Reeves, Michael. Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2012.

Reeves effectively communicates that the Trinity is not a logical formula that Christians must conform to. The Trinity is foundational to the Christian faith and its significance is something for Christians to delight in. Reeves presents a difficult topic in an approachable and understandable style. He blends together theology, church history, and practical application. (Though I confess that I remain mystified as to why conservatives feel the need to quote Barth to support their ponits.)

Beeke, Joel R. and Paul M. Smalley. Prepared by Grace, for Grace: The Puritans on God’s Way of Leading Sinners to Christ. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2013.

The Puritans have been accused of departing from the gospel of grace recovered by the Reformation by teaching that sinners need to be prepared for salvation. Beeke and Smalley demonstrate that these charges arise from a lack of understanding concerning what the Puritans actually taught.

After helpfully laying the background for this debate Beeke and Smalley canvass what individuals taught about preparation, from Calvin to English Puritans, to New England pastors, to post-Reformation theologians on the continent. This survey enables the reader to see firsthand both the commonalities and the differences among theologians of this time regarding preparation. (One interesting difference was the tendency of the Dutch theologians to place regeneration at the first workings of the Spirit in the life of the elect in contrast to the English, who placed regeneration with conversion and saw the prior working of the Spirit as something distinct.) In general, Beeke and Smalley put to rest the charge that teaching preparation was opposed to the gospel of grace. Instead the Puritans saw preparation as the gracious work of the Spirit in bringing a person to the point of conversion. Though Beeke and Smalley are not above criticizing individuals for imbalanced presentations of the doctrine, they reject dismissal of the doctrine itself. Though a historical treatment, this is also a book that stirs the heart to evangelism.

Myers, Ken. All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

This book could be summed up in this phrase: Christians must evaluate culture not only by its content but also by the sensibilities that it fosters. Though simply stated, this is a profound insight. It changes the question that Christians should be asking about their daily activities. The question is not merely, “is this permissible?” but “is this good and wise?” Watching a television show is permissible. But is watching one or two every night wise? What sensibilities are fostered by that habit? What sensibilities should a Christian be fostering?

Myers suggests that pop culture promotes the sensibilities of novelty (as opposed to tradition), immediacy (as opposed to patience and learning), diversion (as opposed to meditation), celebrity (as opposed to community), and youth (as opposed to respect for the wisdom of the aged). It opposes inhibiting the “authentic self” (in contrast to controlling passions and developing virtues). By appealing to the masses, pop culture tends to be intellectually shallow. It also tends to avoid religious themes. What I find striking about his observations is that in every case the sensibilities of Christianity ought to be precisely the opposite.

Myers is not saying that Christians can never consume pop culture. He uses the analogy of a Whopper. Having an occasional Whopper is fine. But a diet of Whoppers is not fine. It is bound to both distort your taste and to harm your health. The upshot of this is that Christians cannot make cultural decisions based on proof-texts. They must instead develop wisdom.

This is a must read book, in my opinion.

Witisius, Herman. The Economy of the Covenants. Translated by William Crookshank. Edinburgh: John Turnbull, 1803. Book 3, ch. 12.

Book 3, ch. 12 of Witsius’s Economy of the Covenants is a lengthy treatment of the doctrine of sanctification. Witsisus covers such topics as the theological definition of sanctification and the different senses of sanctification as it relates to regeneration, effectual calling, and justification (with regard to justification, Witsius shows that the Reformed Scholastics would not have found David Peterson’s thesis in Possessed by God a novel idea). He also looks at what it means to put off the old man and to put on the new man. He looks at the role of the Trinity in sanctification. He contrasts virtues in the natural man with virtues in the spiritual man, and he argues that sanctification is not merely the change of actions but involves new habits (using this term in its ethical sense). Witsius specifies eight means of sanctification. He discusses why God permits the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit in believers. Finally, he discusses what the Scripture means when it calls some people perfect.

Merkle, Benjamin L. “Paul’s Arguments from Creation in 1 Corinthians 11:9-9 and 1 Timothy 2:13-14: An Apparent Inconsistency Answered,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49, no. 3 (September 2006): 527-48.

Merkle seeks to address an apparent complementarian inconsistency. Complementarians insist on an order of authority between men and woman in the church since Paul, in 2 Timothy 2, argues from creation. But most do not require women to wear head coverings in worship and men to remain uncovered in worship, a practice that Paul, it is said, also roots in creation. Merkle proposes that 1 Corinthians 11 roots the order of authority between man and woman in creation. But Merkle holds that the head covering is a cultural practice that Paul insisted on because it reflected the creational order. The cultural practice is not itself rooted in creation. This was long my understanding of the passage, but I have since abandoned it. Merkle’s article confirms my sense that relegating the practice of head coverings to a first-century cultural custom does not actually attend well to the actual wording of the passage.It seems to run contrary to what we know about Greco-Roman culture and the historical practice of the church across time and culture.

In the first part of the article Merkle seeks to establish that Paul’s “underlying concern in 1 Corinthians 11 is gender and role distinctions and not merely head coverings.” He does this by seeking to establish that over-realized eschatology is at the root or the varied problems addressed in 1 Corinthians. I found this a fairly unconvincing portion of the paper. To establish this mirror reading as valid, it seems that Merkle should have gone beyond arguing that the problems raised by the book could be understood in light of over-realized eschatology. He should have also demonstrated that Paul’s responses to these problems are correcting the faulty eschatology. This he did not do. Thus I find myself sympathetic with Garland: “Pickett (1997: 44-45) reasonably asks, ‘Why did he not provide them with a more explicitly theological corrective as he does, for example, in Galatians?’ It is far more likely that the influences on them were more amorphous and that their behavior was swayed by culturally ingrained habits from their pagan past and by values instilled by a popularized secular ethics. . . . I think that ‘over-realized eschatology’ has been overplayed by interpreters” (Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT, 13-14). While I grant that Paul’s “underlying concern in 1 Corinthians 11 is gender and role distinctions and not merely head coverings,” this does not mean that the coverings are incidental to Paul. They are the focus of the passage, even if that focus is rooted on deeper concerns.

In the second part of the article Merkle seeks to establish that the creation arguments in 1 Corinthians 11 ground the ordering of gender roles and not the practice of head coverings, per se. There is truth to this argument. It is the underlying realities that are grounded in creation. But Merkle then draws an unwarranted conclusion: “Therefore Paul’s main concern is not head coverings, since that was merely a cultural outworking of an unchanging truth” (533; cf. 538). He gives five reasons for this conclusion:

“First, the fact that Paul introduces his arguments the way he does makes little sense if head coverings are Paul’s main concern. In verse 3 Paul begins by saying, ‘But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.’ That something more important is at stake seems obvious that since Paul relates the functional relationship between man and Christ, woman and man, and Christ and God.” To the contrary, the passage begins not in verse 3 but in verse 2. In verse 2 Paul begins with a commendation that they hold to the traditions that Paul delivered to them. Given the inclusio with v. 16 and the content in between, these traditions include the practice of head coverings. Nor is it surprising that the next verses lay the theological foundation for the practice. The laying of theological foundations up front does not mean that Paul was uninterested in the practice that they undergird.

Second, Merkle takes the hair comparison to indicate that the real issue is that “it is wrong for a woman to blur such [gender/role] distinctions.” The issue is not what is worn or not worn but what “the meaning or message that is conveyed by one’s appearance.” But this ignores the logic of Paul’s argument, which takes the covering, whether it be hair or the physical covering compared to hair, as a symbol that the one covered is under authority. Paul’s point is not simply that gender distinctions are blurred when women wear their hair like men. Follow the chain of γαρ’s in vv. 7-9 leading to διὰ τοῦτο in v.10. I also doubt that a shaved head refers to a masculine hair style. It seems more likely that Paul is referring to the removal of the natural covering God has given women.

Third, Merkle takes Paul’s argument from nature in vv. 14-15 to “suggest that God’s creational gender/role distinctive are in view” and that “nature teaches us that it is shameful for a man to appear like a woman by having long hair” (535). While granting that gender/role distinctions underlie this whole discussion, Merkle is wrong to say that Paul’s point in these verses simply has to do with men and women not looking like each other. Paul explains the significance: “her hair is given to her for a covering.” This would indicate that the nature of this covering, whether it be hair or whether it be an additional covering worn in worship, is significant to Paul in this passage.

Fourth, Merkle takes verse 16 to indicate that “such a universally accepted custom suggests the presence of an underlying principle governing the need for such a practice” (536). There is no argument here, except to note that it does not follow the presence of the underlying principle negates the significance of the principle’s symbol.

Fifth, Merkle argues that since the head covering is “a sign or symbol that pointed to a greater reality,” one must conclude that “Paul is not concerned about head coverings per se. Rather he is concerned with the meaning that wearing a head covering conveys” (536). Again it does not follow that concern for the “greater reality” means the symbol is not of concern to Paul.

The underlying assumption that Merkle brings to the article is that head covering was a uniform cultural practice in the Greco-Roman world that carried a uniform meaning throughout that world. This assumption is expressed when Merkle writes, “women need to war head coverings when they pray or prophesy because in your culture that is one of the accepted cultural distinctions between men and women” (537). It also assumed in his statement of the conclusion: “Therefore, Paul’s main concern is not head coverings, since that was merely a cultural outworking of an unchanging truth” (533). But Merkle nowhere interacts with the literature or primary sources that reveal what the actual customs were in the Greco-Roman world. My understanding is that Greeks, Romans, and Jews all had different customs regarding head coverings. If so, there was not a uniform cultural understanding. Yet, as Merkle acknowledges, verse 16 indicates there was a uniform church practice. I find it significant that Paul begins the passage by indicating that this is a tradition that he delivered to the Corinthian church (11:2) and that this was not a tradition unique to the churches that he planted but was a tradition universally observed by the churches (11:16). Furthermore, in the argument in between these verses, Paul does not mention culture at all. He provides creational grounding and analogies to nature. In addition, he specifies that the covering is to be worn during prayer and prophesying, which removes the practice from a broad cultural realm to the realm of worship. Finally, Paul says, not that the head covering should be worn because of the culture, but that it should be worn because of the angels (11:10). These factors all point away from understanding the practice a merely a cultural application.

The last two sections of Merkle’s paper deal with 2 Timothy 2. I benefited a great deal from the observations in the final section. .

