Exegetical Fallacies

Exegetical Fallacies by D.A. Carson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“In short, this is an amateur’s collection of exegetical fallacies” (p.26). Carson examines word-study fallacies (chp 1), grammatical fallacies (chp 2), logical fallacies (chp 3), presuppositional and historical fallacies (chp 4), before offering some concluding reflections (chp 5). This is a work I will return to frequently.

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Toil and Treasure in Alaska

Toil and Treasure in Alaska: The Memoirs of Thomas J. Thompson by Thomas J. Thompson


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The interesting memoirs of a man God used to spread the Gospel to many in Alaska. The accounts reveal Thompson to have been a man who was resourceful and humorous. I get the feel that he wouldn’t have taken himself too seriously, even if his wife had let him!

This is the very best of my tradition. I’m proud of this man and proud of his book. I honour him because, like Epaphroditus, he was willing to lay down his life for the Gospel (Philippians 2.29-30).

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Salvation is eternal AND transformational

A quality of salvation is that it's eternal. Another quality is that it's transformational. Just as genuine salvation is something so powerful that it can never be lost, it is also so powerful that it can never be hid. In this way the assurance of eternal security and the necessity of perseverance are maintained.

The Walk

The Walk: Steps for New and Renewed Followers of Jesus by Stephen Smallman


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an excellent book to use with new disciples of Christ. Smallman’s approach is grounded in the belief that the gospel isn’t just for becoming a Christian, but for living as a Christian as well. He assumes no knowledge on the reader’s part, calling this book “Discipleship for Dummies!”

The book takes its flow from the nature of Christian discipleship as a walk (often called “the Way” in Acts). So Part 1 covers the basics (what a disciple is, the necessity of the church, how to read and pray), and Part 2 moves on to the gospel itself, pacing discipleship to four ‘steps’: (1) Know what the gospel is; (2) know how you came to believe it; (3) know the benefits of believing it; and (4) live a life that flows from the gospel. Finally, Part 3 focuses on following Jesus in his mission, which is to disciple disciples.

Several features combine to make this a suitable handbook for discipleship. Most importantly, it gets the new Christian reading his or her Bible. At key junctures Smallman has the reader put down the book and read a passage of Scripture that is central to the discussion. By the end of the book, the reader has gone through the Gospel of Mark (“the beginning of the gospel”) and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (which presents “the meaning of the gospel”), as well as many other important passages.

Interesting “Time Outs” are also interspersed throughout the book, and each chapter concludes with a tight summary and a list of assignments. A further reading and resource list, and a fifteen-week Scripture reading plan, are included as appendices. A third appendix provides guidance on how to use this book in making disciples.

The author writes from a Reformed perspective, which will limit the books usefulness for some.

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More from Wrestling with an Angel

A birthday letter to a man's disabled son.

KJVO debate - what the translators would have thought of it

See The King James Version Only Debate in Light of “The Translators to the Reader” by Doug Smith.

Police officer & a disabled boy - a divinely appointed encounter

Read the touching story here.

Why so many abortion workers have turned pro-life

See Mugged by Ultrasound at The Weekly Standard.

HT: Kevin DeYoung

Sermon Prep Outline

Justin Buzzard has written a good sermon prep outline.

Big Truths for Young Hearts

Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God by Bruce A. Ware


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bruce Ware is a teacher of theology in the seminary and in his home. At bedtime Ware would take what he was teaching his seminarians and break it down into bites small enough for his children. In Big Truths for Young Hearts Ware provides a rich resource for children and their parents to learn the great truths of the Christian faith.

The book contains several excellent illustrations of complex truths. For instance, on the issue of how Jesus could experience temptation even though his divine holiness meant he could never sin, Ware suggests that we need to answer two different questions with two different answers. The two questions are: 1) why it is that something could not happen, and 2) why it is that something did not happen?

Then comes his illustration of the distinction he has made. A swimmer trains to break a world record and swim over 70 miles continuously. He is accompanied by a boat in case his muscles cramp and he drown. However, he accomplishes the feat without any assistance from the boat.

