Xenos Audio

PJ has posted the audio from the recent Xenos conference we attended a few weeks ago. Here is the link.

"For every one look at myself I must take ten looks at Jesus."

--Ed Welch, 'When People are Big and God is Small,' 67

Chapel Schedule Up

Looks like a semester full of good preaching at Southern's chapel this Fall, including such gifted preachers and teachers as David Platt, Daniel Montgomery, Ray Ortlund Jr., Darrell Bock, and of course several from our own faculty.

Louie Giglio & Chris Tomlin Planting Church??

It's true. Peep it here and here.

Church as Career Ladder

I was perusing through the current issue of Christianity Today and came across an advertisement for the Doctor of Ministry program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Here is part of the ad:

"In his first 16 years of ministry, Bryan Wilkerson took a church of 50 people in a 'run-down little building' on Long Island, New York, and helped it grow to a congregation of more than 500. His preaching and pastoral skills did not go unnoticed, and in 1999 he was offered the pastorate at Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, a congregation of 2,000."

What picture of the church does this paint? Seminarians and pastors, please love Christ's church and commit your life to a local congregation. Do not view smaller or less 'noticed' churches as a stepping stone to a church that is bigger, more talked about, or pays more. Of course it is not sin to leave a church, but pastors need to plan on dying where they start. The 50 member church in rural Kentucky that no one knows about is equally as blood-bought as the thriving city church that frequently makes the 'evangelical news.'

Edwards on Criticism

Spiritual pride disposes us to speak of other persons' sins, their enmity against God and His people, the miserable delusion of hypocrites and their enmity against vital piety, and the deadness of some saints, with bitterness, or with laughter and levity, and an air of contempt; whereas pure Christian humility rather disposes, either to be silent about them, or to speak of them with grief and pity.
Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others; whereas a humble saint is most jealous of himself; he is so suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The spiritually proud person is apt to find fault with other saints, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they be, and crying out of them for it; and to be quick to discern and take notice of their deficiencies: but the eminently humble Christian has so much to do at home, and sees so much evil in his own heart, and is so concerned about it, that he is not apt to be very busy with others' hearts; he complains most of himself, and cries out of his own coldness and lowness in grace, and is apt to esteem others better than himself.

Online Church

I have heard people speak of this, but didn't know it already actually existed. Visit LifeChurch.tv for all your religious needs without even getting dressed and leaving your home. Only in America.

Ray Van Neste on Pursuing Manhood

Ray Van Neste is Asst. Professor of Christian Studies at Union University, so he is dealing with young men often. The current issue of the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has an article by Van Neste on "Pursuing Manhood" available here. Here are a few quotes and one-liners from the article:

"Our culture is infatuated with youth and encourages you not to grow up. After all, it says, the glory is in the youth. If you would be men, you must reject this siren song and swim against the tide. You must diligently seek to throw off immaturity and to grow up. Remember the one boy who never grew up was Peter Pan-and in case you haven't noticed, his role has typically been played by a woman. The chase for perpetual youth is never manly."

"Reject the blame game. When the buck is passed, it is always done with a limp wrist."

"Before you should take a wife you need to know where you're taking her."

"Realize that every decision to do one thing is a decision not to do several others."

Biblical Counseling Resources

Pretty much anything written by the CCEF (Christian Counseling and Education Foundation) guys is worth reading. I have put together a 'Biblical Counseling' book list on the sidebar. Also check out the CCEF booklets here. These are very good little booklets applying the gospel to specific struggles in life.

Greg Bahnsen Videos

I have posted before on how much I have been helped by the teaching ministry of the late Greg Bahnsen. I have his picture on one of the bookshelves. I recently noticed that someone has put together 52 videos in a "Greg Bahnsen Channel" on YouTube. One set of videos is "Basic Training of the Christian Faith" and the other is audio of "The Great Debate." Watch these excellent videos here or buy them from Monergism or American Vision.