Hammerling, Roy. The Lord’s Prayer in the Early Church: The Pearl of Great Price. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

I found this book most useful for gathering the sources in which the Father’s discuss the Lord’s Prayer. Hammerling’s own discussion is somewhat dry and often critical. Nonetheless, there are several parts that provide helpful summaries of patristic teaching.

Grant, Edward. The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional, and Intellectual Origins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Grant argues that the Scientific Revolution could not have taken place without advances in science in medieval Europe from the twelfth century forward. While granting that foundations of science existed in other cultures and that Europe drew on earlier scientific advances in those cultures, Grant argues that the unique combination of factors that made the scientific revolution possible only existed in post-medieval Europe. He particularly points to three factors, the translation of Greek and Arabic scientific works into Latin in the middle ages, the rise of the medieval university, and a conception of theology that made science possible.

Principe, Lawrence M. The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

This is another superb entry in OUP’s “Very Short Introduction” series. The value of the book is probably best shown by select quotations from it:

“One easily overlooked feature of printing was its ability to reproduce images and diagrams. Illustrations posed a problem for the manuscript tradition since the ability to render drawings accurately depended upon the copyist’s draftsmanship, and often upon his understanding of the text. Consequently, every copy meant degradation for anatomical renderings, botanical and zoological illustrations, maps, charts, and mathematical or technological diagrams. Some copyists simply omitted difficult graphics. Printing meant that an author could oversee the production of a master woodcut or engraving, which could then produce identical copies easily and reliably. Under such conditions, authors were more willing and able to include image sin their texts, enabling the growth of scientific illustration for the first time (13-14).

“”It is hard to imagine the flood of data that poured into Europe from the New World. New plants, new animals, new minerals, new medicines, and reports of new peoples, languages, ideas, observations, and phenomena overwhelmed the Old World’s ability to digest them. This was true ‘information overload,’ and it demanded revisions to ideas about the natural world and new methods for organizing knowledge” (16).

“When early modern thinkers looked on the world, they saw a cosmos in the true Greek sense of that word, that is, a well-ordered and arranged whole. They saw the various components of the physical universe tightly interwoven with one another, and joined intimately to human beings and to God. Their world was woven together in a complex web of connections and interdependencies, its every corner filled with purpose and rich with meaning. Thus, for them, studying the world meant not only uncovering and cataloguing facts about its contents, but also revealing its hidden design and silent messages. This perspective contrasts with that of modern scientists, whose increasing specialization reduces their focus to narrow topics of study and objects in isolation, whose methods emphasize dissecting rather than synthesizing approaches, and whose chosen outlooks actively discourage questions of meaning and purpose. Modern approaches have succeeded in revealing vast amounts of knowledge about the physical world, but have also produced a disjointed, fragmented world that can leave human beings feeling alienated and orphaned from the universe” (21).

“At the present time, applications of magia naturalis and the whole idea of an interconnected world of sympathies and analogies are sometimes dismissed as irrational or superstitious. But this harsh judgment is faulty. It results from a certain smug arrogance and a failure to exercise historical understanding. What our predecessors did was to observe various mysterious and apparently similar phenomena in nature and to extrapolate thence into a more universal statement–a law of nature–about connections and the transmission of influences in the world. This extrapolation led to one tenet that they held that we do not; namely, that similar or analogous objects silently exert influence upon one another. Once that assumption is made, then the rest of the system builds upon it rationally. They were trying to understand the world; they were trying to make sense of things and trying to make use of the powers of nature. They moved inductively from observed or reported instances to a general principle and then deductively to its consequences and applications. We might choose to say, informed as we are by more recent studies, that the action between Sun and sunflower, or Moon and sea, or magnet and iron, can be better explained by something other than hidden knots of sympathy. But that does not permit us to say that their methods or conclusions were irrational, or that the beliefs and practices that came from them were ‘superstitious.’ If that leap were allowed, than every scientific theory that comes ultimately to be rejected in the course of the development of our understanding of the world–no doubt including some things that we today believe to be true explanations of phenomena–would have to be judged irrational and superstitious as well, rather than simply mistaken notions that were arrived at rationally given the ideas, perspectives, and information available at the time” (35).

“In order to understand early modern natural philosophy, it is necessary to break free of several common modern assumptions and prejudices. First, virtually everyone in Europe, certainly every scientific thinker mentioned in this book, was a believing and practising Christian. The notion that scientific study, modern or otherwise, requires an atheistic–or what is euphemistically called a ‘sceptical’–viewpoint is a 20th-century myth proposed by those who wish science itself to be a religion (usually with themselves as its priestly hierarchy). Second, for early moderns, the doctrines of Christianity were not opinions or personal choices. They had the status of natural or historical facts. Dissension obviously existed between different denominations over the more advanced points of theology, just as scientists today argue over finer points without calling into question the reality of gravity, the existence of atoms, or the validity of the scientific enterprise. Never was theology demoted to the status of ‘personal belief’; it constituted, like science today, both a body of agreed-upon facts and a continuing search for truths about existence. As a result, theological tenets were considered part of the data set with which early modern natural philosophers worked. Thus theological ideas played major part in scientific study and speculation–not as external ‘influences’, but rather as serious and integral parts of the world the natural philosopher was studying” (36).

Kjelgaard, Jim. Outlaw Red. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1953.

Caro, Robert. Master of the Senate. The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Knopf, 2002.

This volume provides a history of the Senate from its inception until Lyndon Johnson’s election as senator, a biography of Richard Russell, the most influential Southern Senator of the time and LBJ’s Senate mentor, and Johnson’s shaping of the positions of minority leader and majority leader into positions of real power in the Senate.

Caro, Robert. The Passage of Power. The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Knopf, 2012.

This volume tells the story of how LBJ was brought onto the Kennedy ticket, his failed efforts to hold onto power as vice president, the JFK assassination from Johnson’s perspective, and Johnson’s first year as president (filling out Kennedy’s term). This volume and the previous provide an excellent treatment of the civil rights struggle of the time as well as how the civil rights legislation of that time moved through Congress.

Oliphint, K. Scott. God With Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God. Crossway, 2011.

This is a thick book of serious theology; it is certainly not a light read. But it is a worthwhile read. Oliphint aims to defend the aseity of God while not trimming the Bible statements that speak of God’s real interaction with his creation (Open Theism drops aseity; appeals to anthropopathism or anthropomorphism can trim the actual statements of Scripture). Oliphint sees the incarnation as a way forward. Just as the incarnate Son remained fully God while also taking on a human nature that brought limitations (Jesus necessarily remained omniscient as God while as a man was ignorant of some things), so God retains the attributes that are essential to his nature while entering into covenant with us and thereby picking up additional covenantal attributes that account for his relation with us. This brief summary does not do justice to the careful argumentation that Oliphint presents.

Johnson, Terry L. Contemporary Worship: Thinking About Its Implications for the Church. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2014.

Terry Johnson has written an excellent little book that in which he raises concerns about much of contemporary worship. He is concerned that much contemporary worship has less biblical content that older forms of worship. In this he highlights not only the content of music but also the order of service. He notes that older forms of worship included not only praise but confession of sin, thanksgiving, and extended time given to prayer, sequential reading of Scripture, and the sacraments. Johnson ties the shift to a move from worship as doxological to worship as evangelistic.

Johnson is also concerned about worship that targets demographics and in doing so divides congregations, in changes driven by pragmatism, in assuming that popular culture can by absorbed into worship without changing the meaning of worship, in further assuming that aesthetic judgments are all relative, and in despising traditions that are rich with theological value.

There are, of course, ministries that tend in the contemporary direction that do not fall under all of Johnson’s critiques while there are other ministries that might think themselves traditional which do fall under these critiques. Be that as it may, Johnson’s concerns about much American worship are biblical. It would be to the health of the church if they were given a wide hearing.

Altschuler, Glenn C. All Shook Up: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Changed America. Pivotal Movements in American History. Edited by David Hackett Fischer and James M. McPherson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

This history primarily looks at Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1950s and early ’60s with a brief look at the music from the Beatles through the 1980s toward the end of the book. Altschuler documents the initial concern of parents, community leaders, and office holders about the sexual nature of rock lyrics and performances. He documents that personalities such as Pat Boone and Dick Clark presented a moral face to the music, and that labels cleaned up lyrics for recordings. These moves made it possible for rock to take root in American culture. Altschuler then documents the return to more sexualized lyrics, themes that stoked “generational conflict,” and eventually music that promoted the political issues of the New Left. By the 1980s, however, even the Right appeals to the music of the counter-culture, as exemplified by Ronald Reagan’s invocation of Bruce Springsteen. Though Atschuler writes as one sympathetic to the genre, it seems clear by the end of the book that the early critics’ concerns—that the music promoted sexual immorality and rebellion against authority—were clearly justified by the development of the genre and the effects on American culture that Atschuler documents.

Lane, Anthony N. S. “Calvin’s Use of the Fathers: Eleven Theses.” In John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999.

In this essay Lane is urging caution in determining Calvin’s patristic sources. He notes that in Calvin’s time citation of a father does not mean that the author has read that father. It may simply mean that he has read another source that mediated knowledge of that Father. Thus in determining what Calvin knew from those he quoted, knowing what sources Calvin had available to him at the time he wrote certain works is important.

Lane also looks at the different ways that Calvin uses sources. He proposes that in the Institutes Calvin appeals to the Fathers in support of his arguments on disputed points. In the commentaries Calvin is mainly looking for sparring partners. He is able to advance his viewpoint by critiquing an alternative viewpoint. Lane argues that disagreements in the commentaries sometimes signal Calvin’s respect for his interlocutor.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeil. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960. [2.15-17]

This section of the Institutes covers the threefold office of Christ and the work of redemption.

Books

Allen, Diogenes and Eric O. Springsted. Philosophy for Understanding Theology. 2nd ed. Louisville: WJK, 2007.

This book helpfully relates philosophical thought to the theological issues that it impinges upon. It is organized chronologically.

Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce.

Brand, Chad O., ed. Perspectives on Israel and the Church: Four Views. Nashville: B&H, 2015.

This book presents the following four perspectives, (1) the traditional covenantal view by Robert L. Reymond, (2) the traditional dispensational view by Robert L. Saucy, (3) the progressive dispensational view by Robert L. Saucy, and (4) the Progressive Covenantal View (which seems to be loosely parallel to New Covenant Theology) by Chad O. Brand and Tom Pratt, Jr.

