Lunde, Jonathan. Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship. Biblical Theology for Life, ed. Jonathan Lunde. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.
Lunde does an excellent job in the book relating the what and how of the discipleship to major themes in Scripture such as the covenants, the kingdom of God, the life of Christ and more. Though it has a few flaws (e.g., his division of the Abrahamic covenant into two covenants, his view of Isaiah 53, his view of continuing sign gifts), overall this is an excellent treatment of the topics covered. In particular Lunde does an excellent job of explaining that grace does not lessen God’s expectations for his people but instead empowers God’s people to live lives that more and more meet the high standard of likeness to Christ.
Gunter, W. Stephen, ed. Arminius and His Declaration of Sentiments: An Annotated Translation with Introduction and Theological Commentary. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012.
This is a readable translation of Arminius’s Declaration of Sentiments, which also provides biographical and historical context. For understanding Arminius’s basic thought, I found this a helpful resource.
Stewart-Sykes, Alistair. Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen on the Lord’s Prayer. Popular Patristics. Edited by John Behr. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004.
Tertullian’s exposition of the Lord’s Prayer is the earliest such exposition in existence. As such it provides a window into some of the earliest Christian thinking about prayer and the Lord’s prayer. Cyprian follows Tertullian’s exposition closely, and at times expresses similar thoughts more clearly. Origen’s wide ranging scholarship shines through in his discussion of lexical and other matters. These treatises contain a number of devotional insights. For instance, Tertullian notes that praying to God as Father is an acknowledgment of affection and of God’s authority. Fathers are authorities, but they are authorities one loves. Later Tertullian says the order of the petitions reflect the biblical teaching, “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. Christians seek for God’s name to be hallowed, kingdom to come, and will to be done first, but then they pray for bread. Not all of the exegetical decisions made by these early interpreters are sound, however. Origen thinks it is not spiritual to pray for physical bread. He argues that Christians pray for a supersubstantial bread, which is the communication of God’s rationality (word), which is equivalent to immorality, which is equivalent to eating from the tree of life, which is connected to the bread of angels eaten by Israel in the wilderness, which is related to the bread eaten by Abraham with his three visitors the year before Sarah gave birth to Isaac. .
Köstenberger, Andreas J. A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters. Biblical Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.
This is a model of conservative, well-researched, and readable biblical theology. Köstenberger deals with introductory issues , such as the authorship of John’s gospel and writings. For instance, he has an excellent defense of the authorship of the apsotle John and cogent critique of Richard Bauckam’s argument that a different elder John wrote the Gospel. He also deals with the structure of John and its major themes. The book is thick, but it coveres so much ground that some discussions are surprisingly brief. Nonetheless, I never felt as though the brevity was hindering the depth of the argument.
Rove, Karl. Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. New York: Threshold, 2010.
Bush, George W. Decision Points. New York: Crown, 2010.
Gerhard, Johann. On the Nature of Theology and On Scripture. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2009. [Chapters 12-22]
These chapters of Gerhard’s Loci deal with the original languages in which the Bible was written, the preservation of Scripture, the perfections of Scripture, the perspicuity of Scripture, and its superiority to tradition. The one misstep Gerhard makes in this section is his argument for the inspiration and inerrancy of the Hebrew vowel points. He is concerned that without the vowel points, the Hebrew Bible would lose its perspicuity. More cogently, he argued against Catholic theologians who argued that the Latin Bible should be given precedence over the Greek and Hebrew originals. On this point, contemporary Roman Catholic scholars would probably sign with Gerhard and against the theologians of the counter-reformation. Gerhard also makes that case that the clarity of Scripture militates against giving tradition an authoritative place over Scripture. As a Lutheran scholastic, Gerhard writes with a logical precision that lays out his opponents position, his position, his opponents objections to his position, and his responses to those objections. One of the great advantages of the Protestant scholastics is that one gets a thorough understanding of the state of the theological question when reading them. In contrast to much modern theological writing, which is often opaque or superficial, the scholastics were both clear and thorough.