Gaffin

I have been greatly helped by the books and articles written by Richard Gaffin from Westminster Seminary in Philly. He is a systematic theologian who always seeks to have his systematics informed by biblical theology in the Vos/Ridderbos/Murray tradition. I have been particularly helped with the ordo salutis, union with Christ, and the importance of the resurrection in Paul's soteriology by Dr. Gaffin. Here is his new website. There was also a recent book published in honor of Dr. Gaffin: Resurrection and Eschatology: Theology in Service of the Church edited by Lane Tipton (of Abilene, TX!) & Jeffrey Waddinton. Here is the Table of Contents, Foreward, and Intro. Lastly, here are some books Dr. Gaffin recommends.

Reading the Greek NT

I have greatly benefited from the "UBS Greek New Testament: Reader's Edition." This resource provides English glosses according to context and parsing for words that occur 30 times or less or are obscure, idiomatic phrases, and an appendix with definitions of words occurring 30 times or more. Zondervan has also published "A Reader's Greek New Testament" for almost half the price (be sure and go with the 2nd Edition if you go with Zondervan). I looked into both and decided the UBS text was still a better choice for several reasons, the main one being that the Zondervan text does not parse verbs in the footnotes. Rick Mansfield has provided a helpful comparative review of the two products. He has also posted a first look and review of the Zondervan text. Our own Dr. Schreiner has reviewed the Zondervan text and Dr. Stephen Johnson has reviewed the UBS text here. Lee Irons has posted a helpful reading program and syntax notes for reading the Greek NT.

Gender-Related Preaching

A few weeks ago, Denton Bible Church partnered with CBMW and held three weeks of excellent preaching focused on gender. The preachers were Tommy Nelson, Bruce Ware, and Russell Moore. Audio can be found here.

2008 Xenos Summer Institute

This summer on July 23-25 in Columbus, OH (3 hrs from Louisville), Xenos Christian Fellowship is holding their annual summer institute. This year, the plenary speakers include D.A. Carson, Mark Driscoll, and Mark Mittleberg. This year's theme is "True to the Word, True to Our Mission." Also, they offer free housing, and the cost for students is only $15 per person. Here is the schedule. Register here and I will see you there.

Book Nook Sale

This week 7/8 - 7/11, the Book Nook is having a 20% off all used books sale. Here are the directions.

Denny Burk Coming to Boyce

As most Southerners know, Dr. Scroggins was recently elected as pastor of First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, Florida. Boyce has announced that Dr. Denny Burk, former professor of NT at Criswell College & current editor of the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (& blogger) will be replacing Dr. Scroggins as Dean of Boyce College. Here is what Mohler had to say:

Mohler said. “I am really excited about the coming of Denny Burk as the new dean of the college. He is a great young leader, a promising scholar, a tested teacher, and a man of great vision and conviction. He has a solid track record at Criswell College and left his mark during his doctoral studies at Southern Seminary."

(Props: InsideSBTS)

More on "Surprised by Hope"

A while back, I posted some thoughts on N.T Wright's book "Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church."

Here is a great review by Tom Schreiner from the most recent issue of the 9Marks E-Journal (which you can have emailed to you). Here are more book reviews and articles by Dr. Schreiner.

Here and here are some thoughts on the book by Douglas Wilson.

Here is an interview with Wright by Trevin Wax about the book.

Dever Quote

Having grown up in the buckle of the Bible belt and spending a semester of college traveling around the state of Texas sharing the gospel on different college campuses, I have often deplored the current state of cultural Christianity in the south.
Recently, while listening to one of the 9Marks interviews (A Round table Discussion on the Church with Mark Dever, Matt Schmucker, Greg Gilbert, and Paul Alexander), I was struck by something said by Mark Dever. When asked if he is encouraged by the church today, he said the following:

"I think I genuinely see signs of increasing faithfulness in churches. And in a funny way, I think the secularization of our culture that the Christian right so laments, may be in God's strange left hand of providence, a way of driving the church to faithfulness, to greater faithfulness. As the incentives for nominal Christianity wear out, the real thing comes back. And its just a glory to behold, and that's what sinners need."

