“In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness’” (Jeremiah 23:6, ESV) The capitalized LORD renders the divine name, Yahweh, which in olden time was often rendered “Jehovah.” The word “righteousness” in Hebrew can be transliterated …
Author Archives: JMH
Interview with Jason Skaer: From Pro Basketball to the Pastorate
You never know who is sitting in your class. When I was teaching at SWBTS Houston, I had the privilege of teaching Jason Skaer. It’s been an even greater privilege to see our friendship grow over the last few years, and he was kind enough to answer some questions about his conversion, how basketball (Oklahoma …
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What Did the Temple Look Like?
Justin Taylor provides a nice article with great visuals from the ESV Study Bible.
Dever’s Preface to It Is Well
If you haven’t already done so, you really should check out the Preface to Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence’s book, It Is Well. Here’s a snippet that puts worship into words and describes how the cross is central, even if there isn’t a physical cross on the wall: “This is never truer than when we …
SBTS Softball: Students 8, Faculty/Staff 7
Oh well. Even though we lost we had fun. Denny Burk nearly hit this ball over Norton Hall. I didn’t hit it anywhere near as far, just a line drive up the middle. We needed a few more runs scored . . . Does this make two sports posts on this blog in a row? …
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Billy Newhouse on Lebron James
My friend Billy has a good summary and some wise thoughts here: If you are vaguely familiar with the NBA then you know that one of the league’s biggest superstars announced which team he’s signing with last night. For anyone not familiar with what’s going on let me catch you up. LeBron James, the league’s reigning …
Baselines and Biblical Theology
Before I play wiffle ball in the back yard with my sons, we have to set the bases down so that we know what the playing field is. The first and third base line enable us to see when a batted ball is fair or foul. Biblical theology has these, too. Here’s the first base …
What Is Biblical Theology?
What is biblical theology? It’s an attempt to get at the unstated assumptions from which the biblical authors make their statements. The only access we have to those assumptions are the statements they make. Take Leviticus, for instance. The book has all these instructions for offering all these sacrifices, but it never states the rationale …
Now Available: Text Driven Preaching
When Andy Cheung asked me about the extent to which biblical theology should influence preaching, I mentioned my essay, “Biblical Theology and Preaching,” which has just appeared in a new book from Broadman and Holman. Text Driven Preaching: God’s Word at the Heart of Every Sermon, edited by Daniel L. Akin, David L. Allen, and …
Hurtado Enters the Blogosphere
If you’re interested in biblical studies, here’s a site to add to your reader: Larry Hurtado’s Blog Here’s my review of one of his recent books, Earliest Christian Artifacts. HT: Mike Bird
Literary Notes from Brown’s Hope Amidst Ruin
As mentioned earlier, I think that A. Philip Brown II’s Hope Amidst Ruin: A Literary and Theological Analysis of Ezra is the best book on the theology of Ezra available. Last week I posted notes I took from the book on the way that literature works. Here are the links to those posts in one …
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Chesterton on Courage
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook, 2001 [1908]), 136–37 (ch. 6): “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. . . . The paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or brutal courage. A man cut off …
Disappointing Fulfillment: Ezra 3
Yesterday at Kenwood it was my privilege to preach Ezra 3. The main point of the sermon was that safety is only to be found in obedient worship to God. This grows out of the way that the returnees respond to their fear of the inhabitants of the land by building the altar and renewing …
Greg Gilbert on Hunter’s To Change the World
Greg Gilbert has a good post on Hunter’s book, with this concluding paragraph: What I appreciate most, however, is Hunter’s humility. For a book titled something as in-your-face as To Change the World, one would really have expected a more in-your-face conclusion than, (I paraphrase) “Can we change the world? Well, who knows? Probably not. But …
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Notes on Characterization from Brown’s Hope Amidst Ruin
So this is the final installment of my notes on how narrative literature works from Brown’s Hope Amidst Ruin. For more, you’ll have to read the book for yourself, which I don’t think you’ll regret doing. Here’s what he says about Characterization: “Characterization refers to how an author portrays the characters in his narrative” (108). “There …
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Interview on God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment
Andy Cheung, Academic Dean of King’s Evangelical Divinity School, interviews me about God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology here. You can preorder the book on Amazon. Watch for it, Lord willing, in early November.
Notes on Point of View from Brown’s Hope Amidst Ruin
So yesterday I noted that this material from Brown’s Hope Amidst Ruin will help you read all kinds of narrative, and today I note that ambitious souls thinking about writing narrative would be helped by such thoughts as these on Point of View: Point of View: “Point of view refers to how a story is …
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Notes on Plot Composition from Brown’s Hope Amidst Ruin
So I’m posting the notes I took on how literature works from A. Philip Brown’s Hope Amidst Ruin, and it occurs to me that maybe I should note that attending to these features will help you read all kinds of narrative, not just biblical narrative. Maybe I didn’t need to say that, but there it …
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God Keeps His Promises: Ezra 1-2
As mentioned in a previous post, I started a sermon series on Ezra – Nehemiah this past Sunday at Kenwood. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with a building program. All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. Preparing for this sermon was a study in the OT’s use of the OT. Ezra is interpreting …
Update on That Christian Legal Society Case
JT has an informative quote from the attorney who argued for the Christian Legal Society before the Supreme Court, and he links to a new interview with him.