Over the years I’ve greatly appreciated Robert Reymond’s writings on Scripture, theology proper, and Christology. I’ve also known that he was staunchly opposed to dispensational theology. However, I was interested to see his response to progressive dispensationalism. I’ve found that too often covenant theologians attack either the most stringent forms of dispensationalism or what they think are the logical consequences of dispensationalism (consequences often denied by the dispensationalists themselves). I thought that a four views format would force closer interaction with what dispensationalists actually claim. I was, however, disappointed. Reymond spent an inordinate amount of space arguing that, despite their protestations, dispensationalists really do believe in two (or multiple) ways of salvation. All dispensational scholars today clearly believe that salvation for all people in all eras by grace alone through faith alone. Reymond, however, fastens on a Dallas Seminary doctrinal statement that makes the object of the faith the promises of God in some eras rather than faith in the Messiah. There are three problems with this focus. First, what is reflected in the DTS statement is an awareness of progressive revelation not an inclination toward two ways of salvation. Second, some dispensationalists actually lean more toward Reymond’s position on this issue than DTS’s. Some acknowledgement of this by Reymond would have been appropriate.

When Reymond actually turns to look at the future of Israel and the land, Reymond uses John Hagee as his representative dispensationalist. Hagee is not even entirely orthodox. He is certainly not a representative dispensational scholar. Sadly, this is too often par for the course for covenant theologians who write critiques of dispensationalism. They find fringe figures who make outrageous statements or take indefensible positions rather than interact with dispensational scholars.

Finally, Reymond does not really interact with the progressive dispensational view. In his own chapter he simply notes that some think that progressive dispensationalists will simply become premillennial covenant theologians. He then notes that they have not made that transition yet and are therefore “a long distance away from historical covenantal theology.” He defers all other comments to his response to Robert Saucy’s chapter. But in the response, Reymond does not really interact with Saucy’s comments. Reymond’s argument follows the following lines: Progressive dispensationalists are premillennial. Premillennialism is wrong. Therefore, Progressive Dispensationalism is wrong and no further attention should be paid to it.

Reymond spends most of his time critiquing what he understands to be the gross errors of dispensationalism, but he does give some space to articulating his own view. He holds that the OT land promises to Israel are types. Christians are the real inheritors of the land promises “in their fulfilled paradisiacal character” (34). Indeed, “ethnic Israel per se was never the centerpiece of God’s covenant program.” That program has always focused on “true spiritual Israel” (36). Indeed, Abraham himself never believed the land promises would be fulfilled literally. Hebrews 11 teaches that Abraham “spiritualize[d]” the promise and applied it to “future heavenly kingdom realities” (43). Though Reymond says “the future messianic kingdom will embrace the whole of the newly recreated cosmos,” he insists that it “will not experience a special manifestation that could be regarded in any sense as ‘Jewish’ in the region of the so-called Holy Land or anywhere else” (60). In addition, Jesus in his parable of the landowner’s son teaches a “a biblical ‘replacement theology'” in which the nation of Israel is replaced by an “international church” (47). Israel, apart from the remnant is now “lo-ammi, ‘not my people,’ only now with a finality about it” (49). What of God’s promises to national Israel? Reymond’s thesis is that Romans 9 teaches that God made no promises to national Israel. He only made promises to true, spiritual Israel (51).

There are a number of problems with Reymond’s argumentation. In the first place, it is not clear that a covenant promise can be a type that has only a spiritualized fulfillment. A promise is very different from the institution of a sacrificial system or a temple. Second, though both Genesis itself, opaquely, and the New Testament, clearly, indicates that the land promise will extend to all the nations, it is not clear why Israel, to whom the promise was explicitly given, should be excluded from this promise in the restored earth. Third, Reymond’s interpretations of the parable of the landowner’s son and of Romans 9 are not the necessary interpretations of those texts. Neither text requires an interpretation that God has never really concerned himself with national Israel and has now cast off national Israel altogether. Indeed, Romans 11’s promise of a restoration of national Israel tells against such a position.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from Robert L. Reymond is Robert L. Thomas. As with Reymond, I’ve found Thomas’s writings, in particular his commentaries on Revelation and Thessalonians, helpful over the years. However, in this essay Thomas displayed what I believe are some of the key weaknesses of traditional dispensationalist argumentation. For instance, Thomas did a lot of quoting from Milton Terry and Bernard Ramm and asserting that the other views don’t measure up to the hermeneutical standards that Terry and Ramm set. I don’t find this line of approach persuasive. Why are Terry and Ramm the standard? It would seem that Thomas would need to demonstrate why his hermeneutical approach is better than competing approaches rather than simply asserting it. This is especially the case since Thomas ends up with strained interpretations of NT passages such as Acts 15. At one point he claims that the NT authors don’t always interpret literally. They don’t have to because they were inspired. We, however, ought not follow the interpretive practices of the NT authors because we are not inspired. I find this a troubling conclusion and an indication that something is amiss with Thomas’s hermeneutic. Scripture itself should provide the hermeneutical standard by which we measure our interpretation—not Bernard Ramm or Milton Terry.

Thomas does make some helpful comments in the course of his essay. For instance, he notes, “Of the promises made to Abraham, the land promise is the most specific, not lending itself to possible variations of interpretation. It fixed specific geographic boundaries and did not lend itself to generalizations, as did the promise of becoming a great nation and the promise of being a worldwide blessing.” He also gives some helpful listing of land promises in the Psalms and prophets, but these are given almost without comment. One section of the essay looks at passages in which Jesus and the apostles might be expected to cancel Israel’s promises and did not. There is some helpful material here, especially when Thomas is countering arguments that certain passages do cancel promises to Israel. What is missing, however, is a positive argument. A lengthy section comparing three commentators’ views on passages in Revelation could have been better spent making a positive argument.

I expected to agree with the Progressive Covenantal/NCT chapter more than I actually did. Given that PC/NCT seems to be a diverse group perhaps greater agreement would have been the case with different authors. Brand and Pratt lay as the foundation for their view that since God is one, he people must be one. Therefore, there cannot be any distinctions within the people of God. This is actually an odd argument for Trinitarians to make. God is not merely one; God is one and many. Shouldn’t the conclusion be, therefore, that God’s people are one and many. In any case, it is not entirely clear to me that the conclusion necessarily follows from the premise. They also look to passages that speak of “one body,” “one flock,” “one faith” and so forth. These passages do affirm that Jew and Gentile are now united in one new man. Progressive Dispensationalists would agree that there is one people of God, the redeemed through all the ages. But the authors seem to want to use this point to deny that God ever could refer to the nation of Israel as his people. Against this, however, is the fact that God covenanted not only with the true remnant of Israel. He covenanted with the nation of Israel. Thus it is appropriate for him to refer to the nation as his people in one sense while also recognizing that some in that nation are not truly his people in another sense. This is not a move back to a two peoples of God view. It is simply a recognition of the way language works in varied contexts.

Brand and Pratt also argue on the basis of John 4 that Jesus relativizes any kind of holy land. He is now the place to which people must come to worship truly. The end of the temple and its worship meant the end of any place/land focus. But this seems to relativize a whole strand of redemptive history. The curse did not merely affect man in his spiritual life. It affected all of creation, including the physical world. This is why land is a fundamental component of the Abrahamic covenant. Israel is at the nucleus of the promise, since it is through Abraham and his seed that blessing comes to the whole world. But, as even the Old Testament indicates, the land promise will be extended to the whole world. This extension, however, does not exclude Israel from enjoying what God has promised.

Brand and Pratt reject the idea that the church replaces Israel. They instead argue that the true people of God within Israel are the root into which Gentiles are added. Thus Israel is not replaced. It is expanded to include Gentiles. However, this seems to misunderstand the teaching of Ephesians about Jew and Gentile being brought together in one new man. In addition it seems to allude to the root and branches metaphor in Romans 11. But in Romans 11, Israel is not the root. Israel is the natural branches.

Brand and Pratt also, following N.T. Wright, interpret “all Israel” in Romans 11 as church. Even Wright concedes that he is in the minority of scholarship on that interpretation. I find Douglas Moo and Thomas Schreiner’s interpretation that “all Israel” refers to the salvation of a great number of ethnic Israelites in the future to be the more exegetically tenable position. Interestingly, both Moo and Schreiner have been associated with PC/NCT. This is an indication of the difficulty in sorting out what is core to PC/NCT and what is distinctive to individuals.

Overall, I thought that Robert Thomas developed untenable interpretations of New Testament texts in order to maintain his position on Old Testament Texts. Brand and Pratt, on the other hand, trimmed the Old Testament promises to maintain their interpretation of New Testament texts. Ideally, both Testaments should be given their voice in a way that neither are trimmed but such that both Testaments are shown to fit together. It is this goal that I think Robert Saucy accomplished.

Robert Saucy provided the best essay in the book. He was the one author that seemed to stay on topic throughout. The others seemed to get drawn off on related side-issues that were not entirely germane to the topic at hand. Saucy looks at texts both in their original context and in their canonical context. He lets Old Testament passages say what they say in their original context, and he allows later revelation to extend the meaning of passages. But he does not allow later revelation to contradict or reinterpret previous revelation. A partial fulfillment or an extended fulfillment does not change what a passage means. Saucy also had the most careful discussion of typology. For instance, he notes that types can be understood as shadows that point forward to future realities. Types can also be understood as correspondences between earlier and later historical occurrences. Too often traditional and progressive theologians want to understand all types in relation to the former kind of type. In all Saucy had the most careful discussion of hermeneutics among the authors.

Saucy also provided the one clear positive description of how Israel and the Church relate (in contrast with the other authors who at times seemed more focused on critiquing opposing positions than in presenting a positive vision). Saucy argues that Israel has the role of mediating salvation throughout salvation history. This role is rooted in the Abrahamic Covenant, continues with Israel’s role as a kingdom of priests in the Mosaic Covenant, and is predicted to continue in the future by the prophets. The redemption that Israel mediates includes both internal salvation for individuals and a restoration of creation and social structures. In all of this Israel is predicted to mediate salvation to the Gentiles without the Gentiles being absorbed into Israel. The nations remain the nations. Christ is the focal point of the promises. But this does not mean that the promises fail to have application to his people. To the contrary, through Christ his people find the promises are fulfilled for them.