Well said! The increasingly post-Christian state of America is in some ways a reason for celebration, or at least hope. Unless our culture shifts once again, Christianity will become less and less cultural, and we can rejoice in that as a means of purification for Christ's church.

Gender-Related Reading

Chris Cowan, over at the CBMW blog, has recommended some summer reading on biblical manhood and womanhood. Here is part I and here is part II.

Jay Adams on Church Discipline

Church discipline is not a popular concept today. Numbers from the recent SBC convention show this clearly to be true: 16 million members with only 6 million of those members in weekly attendance on Sundays last year. This is unfortunate to say the least. That means there are 10 million people out there representing a distorted view of Christ and his church to a watching world. That also means that there are many elders that will be held accountable on judgment day for many, many people whom they have never even met (Heb 13.17)! That also means that many of those 10 million probably have some false assurance of salvation "because they are members of so and so Baptist church."

The church growth movement (whether seeker-sensitive or emerging) would have us lower the wall of separation between Christians and non-Christians. For example, Frost & Hirsch in "The Shaping the Things to Come" propose a 'centered set' rather than a 'bounded set' when it comes to church membership (which is bound up with church discipline). The bounded set is the out-dated 'attractional' approach of having clearly delineated boundaries for membership. What is needed, they say, is an incarnational approach for today's post-modern world. They write, "a centered set is defined by its core values, and people are not seen as in or out, but as closer or further away from the center" (47). . . . In bounded-set churches all sorts of criteria are determined for the acceptance of rejection of prospective members. . . . In a centered-set church it is recognized that we are all sinners, all struggling to be the best people we can be. But we also believe that the closer one gets to the center (Christ), the more Christlike one's behavior should become. . . . No one is considered unworthy of belonging because they happen to be addicted to tobacco, or because they're not married to their live-in partner. Belonging is a key value" (48-49). This mindset is popular today. "Its not about who's in or out, but where we are at in relation to Jesus."

This is wrong-headed on a number or fronts, not least of which is church discipline. If we truly believe in church discipline and a regenerate church membership, then if anything we will raise the wall between members and non-members. The need of the day is pastors not driven by "becoming all things to all people," but by the fact that one day they will stand before Christ and give an account for those sheep under his care.

To this end I want to recommend a great resource: "Handbook of Church Discipline: A Right and Privilege of Every Church Member" by Jay Adams. Jay Adams has been a gift to the church, known mostly for being the father of nouthetic counseling. This book is a great read for any Christian. Elders and aspiring elders especially would benefit, but it is just as important to inform the congregation of their duty to practice discipline on a regular basis. Adams helpfully covers preventive disciple, then covers 5 steps in corrective church discipline:

1. Self Discipline

2. One on One

3. One or Two Others

4a. The Church (leaders)

4b. The Church (whole body)

5. The World

So buy, read, share and implement church discipline for the reclamation of sinners, the purity of the church, and the glory of Christ.

Good Lookin' Out: What is a Healthy Church Member

Many Christians try to live lone ranger Christian lives, and miss God's intention for the centrality of the local church in the believer's lives. That is why I am very excited about this new book. It is written by Thabiti Anyabwile, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman. Alicia and I will give many copies of this book away. It is a book that every Christian will benefit from and pastors will especially want to have many copies available for their congregation. Dever's "What is a Healthy Church" would go along great with "What is a Healthy Church Member?"

Here are the contents:

Foreword by Mark Dever
Introduction
1. A Healthy Church Member Is an Expositional Listener
2. A Healthy Church Member Is a Biblical Theologian
3. A Healthy Church Member Is Gospel Saturated
4. A Healthy Church Member Is Genuinely Converted
5. A Healthy Church Member Is a Biblical Evangelist
6. A Healthy Church Member Is a Committed Member
7. A Healthy Church Member Seeks Discipline
8. A Healthy Church Member Is a Growing Disciple
9. A Healthy Church Member Is a Humble Follower
10. A Healthy Church Member Is a Prayer Warrior
A Final Word
Appendix: A Typical Covenant of a Healthy Church

Here is the Series Preface, Intro, and Chapter 1. Here is a review of the book.

