Today at our house we are officially inducting Andrew Peterson into the Hamilton Hall of Fame for his sheer awesomeness. If you’re a regular here at For His Renown, you know that we have taken great delight in Andrew’s music (song) and writings (word), and now he has topped it off with a gift of …
Category Archives: Books
Do You “Get” Flannery O’Connor? She Writes Like a Biblical Author
Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood left me scratching my head. I think that was part of her technique, honestly. The “meaning” of her stories isn’t right there on the surface as it is in a Dickens novel. Her works really have to be pondered, and you’re best off pondering from the perspective of the biblical …
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A 600 Page Book in 500 Words
Crossway had me fill out an Author Questionnaire on God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology, and one of the things they asked me do was summarize the book in 500 words. I thought back to this today as I wrote up a 500 word summary of another book for another Author Questionnaire …
Canon Revisited by Michael J. Kruger
When I teach biblical hermeneutics, before we actually get to biblical interpretation I try to put down three boundary stones within which we will seek to determine the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors. The first of these has to do with clear thinking. This is a very basic introduction to logical and rhetorical fallacies. …
What Helps Me Most As I Prepare to Preach
This post is a quick response to a question in a comment on my post on Jane Austen and Jeremiah 20:7. The question was what commentaries have helped me most as I’ve worked through Jeremiah. My answer is along the lines of what I recently said about what seminaries are for, because what has helped …
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Jane Austen and Jeremiah 20:7
The Lord provided for me on Saturday morning. I was preparing to preach Jeremiah 19–20, and I was really stuck on Jeremiah 20:7, which reads in the ESV, “O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed . . .” Some scholars say that Jeremiah …
Camus’s Translator on Translation
I have posted before on Dostoevsky’s translator, and I was pleased to read the “Translator’s Note” to Albert Camus’s The Stranger. Matthew Ward is the translator, and it seems to me that his comments weigh against “dynamic equivalence” in favor of a more literal rendering. Ward is actually critiquing the earlier more dynamic translation of …
Gerald Bray’s God Is Love
Crossway continues to bless us with great resources. I have long appreciated Gerald Bray. My favorite book of his (perhaps until I finish the book featured in this post) is his history of biblical hermeneutices: Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present. My deep respect for Bray made me really happy to be alerted by Andy Naselli …
Read a Great Book with Leland Ryken
I love literature, and when I read Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot they shook me to the core. I read literature looking for truth, and these books challenged the truths I believed. By God’s grace he caused a faith that could not be shaken to remain in me, and as …
Review of Moyise, Paul and Scripture
Steve Moyise, Paul and Scripture: Studying the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010. 151 pp. $21.99, paper. Published in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15.4 (2011): 79–81. The best thing about this book is its interaction with modern scholarship. The best thing about the book’s interaction with modern scholarship …
Kingdom through Covenant by Gentry and Wellum
I happened to be in Dr. Gentry’s office yesterday afternoon, and I was delighted to see the page proofs of this forthcoming book. In the course of our conversation, Gentry said something like this: “I’ve been developing these lectures over the course of my 30 years of teaching, and students have urged me to put …
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Congratulations to Eckhard Schnabel on his 40 Questions about the End Times
I’m glad to see Eckhard Schnabel’s 40 Questions about The End Times appear, not least because it puts me in good company! His book appeared in 2011, my book Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches appeared in 2012. I had turned my manuscript into Crossway before Schnabel’s work appeared, and I didn’t know he …
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Steinmann’s Intermediate Biblical Hebrew
The standard Hebrew reference grammars (GKC and JM) are not for the light of heart, so I’m always glad to see new efforts to bridge the gap between the elementary textbooks and the reference grammars. Enter Andrew Steinmann with his Intermediate Biblical Hebrew. Reading books like this one is like eating your broccoli. Other things …
The Scribes Didn’t Just Copy the Text
They also left some comments in margins, like these listed by Tommy Wasserman: “New parchment, bad ink; I say nothing more. “I am very cold.” “That’s a hard page and a weary work to read it.” “Let the reader’s voice honor the writer’s pen.” “This page has not been written very slowly.” “The parchment is …
Congrats to Ray Ortlund on Preaching the Word Vol. on Proverbs
Have you ever wondered how Proverbs might be preached? When I work my way through a book of the Bible, I like to get a robust exegetical commentary along with a more pastoral one and work through them as I prepare to preach. The exegetical commentary helps me with historical and background details, gives me …
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The Rhetoric Companion by Doug and N. D. Wilson
Do you want to be a better preacher or public speaker? Do you want to be a better writer? If so, you’ll want to check out The Rhetoric Companion from N. D. Wilson and Douglas Wilson. I’m not saying that reading this book will enable you to write a book like N. D. Wilson’s Notes …
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Conrad Comments on Smyth and Robertson
HT to Rod Decker for drawing attention to this comparison of the grammars of Smyth and Robertson from The Biblical Greek Forum: Robertson’s work is focused fundamentally on the Greek of the New Testament, but each chapter begins with a careful survey of the history of the form and/or usage dealt with, setting forth the …
The Logos Original Languages Supplement
The Bible is the most important book in the world. Nothing else comes close. No other book in the world reveals God. No other book in the world is inspired by the Holy Spirit. No other book in the world is able to make people wise unto salvation. No other book in the world is …
Prince Charles, the Book of Common Prayer, and Dynamic Equivalence Translation Philosophy
I think what Prince Charles says about the Book of Common Prayer is relevant to translation philosophy: Prince Charles, heir apparent to the British throne, is widely disliked by conservatives because of some of his politically incorrect statements. But his introduction to a new book celebrating the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common …
Review of Richter, The Epic of Eden
Sandra L. Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2008. 263pp. $24.00. Paper. Sandra Richter, associate professor of OT at Asbury, is married to Steve Tsoukalas, and according to the back cover of this volume she regularly speaks on the topic of The Epic of Eden: A …