As the promises are fulfilled in the present era, it is important to see that it was Israelites who first brought the gospel to the Gentiles. Next it is important to see that the church is God’s people, both Jew and Gentile. But the church is not the new Israel that takes over the promises given to national Israel. Finally, though Old Testament promises are presently being fulfilled, not all Old Testament promises are presently being fulfilled. There are still future promises for national Israel that remain unfulfilled. God will bring these promises to pass. In arguing these points Saucy provides solid exegetical and theological arguments. His reviews of other positions were both gracious and insightful critiques.

Black, David Alan, ed. Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views. Nashville: B&H, 2008.

Typically four views books allows each participant to state his case followed by brief responses from each of the other contributors. The four views book is unique in allowing only one perspective a rejoinder. Daniel Wallace presents the view that Mark ended his Gospel with verse 8. Maurice Robinson argues that Mark’s Gospel originally included the longer ending. Keith Elliot posits that both the beginning and ending of Mark’s Gospel were lost. The current beginning and the longer ending were replacements. David Alan Black makes the case that Mark himself added the longer ending to his Gospel at a later point than its first writing. Darrell Bock, who holds Wallace’s view (indeed, who was instrumental in leading Wallace to this view, according to Wallace’s essay) concludes the volume by providing a rejoinder to the other three positions.

I thought that Wallace’s essay was the best written of the four perspectives. However, I found his view (and Bock’s) that Mark intended the Gospel to end at verse 8 less than convincing. The number of dissenters to this view is growing, and I did not find that Wallace dealt sufficiently with the cogent critiques of this position given elsewhere. Wallace also deferred much of the coverage of internal evidence to J. K. Elliot. Elliot, however, undermines his case by arguing (apart from any manuscript evidence) that the opening of Mark is secondary. He makes the case that the internal evidence indicates that Mark’s opening is even less Markan than the Longer Ending. Since the evidence is strongly against the opening of Mark being secondary, Elliot ends up casting doubt on the validity of the claims that the Longer Ending could not have been written by Mark.

Black’s essay was an outlier as it dealt primarily with the Synoptic problem. His solution is also fairly speculative.

I thought that Robinson’s essay was also strong. Even apart from his majority text view, he provided a series of cogent arguments, dealing with external evidence (including early patristic evidence) and internal evidence. He did not deal with all of Wallace’s arguments, however, which is why it would have been better if each author was allowed to respond to the others rather than leaving no response to Wallace and allowing Bock to respond to the other three.

Caro, Robert. Means of Ascent. The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Knopf, 1991.

This volume covers the period from Johnson’s just after Johnson’s first failed run for the Senate through his first successful Senate campaign. The first part of the book is a bit slow, but the book reads like a novel as the campaign comes to its climax. Caro documents that Johnson flat out stole the election. Liberal reviewers complained that Caro presented a too sympathetic portrait of Johnson’s opponent, Coke Stevenson. Caro responded in a New York Times article that in this race Johnson presented himself as a conservative. Liberal vs. political views weren’t an issue in the campaign and thus were not an issue in this book, despite, Caro’s stated personal preference for liberal positions. In my view the mini-biography Coke Stevenson contained in this book is one of the best parts of the book.

Stanglin, Keith D. and Thomas H. McCall. Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

For a careful, brief summary of Arminius’s life and thought, this is the book to get. Stanglin and McCall are both Arminian scholars, so they write with sympathy toward Arminius. They are also careful scholars. Finally, this is not a polemical book, unlike Roger Olson’s book on Arminian theology. Though they believe Arminius to be right, they allow his exegesis and theology to speak for itself. Highly recommended.

Kevan, Ernest. Moral Law. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1991.

The relation of the Mosaic Law to the Christian is a difficult knot to untie. There are clear continuities. The commands to have no other gods than the true God or to honor one’s parents clearly remain in force for Christians today. Commands regarding the sacrificial system or cities of refuge are clearly not applicable today. Likewise certain New Testament texts seem to indicate that the Law remains applicable today while other New Testament texts seem to abolish it for the Christian. A long-held approach to this knot, one held by Kevan, is that the law can be classified under the categories of moral, civil, and ceremonial law. The civil and the ceremonial parts are said to be done away while the moral part endures. I find these categories appropriate theological categories that can be usefully applied to the law just as theologians often impose categories on Scriptural data (think of the different ways of classifying the attributes of God). But I don’t think these categories can be read back into Scripture statements on the law. For instance, when Jesus speaks in Matthew 5 on the endurance of the law, it would be inappropriate to conclude that Jesus is speaking of the moral law alone there. Likewise, when Paul claims in 1 Corinthians 9 that he is not under the Law, it would be inappropriate to conclude that Paul is speaking only of the ceremonial and civil law. I think it is better to recognize that the Mosaic Law is part of the Mosaic Covenant. The Law is therefore a unified thing. When the New Testament speaks of the Law, it is speaking of this unity. Christians are not under the Mosaic Law, as a whole, because they are under the New Covenant. This is not a covenant without law, however. In the New Covenant the law is written on believer’s hearts. This means that there is a law the exists subsequent to the Mosaic code. Further. If the Mosaic code is the application of natural law to a particular place and time in history and redemptive-history, as I think it is, then there is a law prior to the Mosaic code as well. This is why it is always wrong to make idols or to murder but why it is not always wrong to build houses without parapets on the roof. This law that transcends covenantal arrangements could be called moral law. Thus despite some significant disagreements with Kevan about process, there is a great deal of substance that I am in agreement with. His writings about the dangers of antinomianism are especially good.

Articles

Hallo, William W. “Biblical History in Its Near Eastern Setting: The Contextual Approach.” In Israel’s Past in Present Research: Essays on Ancient Israelite Historiography. Edited by V. Philips Long. Sources for Biblical and Theological Study. Edited by David W. Baker. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999.

Worth reading for a useful approach to making use of ANE background information.

Hunn, Debbie. “The Baptism of Galatians 3:27: A Contextual Approach,” Expository Times 115 (2005): 372-75.

The common view of commentators is that Galatians 3:27, “as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” refers to water baptism. Hunn notes, however, that in its context baptism is the proof that “Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female” are one in Christ through faith. Water baptism cannot serve as this proof because “it proves only that the baptizer found [these distinctions] irrelevant.” It does not provide a window into the mind of God. However, noting that all were baptized by the Spirit would serve as proof. To the objection of F.F. Bruce that “the Galatian people in reading 3:27 would hardly think of anything but their baptism in water,” Hunn notes that both the Gospels and Acts refer to Spirit baptism with the terms βαπτίζω and βαπτισμός. She concludes, “Therefore, since baptism has multiple referents in the NT, students of the Bible should consider multiple possibilities when the NT leaves the type of baptism undefined.” In favor of Spirit baptism, Hunn notes the close parallels with between Galatians 3:27 and 1 Corinthains 12:13 which is clearly about Spirit baptism. She also notes that Galatians 3:23-29 and 4:3-7 follow parallel lines of argumentation. In 3:27-28 the proof of sonship is baptism into Christ. In 4:6 the proof of sonship is the reception of the Spirit. This parallel also argues that Spirit baptism is in view in 3:27.

I have long thought, against the majority of commentators, that Galatians 3:27 referred to Spirit baptism and was happy to see Hunn confirm some of my exegesis as well as advance additional arguments that I had not considered before.

Note: I was alerted to this article by a footnote in Thomas Schreiner’s commentary on Galatians in which he lists her, alongside Dunn and Garlington, as holding to a metaphorical view of baptism in this passage. Hunn, however, explicitly rejects Dunn’s metaphorical view in her article.

Luther, Martin. “A Simple Way to Pray.” Translated by Carl J. Schindler. Luther’s Works. Vol. 43. Edited by Helmut T. Lehmann and Gustav K. Wiencke. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968.

Luther wrote this treatise to instruct his barber in how to pray. Luther provides helpful practical advice such as thinking through Scripture in four ways: instruction, thanksgiving, confession, and petition. In this way meditation on Scripture can be turned into prayer. Luther also provides examples of how the petitions of the Lord’s prayer, the commandments of the Decalogue, and the phrases of the Apostle’s Creed can be expanded into fuller prayers. This is a warm, pastoral work of great value.

Luther, Martin, “Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed,” Translated by J. J. Shindel and Walther I. Brandt. Luther’s Work. Vol. 45. Edited by Helmut T. Lehmann and Walther I. Brandt. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962.

In this article Luther begins by demonstrating from Scripture (Rom. 13:1-2; 1 Peter 2:13-14; Gen. 9:6; Ex. 21:14; Matt. 26:52; Lk 3:14) that God has ordained temporal government. He then notes that if all people were Christian, there would be no need for government since Christians are governed in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. But as it is, there are two kingdoms. Unbelievers are in the temporal kingdom and are under law. They are subject to the sword. Christians are in the spiritual kingdom and are under the Spirit. Luther argues that true Christians, which he says “are few and far between” are “subject neither to the law nor sword, and have need of neither.” But for the benefit of others Christians willing submit to temporal government, and all that it entails such as taxes. This is part of his love to his neighbor. Likewise Christians can serve as magistrates for the love of neighbor.

In the second part of this work Luther looks at the extent of temporal government’s authority. He argues that since God’s kingdom and the temporal kingdom are different kingdoms, they have different laws. The temporal government concerns itself only with “life and property and external affairs on earth.” God’s kingdom concerns itself with the soul. He notes that Romans 13:7 gives government the authority to demand honor, respect and taxes. Peter allows the government to issue human ordinances, but it cannot “extend its authority into heaven and over souls.” Similarly, Christ recognized this distinction when he distinguished those things that are rendered to Caesar and those which are rendered to God. Luther also appealed to Psalm 115:16, “He has given heaven to the Lord of heaven, but the earth he has given to the sons of men. In the creation mandate God only gives humans dominion over the “external domain.” Men do not rule over each other in spiritual matters. Finally, Luther says that Peter’s claim in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men” distinguishes temporal authority and the limits placed on it from God’s authority. The upshot of this is that the state cannot make heresy a crime for such it beyond its competence. It is the responsibility of the church to restrain heresy. And on this matter Paul says, “Our weapons are not carnal” (2 Cor. 10:4-5). Further within the church there is no authority. Christ is the only authority in the church. Bishops and priests are servants who cannot impose law but can only teach and guide through God’s word. “Christians do every good thing of their own accord and without constraint.”

In the third part of this treatise, Luther counsels those who are princes on how to go about seeking wisdom to be a wise and godly ruler.

