Mike Wittmer is one of my favorite theologians. Heck he’s one of my favorite people. So I’m glad to see that he continues to find ways to say Don’t Stop Believing, the latest being a new book entitled Despite Doubt: Embracing a Confident Faith. Here’s a trailer for the book: Despite Doubt: Embracing a Confident Faith by …
Category Archives: Books
Hot and Holy: CT Interviews Denny Burk
Denny Burk has an important new book out titled What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Covenant Eyes keeps blocking the Amazon page) Christianity Today has interviewed Denny about the book. Here’s a bit of the first exchange: So. What is the meaning of sex? The reigning sexual ethic reflects a tongue-in-cheek lyric from Sheryl Crow: “If …
John Meade Reviews T. Michael Law
John Meade is doing a multi-part review of T. Michael Law’s book, When God Spoke Greek. At one level neither Law’s claims nor Meade’s response is new. At another level, these questions are constantly being re-examined, and the re-hashing of the debate can bring things into sharper focus. Like Martin Hengel and Lee Martin McDonald, T. …
Joe Rigney Wants You To Live Like a Narnian
Joe Rigney has a tantalizing new title, Live Like a Narnian. The table of contents did what such a thing should: made me want to read more. Here it is: 1 Deep Magic, and Deeper: Moral Law and Sacrificial Love 2 Witch’s War on Joy: Why Christmas, Feasts, and Spring’s Arrival Really Matter 3 We Will Be Who …
Continue reading “Joe Rigney Wants You To Live Like a Narnian”
Death by Living Trailer
HT: Douglas Wilson. Hitchcock said a good story was life with all the boring parts taken out. That’s what N. D. Wilson summarizes in this powerful clip: I’m looking forward to reading Death by Living.
Paris Review Interview with Shelby Foote
Deeply enjoyed this long interview in Paris Review with Shelby Foote (HT: JT). Here are a few snippets. Advice for young writers: To read, and above all to reread. When you read, you get the great pleasure of discovering what happened. When you reread, you get the great pleasure of knowing where the author’s going …
Review of Goldsworthy, Prayer and the Knowledge of God
Graeme Goldsworthy, Prayer and the Knowledge of God, Leicester: InterVarsity, 2003. An edited version of this review appeared in The Southwestern Journal of Theology 47.1 (2004) 111. Graeme Goldsworthy is a biblical theologian for the church. Now retired from his post at Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia), he has blessed the body of Christ with …
Continue reading “Review of Goldsworthy, Prayer and the Knowledge of God”
Biblical Theology in a Children’s Book? Introducing the Bible’s Big Story
I remember the first time someone presented to me, all at one shot, an overview of the Bible’s big story. It was in the famous Bible Study Methods and Hermeneutics class taught by Howard Hendricks and Mark Bailey at Dallas Seminary. That overview was so exciting to me I thought all Christians should go to …
Continue reading “Biblical Theology in a Children’s Book? Introducing the Bible’s Big Story”
First Thoughts on The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling)
What if an author wrote a page-turner of a mystery story that depicted things about the world whose implications we have not pondered? What if there were an industry (modeling) that routinely exploited young defenseless women, stripping them of their inhibitions and their clothing, desensitizing them to indignities, disregarding their futures, and at the same …
Continue reading “First Thoughts on The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling)”
Spoiled By Amazon
Between homeschooling and teaching and preaching, a lot of packages with books in them arrive at our doorstep. We are spoiled by Amazon, and we love the free shipping available via Amazon Prime. I’m also very thankful for the Amazon Associates program, which makes it so that Amazon gives referral credit when you, dear reader, …
Review of Brown, Spirit in the Writings of John
Spirit in the Writings of John: Johannine Pneumatology in Social-scientific Perspective. By Tricia Gates Brown. JSNTSupp 253. New York: T & T Clark, 2003. Pp. 307. ISBN 0-5670-8442-6. $55.00, paper. Published in Bulletin for Biblical Research 16.1 (2006) 168–69. Tricia Gates Brown is an independent scholar living in Newberg, OR. The book reviewed here appears …
Continue reading “Review of Brown, Spirit in the Writings of John“
Review of Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ
Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. xxii + 746pp. $55.00. Hardcover. Published in The Southwestern Journal of Theology 46.3 (2004), 99-100 Larry Hurtado, professor of New Testament at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, is well known for his many fine contributions to scholarship, and this …
Review of Mikra
Martin Jan Mulder and Harry Sysling, eds., Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2004. xxvi + 929pp. $49.95, paper. [Originally published in 1988 by Van Gorcum and Fortress as part of the series Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum (2.1)]. Review Published …
Beckwith on the Relationship between the Testaments
In his magnificent book, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, Roger Beckwith writes (408): The church was, of course, given its own authoritative interpretation of the Old Testament by Jesus and the apostles, but since Christianity was a thorough-going prophetic movement, claiming a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, withdrawn when prophecy …
Continue reading “Beckwith on the Relationship between the Testaments”
Review of Nickelsburg and VanderKam’s Translation of 1 Enoch
1 Enoch. A New Translation by George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. 170pp. Paper, $16.00. Published in The Southwestern Journal of Theology 46.3 (2004), 101-102 George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam have produced a fresh translation of 1 Enoch, perhaps the most important of the extra-canonical Jewish Apocalypses. …
Continue reading “Review of Nickelsburg and VanderKam’s Translation of 1 Enoch”
Review of Keener’s 2 vol. Commentary on John
Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2003. xlviii + 1636pp. $79.95. Cloth. Published in The Southwestern Journal of Theology 46.3 (2004), 102-103 Craig Keener teaches NT at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has also written commentaries on Matthew and Revelation, and this two volume commentary …
Continue reading “Review of Keener’s 2 vol. Commentary on John”
Review of N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God
N. T. Wright. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. xxi + 817 pp. $49.00 hardcover; $39.00 paper. Published in Trinity Journal 26 (2005) 140–43 N. T. Wright was recently consecrated as the Bishop of Durham, the fourth highest post in the Anglican …
Continue reading “Review of N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God”
What about the Covenant?
Since the appearance of Kingdom through Covenant, some have raised questions about how I do or don’t deal with the covenant concept in God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology. Here are some thoughts on the issue, as they come to me (this is, after all, a blog post): 1. I like the …
Review of Martin Hengel’s The Septuagint as Christian Scripture
Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon, trans. Mark E. Biddle. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004 [previously published in 2002 by T & T Clark]. xvi + 153 pp. $24.99, paper. Published in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 9.1 (2005) 102–104 The renowned Tübingen scholar Martin Hengel …
Continue reading “Review of Martin Hengel’s The Septuagint as Christian Scripture”
How to Read through Shakespeare in a Year
Have you ever read The Complete Works of Shakespeare? Seeing the film Lincoln inspired me to set an informal goal of reading all Shakespeare’s plays and poetry this year, and then I came across this quote in Another Sort of Learning: Not too long ago, I heard a tape of the memorial service held at Stanford …
Continue reading “How to Read through Shakespeare in a Year”