(Props: JT)

I just finished the recent bio on Cornelius Van Til (a militant Calvinist to say the least) by John Muether, and wanted to post this quote by Van Til, in light of my recent post on Calvinism:

"It is not the five points. It is rather the measure of consistency with which it applies all the doctrines of Chritianity." (234)

Let me never forget that the heinousness of sin lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed, as in the greatness of the Person sinned against.

--Valley of Vision (143)

Schreiner Lectures on Perseverance

In May, Dr. Schreiner gave the 2008 Oak Hill School of Theology lectures. His topic was "The Nature of Warnings in New Testament Theology. Here is the audio:

How to understand the warnings in scripture
Persevering in faith is not perfection
Persevering in faith is not works-righteousness
Faith and assurance

Believer's baptism
Question time

Lessons From Flawed Saints

A couple of new biographies (one on A. W. Tozer by Tony Dorsett, and one on George Eldon Ladd by John A. D'Elia ) show that God uses imperfect people to expand his Kingdom and glorify himself. Tozer, known for his piety and devotion to God, seemed to neglect his family. G.E. Ladd who largely followed Vos in popularizing inaugurated eschatology, is known for destroying classic dispensationalism and bringing dispensationalism and covenant theology closer together (see this book). His desire to be pleasing in the eyes of both the evangelical world and the academy led to "depression, bitterness, and alcoholism."

From Tim Challies (on A.W. Tozer):

Tozer was a man who loved Scripture and loved nothing more than preaching its truths to all who would listen. “A.W. Tozer heralded biblical truth. He loved the Bible and unflinchingly preached what he believed people needed to hear, regardless of what they wanted.” Yet he was a man who neglected the mission field in his home. “On and off over the years, Aiden exercised his role as head of the family by encouraging times of family devotions. These never lasted more than a few weeks. As one son explained, the children just did not want it and they were seldom all together for extended periods in any case.”
Tozer was a man who dedicated himself to reading, study and prayer and who delighted to be in the presence of God. “There is no way to measure the hours he spent in a typical day or week reading books and wrestling with ideas, but it was substantial. In a similar vein, we know that he increasingly devoted many hours each week praying, meditating on Scripture, and seeking deeper intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ. During the 1930s Tozer read voraciously, and he also developed a magnificent obsession to be in Christ’s presence- just to worship Him and to be with Him.” Yet he was a man who was emotionally and spiritually distant from his own wife. “By early 1928 the Tozers had a routine. Aiden found his fulfillment in reading, preparing sermons, preaching, and weaving travel into his demanding and exciting schedule, while Ada learned to cope. She dutifully washed, ironed, cooked, and cared for the little ones, and developed the art of shoving her pain deep down inside. Most of the time she pretended there was no hurt, but when it erupted, she usually blamed herself for not being godly enough to conquer her longing for intimacy from an emotionally aloof husband.”
These strange inconsistencies abound. Tozer saw his wife’s gifts for hospitality and encouraged her in them; yet he disliked having visitors in his own home. He preached about the necessity of Christian fellowship within the family of Christ; yet he refused to allow his family or his wife’s family to visit their home. For every laudable area of his life there seemed to exist an equal and opposite error. This study in opposites leaves for a fascinating picture of a man who was used so greatly by God, even while his life had such obvious sin.

From Sean Lucas (on Tozer):

And yet, Dorsett exposes a fundamental contradiction in Tozer's character that raises all sorts of questions about holy zeal and its effect on the whole of life. The contradiction could be summed up: how did Tozer reconcile his passionate longing for communion with the Triune God with his failure to love passionately his wife and children? Perhaps the most damning statement in the book was from his wife, after she remarried subsequent to his death: "I have never been happier in my life," Ada Ceclia Tozer Odam observed, "Aiden [Tozer] loved Jesus Christ, but Leonard Odam loves me" (160). Now, certainly all human beings have flaws; that is not the point here. Rather, the point that Dorsett failed to explore adequately is how Tozer reconciled his pursuit of God with his failure to pursue his wife. This reconciliation--or failure to reconcile--should have raised questions about Tozer's mystic approach and prophetic denunciation of the church and nuanced the value of his teaching on the Christian life. After all, if his piety could spend several hours in prayer and also rationalize his failure at home, then it should raise questions about his approach to piety.