Luther made some real advances in this treatise. He broke with the Roman Catholic claim that all authority is mediated through the church. He also resisted the radical Reformation position that Christians should not participate in government. Luther also cogently argued that the temporal government does not have the authority or competence to rule on matters of doctrine.

Luther also makes some significant mis-steps. The most significant is the claim that Christians are under no authority other than Christ’s, with the implication being that Christians are not part of the temporal kingdom except for the sake of love to neighbor. While not being a Luther scholar, I am aware of the claim that after the Peasant revolt of 1525 Luther changed some of his more antinomian positions. It would be worth knowing whether this was one of them.

Dallimore, Arnold. A Heart Set Free: The Life of Charles Wesley. Durham, England: Evangelical Press, 1988.

This is another of Dallimore’s well-written biographies. Wesley is best known as a prolific hymn writer. Dallimore’s biography certainly enhances the reader’s appreciation for Wesley’s poetical gift. But Dallimore also demonstrates his role in the formation of Methodism and his relations with both his brother John and the evangelist George Whitefield. Dallimore’s writings are devotional, but they are not uncritical. Wesley’s weaknesses (interference with his brother’s marriage and overly-close attachment to the Anglican Church, to name but two) are also discussed in such a way as to benefit Christians who seek not only inspiration but cautionary lessons from the lives of Christians who have preceded them.

Gates, Robert M. Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War. New York: Knopf, 2014.

This is a memoir by the Secretary of Defense for President George W. Bush’s last two years and President Barack Obama’s first two years. Its insights not only on the wars and military actions of those years but also on the way the White House and Department of Defense function was fascinating. Gates has decided opinions, and they do not always align with those of the presidents under whom he served. But he is careful to always speak respectfully even when in disagreement (this was not so much the case when he vented his frustrations with Congress).

Two quotations give a feel for the tone of the book—respectful but critical:

I had been lucky financially when I reentered government in late 2006. Under the ethics rules, I had to sell all the stocks I owned in early 2007, at the very top of the market. However, those joining the Obama administration in early 2009 who owned stocks, and there were quite a few, had to sell at the bottom of the market. A number of those people took huge losses in their personal finances, and I admired them for their patriotism and willingness to serve at great sacrifice. I would disagree with more than a few of these appointees in the years ahead, but I never doubted their love of country (although, as in every administration, there was also ample love of self). 302-3.

I expressed my great concern [to Thomas Donilon, the National Security Advisor] that we were entering uncharted waters and that the president couldn’t erase the Egyptians’ memory of our decades-long alliance with Mubarak with a few public statements. Our course, I said, should be to call for an orderly transition. We had to prevent any void in power because it likely would be filled by radical groups. I said we should be realistically modest ‘about what we know and about what we can do.’ Donilon reassured me that Biden, Hillary, he, and I were on the same page. All of us were very concerned that the president and White House and NSS staffs were leaning hard on the need for regime change in Egypt. White House staffers worried about Obama being ‘on the wrong side of history.’ But how can anyone know which is the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ side of history when nearly all revolutions, begun with hope and idealism, culminate in repression and bloodshed. After Mubarak, what? 304-5

Kapilow, Rob. All You Have to Do is Listen: Music from the Inside Out. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008.

Kapilow’s thesis is that attentive listeners to music really can understand what a composer is seeking to accomplish simply by listening. He writes to non-musicians, providing them with basic music theory that will help them better appreciate classical music. A companion website provides scores and recordings of the examples in the book.

Oren, Michael B. Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

This is the definitive history of the Six Days War. It is not designed to be a battlefield thriller. Instead it provides historical context for the war and details how the war unfolded both on the battlefield and diplomatically. Well worth reading.

Peter Lombard. The Sentences, Book 4: On the Doctrine of Signs. Translated by Giulio Silano. Toronto, Canada: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2010.

Peter Lombard’s Sentences is the most significant theological text published. It was the theology textbook of the Middle Ages. Even Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae did not displace it until after the Reformation. The Sentences were finally translated into English between 2007 and 2010. This is the primary primary source for understanding medieval theology. Book 4 deals with the sacraments, so it is going to highlight that areas of medieval theology most at odds with orthodox Protestant theology.

Currid, John D. Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament. Wheaton: Crossway, 2013.

Currid’s book is set against the backdrop of an increasing willingness, even among professed evangelicals, to see the Old Testament as dependent on ancient Near Eastern mythology and folklore. This is often done in such a way that the historicity of the biblical accounts are questioned. Currid’s book highlights, by way of contrast, that one way the biblical accounts are related to ANE writings is through polemic. I found some of his proposed polemics convincing. For instance, the use of the rod turned serpent by Moses, the parting of the Red Sea, and the drought in Baal-worshipping Israel during Elijah’s time, and Yahweh as the true thundering deity all seem to have true polemic elements to them. I wondered if some of the accounts, for instance those alleged to parallel Joseph and Moses, were truly parallel. With the creation and flood stories my inclination is to see shared memory as a more likely cause for parallelism. I think before links between Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts to the biblical text can be firmly established there needs to be a control group study on creation and flood stories from around the world.

Hoffmeier, James K. Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

There is no direct evidence for Israel’s sojourn in Egypt or the Exodus. However, this should not be used to discount this historicity of Scripture accounts. Hoffmeier looks briefly at what can be legitimately expected from archaeology regarding Israel in Egypt given what is and can be known about Egypt at that time and in the place where the Israelites lived. He concludes that the lack of direct evidence for Israel is actually more to be expected than otherwise when this comparative study is undertaken. However, most of the book seeks to provide indirect evidence for Israel in Egypt and the Exodus. Hoffmeier is able to demonstrate that “Semetic-speaking people” would come to Egypt during droughts. Such people did live in Egypt during the time Bible places Israel there. There is also evidence of non-Egyptians, like Joseph, serving in government. Hoffmeier also documents Egyptian influence and an understanding of Egyptian practices in the Pentateuch. This argues for an author familiar with ancient Egypt (rather than one more familiar with later Mesopotamian cultures). Though there are some points at which I would disagree with Hoffmeier (e.g., aspects of his discussion of the plagues) or at which I am not yet entirely convinced (e.g., route of the exodus), the book is an excellent defense of the historicity of the latter part of Genesis and Exodus. I was also pleased to see Hoffmeier cast doubt about the reality of some of the parallels that I found least convincing in Currid’s book (see above).

Mathews, Kenneth A. Genesis 1-11:26. New American Commentary. Edited by E. Ray Clendenen. Nashville: B&H, 1996. Mathews, Kenneth A. Genesis 11:27-50:26. New American Commentary. Edited by E. Ray Clendenen. Nashville: B&H, 2005.

If you buy only one commentary on Genesis, this should be that commentary. I’ve repeatedly been impressed by Mathews’s exegetical judgment. He also has a sensitivity to the literary features of the text. In addition, the commentary is lengthy enough for him to survey and evaluate multiple views on contested passages. He is conservative on matters such as authorship.  Finally, though Mathews is thorough, the commentary is still readable for the interested layman.

Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary. Edited by David A. Hubbard. Dallas: Word, 1987. Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 16-50. Word Biblical Commentary. Edited by David A. Hubbard. Dallas: Word, 1994.

Wenham provides a more technical commentary than Mathews. He provides more comment on Hebrew grammar. His exegetical judgment and literary sensitivity is also good.  He critiques source criticism in the introduction to the first volume, though he consistently reports the views of source critics in the Form/Structure/Setting sections of the commentary. He is weak on the historicity of the opening chapters of Genesis. Nonetheless, the commentary is full of valuable insights and is worth owning.

Steinmann, Andrew E. Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Edited by David Firth. Downers Grove, IL: InterVaristy, 2019.

Steinmann is one of my favorite Old Testament commentators. He is skilled in his handling of the Hebrew language, of narrative, and of theology.

Waltke, Bruce K. and Cathi J. Fredricks. Genesis: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.

Genesis is a narrative, and it should be read with the skills necessary for interpreting narratives. Reading Waltke’s commentary on Genesis is a good way to develop those skills. His emphasis is on the literary features of the text.

McKeown, James. Genesis. Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary. Edited by J. Gordon McConville and Craig Bartholomew. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

In the Two Horizons series, the first half of the commentary provides brief passage by passage commentary through the book. The second half of the commentary looks at the theological themes of the book, the relation of the book to biblical theology in the rest of the canon, and the significance of the book for relevant systematic theology topics. I think this is a good approach that more commentaries should follow. I picked this commentary up in connection with my study of land because it seemed more sensitive to that theme in Genesis than other commentaries.

Currid, John D. Genesis. 2 vols. Evangelical Press Study Commentary. Webster, NY: Evangelical Press, 2003.

Currid also refreshingly adopts a straightforward, historical reading of the creation account. Despite being two volumes, Currid’s commentary is not as full as others. He is nonetheless careful, conservative, and insightful. I’m not as impressed with his application sections.

Kidner, Derek. Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Edited by D. J. Wiseman. London: Tyndale, 1967.

Kidner’s commentary is brief, but Kidner knows how to pack a great deal of insight into a small space.

Leupold, H. C. Exposition of Genesis. 2 voils. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1950.

Leuipold was a stoutly conservative Lutheran scholar. Though the liberal positions he spars with are now dated, his arguments against them are still worth reading. Leupold’s comments are more atomistic than literary. Nonetheless, there is great value in many of them.

Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Edited by R. K. Harrison. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Edited by Robert L. Hubbard, Jr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Hamilton’s commentary, like Mathews and Wenham, is a major two volume work. I don’t find it as helpful for the following reasons: (1) too often Hamilton simply notes the available interpretive options without mounting arguments for or against them. I find it most helpful to read different commentators who argue for their positions; (2) sometimes Hamilton spends his space on ANE parallels rather than opening up the text; (3) related to this, Hamilton’s comments are sometimes disjointed. He doesn’t examine the literary unfolding of the text as Mathews and Wenham do. Nonetheless, his comments still have value. He also has helpful “New Testament Appropriations” sections.

Updated 2/19/2022 to add Steinmann’s commentary.

Books

Carpenter, Humphrey. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. London: Allen & Unwin, 1977.

Carson, D. A. Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

In this brief book Carson surveys the meaning of the title “Son of God” in the Scripture. He notes that “son” language in the Bible can be used non-metaphorically of actual biological sons, generically in proverbial passages, and of more distant descendants. Son language can also be used metaphorically. Sometimes the metaphor indicates that the “son” was “begotten” by the Father. In other cases it indicates a similarity of type or class between “father” and “son.”