Why is it that the swimmer could not have drowned? Because the boat was always there to pick him up if needed. Why is it that the swimmer did not drown? Because he kept swimming!

In relation to Christ, then, the reason he couldn’t sin is that he was fully God (he possessed the divine nature). The reason he didn’t sin is that “as a man, empowered with the Spirit and filled with God’s word, he used everything that was given him by the Father to remain obedient” (p.119). In this way we can maintain that Christ could never have sinned, and yet he understands better than we do the power of temptation.

Other truths that Ware did an especially good job of explaining are
• How Jesus emptied himself without compromising anything of his divine nature (p.112)
• How Jesus’ death at the cross defeated Satan (p.134)
• Why the resurrection was necessary (pp.137-138)
• How baptism is better illustrated as a movie than a picture (p.203).

The book also includes a rich section on the Holy Spirit. This book made me even more passionate about teaching these wonderful things to my own children, and to the children and teens in my community.

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This Momentary Marriage (for free)

I should have mentioned that this book is available online for free here.

This Momentary Marriage

This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence by John Piper


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What drives this book from beginning to end is the truth that marriage is a model of Christ’s relationship to the Church. According to Piper (p.42), this truth has the effect of (1) elevating the value of marriage; (2) providing a foundation of grace for our marriages; and (3) defining roles within marriage. By making this truth the backbone of his book, Piper has had the same three-fold effect on me.

Early in the book Piper shows that marriage is the doing of God and the display of God (21 – 26). It is a covenant that reflects the covenant God makes with his people. For that reason, “marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love” but about “portraying something true about Jesus Christ and the way he relates to his people” (26).

Rather than rehearsing all the ground this book covers, I will focus instead on its unique contributions for books of this type (unique for me, at least).

On nakedness and clothing

Commenting on Genesis 2.25 (“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed”), Piper points out that the reason they experienced nakedness without shame was not that they had perfect bodies, but because they knew perfect covenant love (pp. 32-36). They were shame-free not because they had flawless bodies (which they likely did have), but because they loved each other with a love that covered over a multitude of flaws. The reason they tried to clothe themselves in Genesis 3 was not because their bodies had suddenly become ugly, but because their sin had broken their covenant with God, and thus upset the foundation for their own covenant love to each other. Now Adam was to Eve one who could not be trusted—he had tried to displace God, after all. And they both knew within themselves that they were no longer what they ought to be. Their self-clothing was an effort to cover their vulnerability to each other and cover the huge gap between what they were and they ought to be.

God graciously provides clothing for them, and this carries a negative and a positive message.

Negatively, God’s action of clothing them affirms that there is a huge chasm between what they are and what they should be. In this sense human clothing functions not to conceal our shame but to confess it. Thus “public nudity is not a return to innocence” but a further loss of it. “And for those who rebel in the other direction and make clothes themselves a means of power and prestige and attention-getting, God’s answer is not a return to nudity but a return to simplicity” (p.37).

Positively, God’s clothing Adam and Eve in animal skins points forward to a time when God would provide a sacrifice that would bridge the gap between man and God and deal with that sin that plunged us into shame (pp. 37-38).

On singleness

The two chapters on singleness are the best in the book. It seems to me that so many sermons and conversations (amongst Christians) about marriage portray the single life as an inferior walk through life. The fact that Piper includes two chapters on singleness alone speaks volumes to those of us in the church who are married. In chapter 9 Piper’s central aim “is that God promises those who remain single in Christ blessings that are better than the blessings of marriage and children, and he calls you to display, by the Christ-exalting devotion of your singleness, the truths about Christ and his kingdom that shine more clearly through singleness than through marriage and child-rearing” (p.106). Drawing heavily from Barry Danylak’s A Biblical Theology of Singleness, Piper persuasively accomplishes this aim.