From Oxford University Press (on George Ladd):

Ladd's main focus, however, was to create a work of scholarship from an evangelical perspective that the broader academic world would accept. When he was unsuccessful in this effort, he descended into depression, bitterness, and alcoholism. But Ladd played an important part in opening doors for later generations of evangelical scholars, both by validating and using critical methods in his own scholarly work, and also by entering into dialogue with theologians and theologies outside the evangelical world.

One of the reviews of the Ladd bio was by Marianne Meye Thompson, who now serves as George Eldon Ladd Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. She wrote, "although he wrote extensively of the presence of the kingdom, he struggled to taste its fruits in his own life." That is sad, and scary. These recent biographies should break our hearts, point us to Christ, and spur us on to finish well. May we never claim to love Christ, yet fail to cherish our wives and children. We honor Christ by loving our wives. May we also be much more consumed with pleasing God, than peers. Christ's 'opinion' is the only one that will matter at the end of the day, and we should live in light of this reality.


(HT: JT & TheoSource)

Calvinism: More Than 5 Points

I will never forget Easter break of 2004. I was a zealous evangelist and there were several Calvinists infesting the Baptist Student Ministry at my college, and this was a hindrance to evangelism in my eyes. If God predestined people to be saved, I didn’t see why anyone should share the gospel. I was finally tired of these guys and their ideas, so I set out to refute the doctrines of grace during the long weekend. I printed out several articles promoting both sides and placed them on each side of my Bible and went to work. My attempted refutation was unsuccessful and my life was forever changed. My view of God was drastically reformed. He became…God.
This obviously had huge ramifications for me, as it has for many (hence, the caged stage). It is a worldview shift. Calvinism is more than 5 points; it’s a way of the viewing the world. As J.I. Packer wrote,

“Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God’s own Word. Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible – the God-centered outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace. . . . And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of His great preordained plan for His creatures and His church. The five points assert no more than that God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that His is sovereign everywhere.”

This is why you will often hear Calvinists ask if a certain author is Reformed or not. Its not that we only want to read from a thinker who believes in election or depravity, but that we will share the same view of life. Calvinism has a preserving effect. It brings with it certain views about Scripture, conversion, evangelism, God, man, marriage, history, and suffering. The Calvinist will have a high regard for Scripture, and bow to the authority of God’s Word. He will be amazed by the grace of God in the gospel, knowing that even his own faith and repentance are gifts from God. The Calvinist remains faithful to Scripture, not what works, in evangelism, understanding that no matter how diligently he plants and waters, God must give the growth. He understands that God is the God of aseity, that is, he is independent and self-sufficient, not needing anything from anyone. The Calvinist knows man to be a created being, owing all that he is to his sovereign creator. The Calvinist is aware of the deep depravity of the human race. He understands the effective love of Christ and feels the weight of his call to love his wife in this manner. Calvinists are usually complementarian as well. He understands history to simply be God at work. To study history is to study providence. Knowing that God meticulously controls the details of history helps the Calvinist sleep at night. The Kingdom of God will prevail and triumph, and our security is bound up with this fact. When death and suffering meet the Calvinist, he understands that every trial comes from the hand of a gracious God who knows what is best and always does right. All of the sudden the flat tire or the difficult boss is viewed from a different perspective: gifts from God to conform us to the image of his Son for our joy and his glory. Simply put, as Warfield said, Calvinism is “Christianity come to its own.” He also writes:

“When religion comes fully to its rights in our thinking, and feeling, and doing, then shall we be truly Calvinistic. This is why those who have caught a glimpse of these things, love with passion what men call ‘Calvinism,’ sometimes with an air of contempt; and why they cling to it with enthusiasm. It is not merely the hope of true religion in the world: it is true religion in the world – as far as true religion is in the world at all.”