Carson notes that the phrase son of God is sometimes used non-Christologically of angels, Adam, God’s people, those who imitate God, and the Davidic king. It is used Christologically of Jesus as the Davidic king, of Jesus as true Israel, and of Jesus as the divine Son. After this initial survey Carson examines Hebrews 1 and John 5:16-30 as case studies.

The final chapter examines the issue of how to translate “son of God” in Bible translations targeted toward Muslims. Carson concludes that “son of God” should not be replaced with attempted alternatives.

Carr, Simonetta. John Calvin. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2008.

This is a beautifully illustrated children’s biography of John Calvin. The biography is accurate, understandable, and engaging.

Beeke, Joel R. and James A. La Belle. Living Zealously. Reformation Heritage, 2012.

This is one of a series of volumes that survey Puritan teaching on a particular topic and present it to the modern reader. Zeal is a currently neglected topic that occupied the Puritans, which means this book fills a gap. It is a warmly written book that is clearly written in the hope that its contents will draw its readers closer to God.

Currid, John D. Doing Archaeology in the Land of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999.

Currid wrote this brief book so that novices could gain a good idea of the history and current practices of biblical archaeology. Currid’s writing is clear and understandable. A helpful book.

Witmer, Timothy Z. The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010.

Witmer looks at the shepherd theme in the Old and New Testaments as a guide for the responsibilities of elders. He begins with a biblical and theological foundation, but he moves to the practical. He argues that shepherds are to know, feed, lead, and protect their sheep. He notes that there are macro ways to carry out these responsibilities with then whole flock in view. But Witmer’s challenge is for elders to carry out these responsibilities with the individuals in their flocks. He supplies concrete recommendations for how churches may do this.

Articles

Van Houwelingen, P. H. R. “Fleeing Forward: The Departure of Christians from Jerusalem to Pella,” WTJ 65, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 181-200.

Eusebius and Epiphanius both relate a tradition in which the Jewish Christians fled from Jerusalem before the events of AD 70 to Pella and later returned to Jerusalem. The historical accuracy of this tradition has been recently challenged. Van Houwelingen defends the accuracy of the tradition.\

Dumbrell, W. J. “The Role of Bethel in the Biblical Narratives from Jacob to Jeroboam I,” Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology, 2, no. 3 (1974): 65-76.

Dumbrell surveys the passages in which Bethel is significant. He is largely interacting with critical scholars who want to reinterpret these texts according to speculative pre-histories.

Metzger, Paul Louis. “Luther and the Finnish School: Mystical Union with Christ: An Alternative to Blood Transfusions and Legal Fictions,” WTJ 65, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 201-13.

Seifrid, Mark A. “Luther and the Finnish School: Paul, Luther, and Justification in Gal 2:15-21,” WTJ 65, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 215-30.

Trueman, Carl R. “Is the Finnish Line a New Beginning? A Critical Assessment of the Reading of Luther Offered by the Helsinki Circle,” WTJ 65, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 231-44.

Jenson, Robert W. “Response to Mark Seifrid, Paul Metzger, and Carl Trueman on Finnish Luther Research,” WTJ 65, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 245-50.

I read these articles for the purpose of getting a better understanding of the arguments for and against the Finnish interpretation of Luther. For that purpose I could have saved time and read the articles by Trueman and Jenson alone. Those were the most helpful in understanding the Finnish school and the arguments for and against. Metzger and Seifrid are trying to do their own thing, and seem to draw on the Finnish school at certain points while rejecting other points, but they aren’t good introductions to the debate. I wish the format had been Trueman’s critique, Jenson’s response, followed by an additional rejoinder from Trueman.

J.R. Mantey, “The Causal Use of Eis in the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 70, no. 1 (Mar. 1951): 45-48.

J.R. Mantey, “On Causal Eis Again,” Journal of Biblical Literature 70, no. 4 (Dec 1951): 309-11.

Ralph Marcus, “The Elusive Causal EIS,” Journal of Biblical Literature 71, no. 1 (Mar. 1952): 43-44.

Mantey argued that a rare use of εἰς is causal. He looks at both extrabiblical and biblical materials. Marcus disputes Mantey’s extrabiblical examples of a causal ἐἰς, while noting his interpretation of the baptism passages in the NT may be correct.

Vessey, Mark. “Jerome.” In Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. 460-62.

Madec, Goulven. “Christian Influences on Augustine.” In Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. 151-56.

Harmless, William. Augustine in His Own Words. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. pp. 156-200 [Augustine the Exegete]

Once again Harmless does an excellent job of selecting from Augustine’s a representative sample of Augustine’s writings so as to give a well-rounded introduction to his thought in his own words.

Beeke, Joel. Developing Healthy Spiritual Growth: Knowledge, Practice, and Experience. Grand Rapids: Evangelical Press, 2013.

This brief book of three sermons on Colossians 1:9-14 has been the most spiritually nourishing book that I have recently read. It led me to desire to know Christ more, to follow him better, and to grow in my experience of the Spirit’s sanctifying work.

Gouge, William. Building a Godly Home: Volume 1, A Holy Vision for Family Life. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2013. | Gouge, William. Building a Godly Home. Volume 2. Reformation Heritage, 2013.

This is one of the best expositions of Ephesians 5:21-6:4 that I’ve encountered. Gouge does an excellent job of explaining the text, explaining difficulties, and reconciling apparent contradictions. His seventeenth century perspective is an advantage rather than a liability because it enables us to see this text through different cultural eyes. In this regard his comments on equality were especially insightful. Reformation Heritage has done an excellent job in laying out the text, inserting headings and footnotes, and making the text readable for a contemporary audience.

Volume 2 provides practical application of the husband and wife’s mutual duties to each other, the wife’s duties toward her husband, and a husband’s duties toward his wife. According to the editors this book was the most influential Puritan book on marriage and family. It is easy to see why. It is full of careful, biblical guidance. Hermeneutically, Gouge is sometimes over-reliant on biblical examples that should not be taken as normative. Overall, however, his counsel is biblically grounded.

As expected, Gouge presents the biblical teaching of a husband’s leadership in the home and the wife’s submission to her husband. Gouge also sees the wife as holding an exalted position in the home, and his counsel repeatedly calls on the husband to lovingly treat her in way that honors her station. Egalitarian caricatures of what life in a biblically ordered home fall flat here as would any attempts to misuse the biblical teaching about the husband’s authority in order to demean the wife.

The overall effect of this volume is to challenge husbands and wives in their daily life to reflect Christ and the church. Gouge writes in a way that is direct and challenging while also being inspiring. These volumes by Gouge may still be the best books on marriage and the family on the market. They certainly are worthy of being as widely read today as they were in Puritan times.

Rosner, Brian S. Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God. New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson. Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 2013.

The issue of the Christian’s relation to the law of God is one of the most complicated issues in theology. Some New Testament passages seem to teach that the Christian is not under the law while others seem to demand obedience to the law. Rosner addresses this seeming contradiction by noting four ways in which the Christian relates to the law. First, the Christian is not under the Mosaic Law as his covenant. Second, the Christian is under the Law of Christ (or the law of faith or the law of the Spirit of life) instead of the Law of Moses. The Christian does not walk according to the law; he walks in the Spirit. Third, the Law is prophetic and the Christian uses the law as such. Fourth, the Christian should use the law as wisdom. Even the commands that are not repeated in the New Testament have a bearing for how the Christian lives his life.

Rosner’s approach accounts for the New Testament’s negative and positive statements about the law in a coherent manner. Other scholars, such as Frank Theilman, Douglas Moo, and Thomas Schreiner have written with similar perspectives. But Rosner’s book is longer than Moo’s brief article in the Four Views book on the law. It is less comprehensive than Theilman or Schreiner’s books. Rosner’s selectivity leads to clarity. This may now be the best book for the interested layperson on the topic of the Christian and the Law.

Denault, Pascal. The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism. Solid Ground Christian Books, 2013.

Denault proposes that the root of the difference between Particular Baptists and Paedobaptists of the Seventeenth Century was their different covenant theologies. Both held to similar views of the Covenant of Works, but they differed regarding the Covenant of Grace. Paedobaptists argued that the Covenant of Grace had a single substance but different administrations. The New Covenant was simply a different administration of the Covenant of Grace. The Baptists, on the other hand, held that the New Covenant was indeed something new and distinct from the Old Covenant. Regarding the Mosaic Covenant, Paedobaptists disagreed about whether it was part of the Covenant of Grace and unconditional in nature or whether it was akin to the Covenant of Works and distinct from the Covenant of Grace. The Baptists held that all the Old Testament Covenants were part of Old Covenant. This is why circumcision, a sign of the Abrahamic Covenant, is so closely connected with the Law. In this view Abraham was given the promises of the Covenant of Grace, but the Covenant of Grace, though progressively revealed in the Old Testament, was not enacted until Christ. The New Covenant is the Covenant of Grace. Thus Abraham stands at the head of two seeds, a physical and a spiritual. Once Christ comes the purposes of the physical seed and its covenant are finished. Unlike the Old Covenant, which was mixed, the New Covenant is unconditional, entirely effective, and made up entirely of those who know Christ.

Denault does a good job of introducing the reader to significant seventeenth century figures from both sides of the debate. Nehemiah Coxe is introduced as the Baptist who most clearly developed this version of Covenant Theology, though other Baptists, such as Benjamin Keach, are also drawn on. Interestingly, though not a Baptist, John Owen is also claimed to have held the Baptist Covenant position. This is especially clear from his Hebrews commentaries.

Overall Denault seems to have presented the historical information clearly and accurately. This is not merely a historical monograph, however. Denault wishes to recover Baptist Covenant Theology for the present day. I found this position most convincing when critiquing the Paedobaptist one-covenant-under-many-administrations approach. I think the case for a disjunction between the New Covenant and Old is clear. And I am in full agreement that the New Covenant is a unconditional, effective, and unmixed covenant. The equation of the Covenant of Grace with the New Covenant is more convincing than the Paedobaptist construct of a Covenant of Grace made up of many different biblical covenants. However, this Baptist Covenant Theology has its own construct: the Old Covenant. In Scripture it seems clear that the Old Covenant and First Covenant are the Mosaic Covenant. Despite providing an explanation for the connection of circumcision and the Law, I’m not convinced exegetically that the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic Covenants can all be subsumed under one Old Covenant.

