reference. He’s like, Ben, you know you’re going to do an Old Testament, right? And I’m like, no way. There’s no way. This is way too hard. He’s like, no, you’re going to do it. We’ve got to figure it out.

1:02:59 – (Collin Hansen): And so now I’m like, well, okay, if I don’t do it, who’s going to do this thing? So Michael Morales are he and he and I are the two editors for the Connecting Scripture, Old Testament. We have everybody lined up, they are working, and I have seen some initial drafts. And Colin, I got to tell you, it is the most exciting thing you’ve ever seen of opening up the Old Testament. And you immediately see all these connections, stuff that. But when you read, you’re like, you know what?

1:03:27 – (Collin Hansen): This kind of sounds familiar. I think that there’s something going on here. And the answer is, well, yes, and we can show you where that’s going. The problem is, Colin, that the Old Testament’s use of the Old Testament is the Wild West. It’s the craziest thing. Evangelicals have been doing this in the New Testament, but they have not been doing the use of the old and the Old. This is very much. We’re breaking new ground here. It’s going to take a ton of work, but we are really excited. The church really needs this. The church did not ask, I did not get emails, but I’m like, I think that the church really needs this. And it’s going to take me several years, but it’s worth it.

1:04:08 – (Collin Hansen): I think that pastors are just going to love it.

1:04:11 – (Benjamin Gladd): When can we look forward to that? Do you have a general timeline?

1:04:15 – (Collin Hansen): 2028.

1:04:16 – (Benjamin Gladd): Okay.

1:04:17 – (Collin Hansen): Is like, is like plenty of time

1:04:21 – (Benjamin Gladd): then in the meantime to be able to enjoy all of these other abundant resources. It’s the Connecting Scripture, New Testament, the concise Bible commentary, biblical theology briefing, lots of new study, theology series. Yeah, there are a few things.

1:04:40 – (Collin Hansen): There’s a few things. But this is really exciting because, Colin, you’re like me in that there’s nothing more exciting than let scripture talk about itself. It’s the most exciting thing in the world and that’s what I get to do. And I’m just trying to make it accessible. And so it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun.

1:05:02 – (Benjamin Gladd): So, yeah, great way to close it. Ben Glad, Executive director, Carson center for Theological Renewal. Thanks for joining me.

1:05:09 – (Collin Hansen): Thanks so much Colin. Have a great day.

1:05:19 – (Benjamin Gladd): Thanks for listening to this episode of Gospel Bound. For more interviews and to sign up for my newsletter, head over to tgc.org gospelbound Rate and review Gospel Bound on your favorite podcast platform so others can join the conversation. Until next time, remember, when we’re bound to the gospel, we abound in hope.