The generous people at Desiring God have made available John Piper’s TULIP seminar.
Here you can find the video, audio, and seminar notes. Other resources are:

Easy Chairs Hard Words by Douglas Wilson

The 5 Points of Calvinism

Amazing Grace DVD

Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul

Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by Packer

What We Believe About the 5 Points of Calvinism by John Piper

Wright

"God's plan, to rule his world through obedient humanity, has come true in the Messiah, Jesus. That which was purposed in Genesis 1 and 2, the wise rule of creation by the obedient human beings, was lost in Genesis 3, when rebellion jeopardised the divine intention, and the ground brought forth thorns and thistles. The Messiah, however, has now been installed as the one through whom God is doing what he intended to do, first through humanity and then through Israel. Paul's Adam-christology is basically an Israel-christology, and is predicated identification of Jesus as Messiah, in virtue of his resurrection."

-N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 29.

How to Waste Your Theological Education

Here are 45 suggestions.

(Props: J Leeman)

Dempster

"Humanity is called to be the image of God, fails in its task and is replaced by Israel, who is regarded as God's son. A tribe is singled out within Israel a family within the tribe, and an individual - David - becomes the focus. And yet David, his sons and their failures, point forwards to a just Davidic king who will bring the benefits of the rule not only to Israel but to all of humanity. Similarly, the dominion of Adam begins over all creation, and then the land of Canaan becomes the focus, and next the city of Jerusalem and the temple. And from this particular place, the rule of God extends outwards to Israel and the nations, even to the ends of the earth."

--Stephen Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty, 231.

Adorare Mente Volume 1

A couple of months ago, I posted about a new theological journal coming out by SBTS students called Adorare Mente. Volume 1 is here. Download the whole journal here or download each essay:

Hyun-Gwang Kim, Imitating Christ: An Exegetical Study of Philippians 2:5-11

John Meade, The Meaning of Circumcision in Israel: A Proposal for a Transfer of Rite from Egypt to Israel

Blake White, Christ as the Last Adam

Trevin Wax, The Centrality of Christology in the Marburg Colloquy

Nathanael Copeland, Pastoral Presuppositionalism: Lessons from the Life and Work of Francis Schaeffer

9 Marks Weekender

Last weekend, thanks in large part to my lovely wife, I was able to attend a 9 Marks Weekender at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) in Washington D.C. It was phenomenal. I was challenged, informed, convicted, and encouraged. Pastors and aspiring pastors, make every effort to do a weekender. Here is a sample itinerary. Seminary is great, but can only do so much. There is much I could write about the weekend, but I think I will limit the post to what struck me most about my time at CHBC. The elders (lay and staff) were godly, informed, humble, and committed. They serve as men under the authority of Christ who will one day give an account for their flock. In many ways they are driven by Hebrews 13.17a: "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account." This verse came alive in a new way for me this weekend. It has serious implications for the way we "do church." My love for the church was kindled like never before and my trust in the faithfulness of God to his church was strengthened.

Goldsworthy & the New Covenant

Alicia and I are reading through Graeme Goldsworthy's "Gospel and Kingdom." I really appreciate Goldsworthy's writing ministry and recommend everything he has written for a better understanding of the unity of Scripture and its message to the church. However, the other night, I had to pause our reading to sermonize on the importance of developing a biblical theology that is rooted in the text. Goldsworthy is right on, for the most part, but on pg 101 he writes,
"There is in fact an essential unity to all the covenants. Jeremiah shows the unity between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant (chapter 31:31-34), for the new covenant is not a new thing replacing the old, but rather the old renewed and applied in such a way that it will be perfectly kept."
I certainly agree that there is an essential unity to all the covenants. They are an essential unfolding to the one plan of God (Eph 1.10), but Jeremiah does not show the unity of the Mosaic covenant and the new. Quite the opposite. Jeremiah says, "I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke" (31.31-32). I am not sure how much clearer Jeremiah could have been. God is going to make a new covenant, not like the old one. It will be new, not renewed, or a new administration of the old! There is radical discontinuity between the old and new covenants. The new covenant is an eschatological covenant that fulfils all the other covenants. Within this covenant, all will know the Lord and have the Spirit, unlike Israel of old, who for the most part was apostate. Significantly, when Hebrews quotes the long Jeremiah text (8.8-12), he immediately says, "In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away" (Heb 8.13).
Of course Goldsworthy (and other Covenant Theologians) don't like the idea of a new new covenant because of its implications. If there is discontinuity with the new covenant and all within it know the Lord and have the Spirit, that means that by definition the new covenant community (the church) is a believing community! That means that only a Baptist ecclesiology is faithful to Scripture, and hence, infant baptism must be abandoned. But the Westminster Confession won't allow that, will it?