Geertsema, J. Always Obedient: Essays on the Teachings of Dr. Klass Schilder. P&R, 1995.

Klass Schilder (1890-1952) was a Dutch pastor and professor in the generation following Kuyper and Bavinck. He is notable for standing within the tradition developed by Kuyper and Bavinck while also dissenting from Kuyper at key points. He is also notable for his opposition to dialectical theology (Barthianism) and to the Nazi occupation of Holland. The book provides a brief biography of Schilder and includes essays on several aspects of his thought: Scripture, covenant, the church, culture, and heaven. Fundamentalists will appreciate Schilder’s resistance to Barthian approaches to Scripture and his resistance to ecumenical unity with Barthians and other unorthodox groups. At the same time he strongly held that Reformed Christians ought to be more united. Those from the free church tradition will disagree with the way he maps out this unity institutionally, but should appreciate his emphasis on both unity and purity. Baptists will also disagree on his thoughts regarding the covenant, since he includes children in the covenant. Yet we would appreciate his opposition to Kuyper’s views of presumptive regeneration and eternal justification. Regarding Christ and Culture, Schilder strongly believed in the importance of Christians participation in cultural pursuits. However, he saw dangers in Kuyper’s formulation of common grace. He placed greater emphasis on the antithesis, and he emphasized the needs for Christian cultural involvement to be truly Christian.

Kidner, Derek. The Message of Jeremiah: Against Wind and Tide. The Bible Speaks Today, ed. J. A. Motyer. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1987.

Derek Kinder has the rare talent of packing a great deal of pertinent observation into a small space. This commentary on Jeremiah succinctly captures the message of the book in a running exposition that is meant to be read through from cover to cover. Throughout Kidner makes brief but pointed applications to the present. In this way the book lives up to both its title—it gives us the message of Jeremiah—and its series title—it speaks that message to us today.

Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo Darwinian Is Almost Certainly False. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

The gist of Nagel’s argument is that Neo-Darwinism cannot provide a materialist explanation for consciousness, cognition, and values. The explanations they do offer actually undermine our ability to have confidence in our reason―including the reasoning for Neo Darwinism. Nagel rejects theism and intelligent design (while appreciating their work and defending their critique of Neo Darwinism) for what seems to be a teleological evolutionary approach that embraces panpsychism rather than materialism. I found the critique compelling (aside from some spots that I had difficulty following). The positive vision was left underdeveloped because a paradigm shift in science would be necessary to develop it, Nagel says. Christian theism would provide answers to the questions that Nagel raises, but Nagel doesn’t consider theism in the book because he is “strongly averse” to the idea of God.

Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Updated Edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

When Christians think of conflicts between prevailing scientific theories of science and the Bible, the creation-evolution debate comes readily to mind. But other areas of conflict exist as well, including whether the humans have a soul or not. For many the soul seems to be unneeded as scientists can map the functions of the mind to the brain, reducing the mental to the physical. Cooper defends the traditional Christian position that humans have distinguishable souls and bodies. He grants, however, that Scripture tends to speak of people holistically. In contrast to monists (who deny that humans have a soul), Cooper identifies his position as “holistic dualism” or “dualistic holism.”

The heart of Cooper’s argument is that the Bible teaches that humans exist and interact in an intermediate state between death and the resurrection of the body. The fact of the intermediate state indicates soul and body must be separable. He considers alternative approaches such as “soul-sleep” or immediate resurrection and finds them exegetically lacking. Prior to making this argument, Cooper surveys Scripture and finds that it emphasizes holism but presupposes a dualism. In other words, the emphasis of Scripture is on the whole person though it can distinguish body and soul. After making his argument that the intermediate state requires a distinction between soul and body, Cooper examines theological, philosophical, and scientific objections. For instance one theological objection is that the Bible portrays the dead as bodily beings. In response, Cooper notes a number of responses are possible that harmonize with holistic dualuism: the language in those instances is not intended to be metaphysical, that souls maintain a bodily from, as Thomas Aquinas taught, or that the dead are “quasi-bodily” beings. The primary scientific objection is that states of mind and emotions can be mapped to the brain; indeed that these states of mind are not even possible when certain areas of the brain are damaged. Cooper responds on a number of levels: (1) The correlation between mind and brain is more complex than direct correlation. (2) He denies that even exact mind-brain correlation would not prove that it is the brain the causes all mental activity. While granting that the brain can affect the mind (something Cooper says has been known since people began to drink alcohol), there is no reason to deny that the mind affects the brain. (3) Cooper highlights the importance of distinguishing between empirical data from brain studies and the interpretation of that data. Materialism would be one interpretation, idealism another, and body-soul interaction another.

In all Cooper tackles a complex subject in an understandable fashion and with compelling argumentation.

Marsden, George. The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief. New York: Basic Books, 2014.

This brief book of 200 pages looks back to the 1950s and the changes that emerged from that decade in order to better understand our present situation, particularly as it relates to religion and public life.

In his first two chapters Marsden looks at the concerns that intellectuals of the 1950s had about American culture. One of the chief concerns was that mediums such as TV were not meditating high culture to a broader audience. Instead a new mass culture was created that was culturally degrading. Serious thought was needed in the modern world but was lacking in popular magazines and television shows. Another major concern was the preservation and expansion of freedom. This theme was, of course, developed against the backdrop of the totalitarianism that arose prior to World War II and continued as a threat in the Cold War. The danger to freedom that the public intellectuals focused on, however, was the danger posed by conformity to business procedure, suburban housing, and even child-raising methods. The themes of freedom and nonconformity were stated in moderate, academic tones in the 1950s but lived out by the counter-culture of the 1960s.

In chapter three Marsden focuses on the great public intellectual of the time, Walter Lippmann. Marsden notes that the intellectuals of the 1950s could champion freedom because they had a shared consensus about the common goods that freedom should be oriented towards. Lippmann pointed out that these intellectuals valued the consensus but “had dynamited the foundations on which those principles had been first established.” Lippmann proposed that natural law be the needed foundation for the common good. His proposal was roundly rejected. Most intellectuals saw no need for these foundations; they saw natural law as a threat to human autonomy. Lippmann’s proposal was roundly rejected. Ironically, Marsden notes, out was the Christian-based rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr. that best exemplified the consensus ideals of the 1950s liberals: liberty, justice, equality.

In chapter four Marsden argues that the two actual authorities in American life were the individual (existentialism) and science. These two came together in psychology. Marsden traces the debates between Skinner and Rogers as well as the influence of Dr. Spock. The result of this unstable dual authority was the 1960s.

In chapter five Marsden looks at the the influence of Henry Luce and Reinhold Niebuhr as exemplifying the surface religiosity of the 1950s. Luce promoted a civil religion. Niebuhr gave profound evaluations of the American situation but lacked in providing a way forward, in part because there was no shared authority.

In chapter six Marsden looks at how the consensus of the 1950s collapsed in the 1960s, and eventually gave rise to the Evangelical Right/Moral Majority of the 1980s. Marsden holds that the Christian right wanted the 1950s back with its embrace of a Christian civil religion. His major critique is that they set up a binary opposition between themselves and “secular humanism.” Secularists likewise claimed to be the heirs of the 1950s consensus with its emphasis on personal freedom and science. Thus the culture wars.

In his conclusion Marsden looks to Abraham Kuyper as pointing the way forward. He notes that Kuyper rightly recognized that there is ultimately no neutral, objective ground. Thus attempts since the 1960s to move religion to a purely private sphere will fail. Nor is it possible to make a religiously plural nation Christian. What is needed, Marsden argues, is a principled pluralism that gives all religious views a voice.

Baker, Hunter. Political Thought: A Students Guide. Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition. Edited by David Dockery. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Hunter Baker does a good job in a brief space of describing different approaches to government, key themes such as order, freedom, justice, and the Christian’s role in the political process. This is a good introduction to political thought from a Christian perspective.

July

Books

Schreiner, Thomas R. The King in His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013.

In this biblical theology Thomas Schreiner studies the themes of the books of the Bible (Paul’s epistles are grouped together in a single section, as are some other smaller sections, like Luke-Acts). Schreiner either follows a thematic approach or a literary one in which he traces the main themes of successive sections. Overall, his comments are insightful and the book gives a good overview of Scripture’s main themes.

Bird, Kai. The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames. New York: Crown, 2014.

Lewis, C.S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Articles

Witherington III, Ben. "Not So Idle Thoughts about Eidolothuton" Tyndale Bulletin 44.2 (1993) 237- 254.

Witherington argues that all the occurrences of εἰδωλόθυτος refer to food eaten in the temple precincts. It does not refer to meat offered to idols that is served outsides the temple precincts. The weakest point of Witherington’s argument is that the three items restricted in for Gentile Christians in Acts 15 don’t seem to have to do with what went on in the temple, as the must in Witherington’s argument. He admits in a footnote that strangling was not a common practice in Greek and Roman temples and chalks it up to James being a provincial Judean who didn’t really know much of what went on in Roman and Greek temples. I don’t find that line of reasoning persuasive (nor did Thiselton). (I do, however, think that Witherington is correct that Acts 15 is not about keeping a modicum of Jewish or Noachic food laws.) Garland objects to Witherington on the grounds that all the early Church Fathers also exclude eating from the marketplace meat specifically identified as idol-meat. He notes that if Witherington’s view is correct then all subsequent early interpreters of Paul misunderstood, which Garland finds unlikely.

Gerhard, Johann. On the Nature of Theology and on Scripture. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2009.

Gerhard is a Lutheran scholastic who followed Martin Luther and Martin Chemnitz as the great Lutheran scholar of the third generation of Lutheranism. Reading his On the Nature of Theology should dispel the notion that the Protestant scholastics were rationalists or without real piety. Gerhard rightly argues that theology is not derived from reason but that reason is a tool to be used in understanding Scripture. His treatment of Scripture is excellent. He has one of the most detailed discussions of why the Apocryphal books are not to be included in the canon that I’ve read. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if the Protestant scholastics have been maligned because their opponents would rather dismiss them than engage their careful, detailed arguments.

August

Books

Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Knopf, 2006.

Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss.

McKenzie, Robert Tracy. The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History. InterVarsity, 2013.