Chapter 10 is more about how married and single people ought to relate in the church. Piper longs “to see Christ magnified through married people folding single people into their lives and single people folding married people into their lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel” (p.117). Married couples are counseled to plan their hospitality to include singles, and vice versa. As odd as it might be for singles to include couples, “would [this:] not be a mark of unusual maturity and stability? Would it not be a mark of God’s grace in your life?” (p.123). At this point I couldn’t help thinking of one of my heroes, Robert Chapman, who, though a single, showed hospitality to countless people.

On having children

Not only will those who can’t marry (or choose not to) find themselves included in this book, but so will married couples who cannot (or choose not to) have children. Piper’s emphasis is struck by the first half of the chapter title: “Marriage is Meant For Making Children…Disciples of Jesus”. Marriage’s primary meaning is to display Christ’s covenant with the church. Marriage’s secondary meaning is actually a means of accomplishing its first meaning: to make children yes, but more importantly, to make children disciples of Christ.

With this way of putting it, Piper emphasizes that a Christian couple’s mandate isn’t so much to fill the earth with more bodies, but to bring more people into Christ’s kingdom. For most Christian couples that will mean giving birth to children and leading them to Christ. But for many other couples it may mean fostering children, adopting children, or having a fun backyard Bible program for the neighborhood children. The last example is also an example of what singles can do to make children into disciples of Christ.

Further, with this way of putting it, Piper provides a deep motivation test for those couples who simply do not want to have children. Why does a couple not want to have children? Is it that children would threaten the fruitfulness of their unique mission to make disciples of Christ? Or, is it that children would complicate their pursuit of comfort, ease, and freedom?

Prying at a couple’s motivation in this way is far better than automatically writing off a couple as selfish simply because they choose not to have children, and exalting a couple as godly because they do.

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When principles become rules

Steve Runge is wading into the Synoptic Problem and is wary of some of the claims made by those who have gone before him. Is it possible that principles are being used woodenly as rules? Runge thinks that it's important to maintain a distinction between the two, and here's hoping that, by linking to his post, I will remember to make it too.

He finishes with a great quote from Howard Hendricks:

Rules are many, principles are few, rules will change, principles never do.

How to get from "why me?" to "why not me?"

Justin Taylor posts a powerful excerpt from one of David Powlison's writings on suffering.

How to disagree in church

Alan Knox has a good post entitled Disagreements without Separation.

The first of seven points is this:

Start with our agreement, primarily in the person and work of Jesus Christ, in our common relationship to God and to one another. When we start with our agreement we can recognize that most of our disagreements are insignificant compared to the greatness and immensity of our agreements.

Review of Donald Ross paper

Joel Barnes reviews the paper I mentioned earlier.

Another reading plan...

If the plan I mentioned earlier is too disjointed for you (four different places in the Bible), you can also try following along at Step thru the Scriptures. This plan consists of two separate readings a day, and it too is accompanied by comments.

Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Greek

Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Greek: Learning Biblical Greek Grammatical Concepts Through English Grammar by Gary A. Long


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is an excellent supplement to a standard 1st year NT Greek grammar. I no longer have access to a copy of the book, so my comments will be general; this book provides material behind and beyond and in between that of a typical 1st year (and maybe even 2nd year!) grammar.

Behind

A good grammar will enlist linguistics to aid the student in acquiring NT Greek. This book provides additional background to this important topic; it fleshes out and provides context to the brief discussions that are only included in the beginning grammars for pragmatic reasons.

Beyond

This book takes the student beyond most introductory grammars by discussing topics related (or part of?) linguistics such as semantics and discourse analysis. A beginning grammar might be headed towards these topics, but doesn’t usually get there.

In Between

Not only does Long provide material that is normally left out of grammars, he also assists with the material that the grammars do cover (cases, declensions, pronouns, verbs, etc). His definitions are clear and his discussions are tight. From what I can tell, reading his coverage on topics such as verbal aspect provides a more mature orientation than most beginning grammars are able to give.

In short, use this book as a companion to whatever introductory Greek grammar you are studying. It provides background and context that will assist in your journey to understand and use Greek.

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For the Love of God...For Free!

Justin Taylor links to the new For the Love of God blog. You can go there each day to get your reading schedule, and to get Carson's comment. It looks like they will be going through Volume 1 this year.