Resources

Dr. Schreiner's New Testament Theology is now available! Order here.

Visit Christ Reformed Church's Academy lectures here, where you'll find a host of helpful mp3's.

Doug Moo has joined the web, and has posted several articles online for free here. Moo is a very clear thinker and has been particularly helpful to me on the issue of the continuity/discontinuity of the Mosaic Law.

Hamilton Joining SBTS

A while back, Graeme Goldsworthy gave some lectures on the importance of biblical theology. His second lecture addressed the need for seminaries and bible colleges to require courses on biblical theology. It seems that Southern is heeding Dr. Goldsworthy's call. Dr. James Hamilton has joined the faculty of Southern Seminary as associate professor of biblical theology and will begin teaching in the fall. He received a Masters of Theology from DTS and his PhD here at SBTS under Dr. Schreiner. He also has coordination, having played baseball at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Hamilton is scheduled to teach Hermeneutics (TR 11:30-12:45) and Studies in the OT: Messiah in the OT (TR 8:30-9:45). Sign up!
Here is the story, Dr. Hamilton's blog, and his first book.

Evangelical Subculture

I am very interested in the surrounding culture's view of evangelicalism. This being the case, I am always looking out for articles, books, and movies dealing with (or usually mocking) the Christian subculture. Sadly, usually the secular world is right on. I love going to bookstores, but usually get nauseous when visiting mainstream Christian bookstores. Anyway, all that to say, read this review by Hanna Rosin of Daniel Radosh's recent book, "Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture." Here is an excerpt:

A Christian friend who'd grown up totally sheltered once wrote to me that the first time he heard a Top 40 station he was horrified, and not because of the racy lyrics: "Suddenly, my lifelong suspicions became crystal clear," he wrote. "Christian subculture was nothing but a commercialized rip-off of the mainstream, done with wretched quality and an apocryphal insistence on the sanitization of reality."

For more, see:

Friends of God

A Field Guide to Evangelicals and their Habitat

The Christian Culture Survival Guide

And from a Christian perspective:

All God's Children in Blue Suede Shoes

unChristian

They Like Jesus but not the Church

All of David Wells' books. Wells is a little more difficult to read, but does a great job of applying Refomed theology to contemporary culture (a sociological systematic theology).

Gentry in SBJT

The Spring 2008 issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology was released last week. The theme of the journal is the kingdom of God. Peter Gentry, OT professor here at Southern, has an important article for the kingdom and biblical theology called, "Kingdom Through Covenant: Humanity as the Divine Image."

Many theologians with a Reformed slant have affirmed that there is at least some sort of covenant in Gen. 1-3. Many hold to a covenant of works, but others hold to a covenant with creation and reject any notion of a covenant of works. Gentry is not a traditional Reformed covenant theologian. He follows the work of Dumbrell, who has convincingly shown that God did indeed make a covenant with creation. Paul Williamson has done a lot of work on covenant lately, and he avidly denies any covenant before Noah. Gentry lays out the biblical-theological framework of Gen 1.26-28, explains covenants in the OT & Ancient Near East (ANE), then walks through the major covenants in the biblical metanarrative (Creation, Noah, Abraham, Mosaic, David, and New Covenant) showing that the covenants form the backbone of the biblical story. Next, Gentry gives several linguistic and theological arguments for a covenant with creation, noting along the way that Williamson "appears to base his research on the study of Weinfeld instead of examining all of the evidence himself" (20). Gentry, on the other hand, has "carefully examined all instances of berit [covenant in Hebrew] and in particular, all expressions in which berit is the modifier of a verb in the Hebrew Bible. My research is based on two independent and separate studies of all the evidence conducted ten years apart" (40).

