John Thompson Installed in New Faculty Chair

Professor John Thompson was installed in the new Gaylen and Susan Byker Chair in Reformed Theology Tuesday, May 23, in a service held at First Congregational Church in Pasadena.

“I charge you to teach us to learn to read the Bible with the living,” Provost Sherwood Lingenfelter said to Dr. Thompson as part of his charge to the candidate. “Help us to see that those who do not understand history do not understand the present.”

Thompson offered an address entitled "I Hate Those Who Hate You, O Lord…with Perfect Hatred (Psalm 139:21-22): How the Psalter Taught the Fathers and Reformers to Curse (or Not)." Drawing from his book to be released next year, Reading the Bible with the Dead, Thompson offered thoughts on how we are to interpret the imprecatory psalms—those that curse enemies—and what we can learn from how the Church has looked at these psalms historically.

How can we reconcile the psalmist’s cry for vengeance—especially such violent verses as 137:8-9—with Christ’s command to love our enemies? Thompson spoke first about Augustin’s interpretation—which included seeing the psalmist’s “enemies” as our own evil desires—and showed how several aspects of Augustin’s approach were problematic. He then explained how we can find more suitable answers in the analysis offered by Calvin, which is based on the office, character, and discernment of the psalmist.

According to Calvin, “the psalmist has discerned that those incapable of repentance are the only ones cursed,” Thompson stated—and that “unless you have assurance that your enemies are truly reprobate and beyond hope, you may not pray for their destruction.” Since, also according to Calvin, none of us can truly know the reprobate status of others, not even ourselves, it is our duty instead not to curse, but to pray for our enemies and care for their welfare. “Only Jesus is fit to lament and curse absolutely,” Thompson concluded. “The exegetes of the past urge us to be skeptical about knowing who our enemies are…when it is enough to know that God is our ally.”

Thompson has been a member of the faculty of the School of Theology since 1990. His research and writing interests address gender issues as well as the question of how the history of interpretation can serve as a resource for the proclamation of the gospel. He has provided leadership in the School of Theology by chairing the Theology Division as well as the Academic Affairs Committee, and he has also taught at a number of Fuller extension sites. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Thompson enjoys working closely with students preparing for ordination.