You can also see my last post.

For the Love of God

For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Treasures of God's Word by D.A. Carson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Here is a devotional companion that I can stick to! And better yet, it is currently one of two volumes, and word has it that Carson is working on Volumes 3 and 4.

As Carson notes in the preface, many devotional guides will have you read a handful of verses here and some personal gems there. Both the selection of readings and the application comments made on them may well provide encouragement to the Christian, “but they do not provide the framework of what the Bible says—the ‘plotline’ or ‘storyline’—the big picture that makes sense of all the little bits of the Bible” (p.x). Carson continues:

“Wrongly used, such devotional guides may ultimately engender the profoundly wrong-headed view that God exists to sort out my problems; they may foster profoundly mistaken interpretations of Scripture, simply because the handful of passages they treat are no longer placed within the framework of the big picture.”

After exposing the needs of the hour, this devotional seeks to meet them. First, by its reading plan: an average day’s allotment is four chapters, all from four different books of the Bible (a slight modification of the plan devised by the great Scottish minister, Robert M’Cheyne). After a year the reader has read the entire Bible once, and the NT and Psalms twice. Second, by the comments, which generally focus on just one of the four readings for the day. I will review the reading scheme and the comments in turn.

Reading Plan
As previously mentioned, an average day calls for the reading of four chapters from four different parts of Scripture. So on January 1st, for example, one would read Genesis 1, Ezra 1, Matthew 1, and Acts 1. This example of readings illustrates the potential this plan has for meeting Carson’s end, for one realizes that each of these chapters tells the story of a distinct ‘beginning’ (a fitting theme for the first day in a new year) in the Bible (in reverse order, the beginning of the church, of Jesus Christ, of God’s people’s return to Jerusalem, and of the universe). Reading the chapters against each other leads one to discover legitimate links throughout the canon, links which make up the “framework” of Scripture.

Reading consecutively from different sections of Scripture not only helps the Bible ‘stick’ to the reader, but it helps the reader stick to reading Scripture! Reading multiple chapters from the same book of the Bible might be great when you’re in Esther, but what happens to your motivation when you’re faced with three days in a row of 1 Chronicles 1 – 12? Reading across Scripture rather than through it guarantees that what seems (at first, at least) to be leaner sections are supplemented by scriptures whose nourishment is more easily gleaned.


Comments
Like the readings, these too are committed to “helping the reader keep the big picture of the Bible’s ‘story line’ in mind, and to see what relevance this has for our thinking and living” (p.13). Carson’s commitment to showing the big picture edges out concerns of always providing a personal, individual, ‘boost’ to the reader: “although I want the comments to be edifying, this edification is not always of a private, individualized sort. My aim is to show, in however preliminary a way, that reading the whole Bible must stir up thoughtful Christians to thinking theologically and holistically, as well as reverently and humbly” (p.13).

I know of no other devotional whose comments are as faithful to context and yet stirring to the imagination. Carson never (I dare say) makes an application at the expense of context. And for him, unlike many others, context is not restricted to the historical and literary, but also includes the canonical. Thus reflection on Psalm 68:11 (“The Lord announced the word, and great was the company of those who proclaimed it”) begins at the historical contextual level, where “the ‘word’ that the Lord announced is the word of [battle:] victory”, and legitimately winds its way to the canonical level, to Jesus Christ himself:

“The ultimate end of the exile, the ultimate triumph of God, lies in the gospel itself. As in the case of the beautiful feet pounding across the mountains to bring the good news, and as in the case of the company of those who proclaimed the word the Lord announced, so also with us (and how much more so!): the only right response to the word of the glorious victory of God in the cross of Jesus Christ is that there be a great company to proclaim it.”

In this volume Carson frequently comments on the readings that lie in the minor and major prophets. Most of us would admit that at times these books of the Bible can be tough slogging. Carson’s comments not only furthered my understanding of these important books, but they also kept me coming back each day for more!

Tune in a year from now, Lord willing, for a review of Volume 1. And in the meantime, pick up one of the volumes yourself and enjoy!

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