The next section of the article is on the divine image in Gen. 1.26-28, showing from the literary structure that humans are the crown of creation. Before exegeting the passage, Gentry surveys the various views on the divine image. Gentry's exegesis is careful and laborious (get the article!). The ideas of rulership and sonship are behind the terms likeness and image. Both terms refer to the divine-human relationship, but "image" focuses on the idea of a king under God. Humans rule as a result of being the image of God. "Likeness" indicates the father/son relationship.

Next Gentry spends a couple of pages on the meaning of the prepositions "in" and "as/according to." God created us as the divine image. In the ANE, only the king is the image of God, but in the Bible, every single human being is the image of God. Gentry writes:

"Man is the divine image. As servant-king and son of God mankind will mediate God's rule to the creation in the context of a covenant relationship with God on the one hand and the earth on the other. Hence the concept of the kingdom of God is found on the first page of Scripture. Indeed, the theme is kingdom through covenant." (30)

He then spends 4 pages on the meaning of the first person plural "Let Us." After a nuanced argument from the linguistic, theological, and cultural background, Gentry believes Gen. 1.26-27 "provides a strong argument that God is addressing the heavenly court" (37). "God has communicated to the divine assembly, that his rule in the world will be effected largely through humans, not through "gods" or "angels" (37). He concludes the article with a section on the garden of Eden as a separate place and sacred place (sanctuary) with Adam as a kind of priest-king worshipping in the garden sanctuary (38). "Only when the father-son relationship is nurtured through worship, fellowship, and obedient love will humankind appropriately and properly reflect and represent to the world the kind of kingship and rule intrinsic to God himself. Kingship is effected through covenant relationship" (39).

This short post does not even come close to doing justice to the argument in Gentry's article. Maybe it will wet your taste buds to pick up or order the journal though. I thank God for men like Dr. Gentry who are so careful, and labor so meticulously to be faithful to the text.

SBJT has posted the editorial, where Dr. Wellum gives a helpful and brief "mini-biblical theology" of the kingdom, and a good article by Brian Vickers on "The Kingdom of God in Paul's Gospel." Tolle Lege!

"This is one use of television -- as a source of illuminating the printed page."

-Niel Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death (83)

Good Lookin' Out: Jesus Made in America

Dr. Stephen J. Nichols is a professor at Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School. He earned a Ph.D. from Westminster Theological Seminary. This man has been extremely productive in recent years in the area of church history. Most of his work has been in the Reformation era, and most of his books are around 200 pages or less. His latest (that I am aware of) looks very good. The title is "Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History From the Puritans to 'The Passion of the Christ'." Here is the table of contents:

1 The Puritan Christ: Image and Word in Early New England

2 Jesus for a New Republic: The Politics and Piety of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington and Paine

3 Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild: Nineteenth-Century Makeovers from the Frontier to Victorian Culture

4 Jesus, Hero for the Modern World: Harry Emerson Fosdick, J. Gresham Machen and the Real Meaning of Christmas

5 Jesus on Vinyl: From the Jesus People to Contemporary Christian Music

6 Jesus on the Big Screen: The Passion for Hollywood

7 Jesus on a Bracelet: Christ, Commodification and Consumer Culture

8 Jesus on the Right Wing: Christ and Politics in America

Epilogue: Jesus and the Gospel in the Twenty-first Century

Also regarding books, here is some of what we can expect from John Piper in the near future:

1. History’s Most Spectacular Sin booklet (June, 2008)
2. Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ (September, 2008)
3. Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of God (September, 2008)
4. John Calvin and His Passion for the Majesty of God (January, 2009)
5. A book on Marriage (no title or publication date yet)
6. A book on Regeneration (no title or publication date yet)