The primary question that McKenzie is answering in this book is how Christians should practice the discipline of history. He uses the story of the first Thanksgiving as a case study. Readers will therefore learn a about the Reformation, Puritans, Separatists, their culture, and their beliefs. This is a valuable part of the book. But readers will get more. They will also learn how to appreciate Christian forbearers without turning them into idols. They will learn the benefit of challenging one’s modern ideas by exposure to historical ones. They will learn that historical honesty is more important that using history for political purposes: Christian or otherwise. Highly recommended.

Beeke, Joel. Developing Healthy Spiritual Growth: Knowledge, Practice and Experience. Grand Rapids: Evangelical Press, 2013.

This brief book of three sermons on Colossians 1:9-14 has been the most spiritually nourishing book that I have recently read. It led me to desire to know Christ more, to follow him better, and to grow in my experience of the Spirit’s sanctifying work.

Articles

Head, Peter. "Graham Stanton and the Four-Gospel Codex: Reconsidering the Manuscript Evidence," in Jesus, Matthew’s Gospel and Early Christianity.

Head argues that the manuscript evidence does not support Stanton’s argument that the acceptance of the four Gospels was linked with four-gospel codices.

Brack, Jonathan M. and Jared S. Oliphint. "Questioning the Progress in Progressive Covenantalism: A Review of Gentry and Wellum’s Kingdom through Covenant," Westminster Theological Journal 76 (2014): 189-217.

Brack and Oliphint critique Gentry and Wellum’s Kingdom through Covenant on three grounds. First they challenge their exegetical methodology, next they challenge their understanding of covenant theology, third they challenge their understanding of the New Covenant. I find Brack and Oliphant’s critique on the first two points valid and helpful. I think they go astray on the third point.

The methodological critique focuses on the use of ANE background material. I believe that Brack and Oliphint are correct to welcome insights from ANE background while at the same time insisting that material external to Scripture not be allowed to supersede Scripture itself―including Scripture’s own canonical interpretation of Scripture. In addition to displacing Scripture itself, Brack and Oliphint note two additional problems with privileging background material in one’s hermeneutical method. First, it may neglect to note how Scripture transcends cultures. Second, it fails to acknowledge that the original audience often did not understand Scripture. "Conjecture on what would have been adequately understood by Scripture’s original audience is a poor test for what qualifies as biblical exegesis" (195).

In the article’s second section Brack and Oliphint critique Gentry’s treatment of the covenant’s and Covenant Theology. They note that their treatment of covenant theology relies on the writings of Michael Horton and Doug Wilson while neglecting the diversity that really existed among the key covenant theologians. Differences over whether the Mosaic Covenant is part of the covenant of grace or covenant of works or whether the covenant of grace is the new covenant or encompasses all (or most) of the covenants. I think this is a valid criticism. Ironically the treatment of Dispensationalism is much better (this aspect of Kingdom through Covenant is not dealt with by Brack and Oliphant). All too often Covenant Theologians treat Scofield as representing all of Dispensationalism, with perhaps a nod to later developments. To their credit Wellum and Gentry avoid caricature and represent Dispensationalism in all its variety.

Ironically, in the third section Brack and Oliphint are the ones who forget the diversity of Covenant Theology and are the ones who impose an external paradigm on Scripture rather than giving the text priority. In this section they object to Wellum and Gentry’s argument that, unlike the OT covenants, the members of the new covenant are not a mixture of believers and unbelievers. They also downplay the progress from the OT to the new covenant indicated by the newness of the indwelling Spirit for new covenant believers. On this count I find the Exegetical arguments favoring Wellum and Gentry’s position to be stronger. Brack and Oliphint, on the other hand, made primarily theological arguments that depended on their paedobaptist version of covenant theology. They read statements about the necessity of the Spirit indwelling made in the New Testament back into the Old Testament. And though they in another context noted works like Pascal Denault’s, which answered their theological objections, they failed to acknowledge that the objections they raised do have answers that Baptist theologians have provided. This part of the paper was disappointing. Because it raised old arguments without engaging response to those arguments, it failed to advance the discussion.

From my theological perspective, I think the real value of this review is its discussion of ANE material in one’s hermeneutics. The errors the critique seem to be spreading at present, and I believe their critique on this point to be spot on.

Edwards, Jonathan. "The Mind." In Scientific and Philosophical Writings. Edited by Wallace E. Anderson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. [Also read much of the editor’s introduction]

Edwards’s idealism is far from convincing, but the editor’s introduction helpfully explains the materialist challenge to Christianity that Edwards was seeking to counter. Some of the most interesting aspects of the essay to my mind was the discussions of aesthetics. Edwards ties aesthetics to proportion. Thing with proportion are beautiful. This means there can be things that are ugly when viewed narrowly, but which are beautiful when seen in a larger context in which proportion becomes evident. Ethically this explains how something sinful can appear beautiful when viewed narrowly. But when viewed from the broadest perspective, it would not be so.

Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott. "God as Trinity." "The End of God in Creation." "Providence and History." The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

I find Edwards’s account of the Trinity overly speculative and unhelpful. His view on the end of God in creation I find superlatively biblical and essential reading for all literate Christians. Edwards’s history of redemption I find to be a mixed bag. I really like what he is attempting, but I don’t always find his typology convincing. McClymond and McDermott provide very helpful summaries of all three of these topics.

Warfield, Benjamin B. "John’s First Word." In Benjamin B. Warfield: Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meter. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1970. pp. 148-50.

Warfield’s main point is that Jesus is the One who reveals the Father’s glory. That is why he is pictured as the Word and the light, the One tabernacling among God’s people and exegeting the Father.

Books

Lucas, Sean Michael. Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life. P&R, 2005.

This is a superbly written but sad biography. Dabney is a tragic figure. He had a first-rate intellect that rightly saw dangers in modernism and critiqued them cogently. He defended orthodox theology. But he was deeply racist, defending slavery as biblical and opposing the ordination of black men after the war. Indeed, he opposed anything that would uplift black people. Lucas presents Dabney’s views fairly while also providing a biblical critique. The concluding chapter reflects on Dabney’s contribution both positive and negative. He notes the influence of Dabney’s racial views in past years on Lucas’s own denomination, the PCA, and his alma mater, Bob Jones University. He also includes a helpful comparison and contrast between Dabney and Abraham Kuyper. He notes that while both held problematic racial views, both defended Christianity from modernism, and both offered a public theology, Kuyper has received greater appreciation than Dabney. While noting ways in which Kuyper’s theology is a richer resource than Dabney’s (the antithesis, common grace, sphere sovereignty), Lucas still holds that Dabney has much to teach us. In the end, Lucas seems to prefer Dabney’s spirituality of the church position to Kuyper’s (which he thinks in danger of falling into theonomy). Indeed, the final critique of Dabney was his failure in that he created a public theology more Southern than Christian.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. Peter Smith, 2001.

Johnston, Philip and Peter Walker, The Land of Promise: Biblical, Theological, and Contemporary Perspectives. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000.

This book has two great failings. First, many of the essays begin with the concern that the modern state of Israel treats the Palestinians unjustly and that a theology of the land must be found to undermine Israel’s claim to the land. Second, many of the essays evince little sympathy for opposing viewpoints and thus deal with caricatures or weak representatives of these viewpoints. For instance, the chapter "Dispensational Approaches to the Land," is not written by a dispensationalist. Instead the author begins with such representative dispensationalists as Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Pat Robertson, and Jimmy Swaggart and ends by connecting dispensationalism to the Crusades and Manicheanism. The substance of the chapter is given to John Nelson Darby, C. I. Scofield, Hal Lindsey, and The International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem. Blaising and Bock are dispatched with a sentence, and other recent dispensationalist scholars don’t even merit a mention. Another author suggests dispensationalists adopt a literal interpretation of land prophecies because they don’t understand figures of speech or metaphors; because they are committed to "empirical positivism"; because they have adopted an American Dream utopianism; or because they are inerrantists. The authors rightly reject the idea that the modern state of Israel has a biblical mandate to reconquer the promised land. But they seem to conflate this error with any claims that Israel will receive the promised land in the future. What is more, the chapter presenting a Jewish Christian perspective on the land clearly denies that disobedient Israel can claim the land promises while also affirming the future fulfillment of the land promises for Israel. Unfortunately the other contributors fail to interact with this chapter, preferring easier targets instead. In addition, while several authors bring up injustices perpetuated by Israel against Palestinians, only one mentions the fact that Jews "are the target of special enmity." A book written by those sympathetic to those of other viewpoints would have stressed both the need of Israel to act justly toward Palestinians and of Palestinians to act justly toward Jews.

Though many of the chapters are written by conservatives, some fall short in their bibliology. One author speaks of "the failure of prophecy" when the utopia that the prophet predicted upon the return of the people failed to come to pass. He rejects moving the fulfillment into the "unpredictable and indefinite future." Instead he proposes reading prophecies as ancient hyperbole that must be radically re-read in light of Christ.

Regarding specific exegetical proposals, Williamson had somewhat helpful essay on the universalization of the land promise to encompass the whole earth. While I agree this is a feature of the Bible’s teaching, I thought Williamson stretched exegetically to find it in the Abrahamic Covenant itself. I also fail to see why universalizing the land promise, extending it to other nations, strips Israel of the promise. Do all get the promise except Israel? Walker also put forward some interesting proposals. He began his essays on the land in the New Testament promisingly by affirming that the New Testament authors did view the land as an important concept despite the paucity of direct references to the land. However, he concludes that Hebrews 3-4 when combined with Hebrews 11 reveals that the land promise is to be fulfilled by heaven. He thinks that as the author of Hebrews indicates the temple was a shadow, so the land was a shadow. It is worth pointing out, however, that the author of Hebrews does not call the land a shadow, as he does with the temple. Further, the city that Abraham looks forward to is the New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven to the new earth. The heavenly country is the renewed earth, and our eternal rest takes place on literal land. Similarly more persuasive readings exist for each of Walker’s key texts.

Books that deal with the theological theme of land are relatively rare. It is therefore a disappointment that this volume did not even deal at an acceptably scholarly level with opposing viewpoints.

Leder, Arie C. Waiting for the Land: The Story Line of the Pentateuch. P&R, 2010.

The subtitle of this book describes its primary function: it maps out the story-line of the Pentateuch. Leder takes seriously the five book division of the Pentateuch rather than trying to construct an outline that breaks up the Pentateuchal material differently. He holds the Pentateuch follows an ABCB’A’ pattern. Leviticus is the center, framed by Exodus and Numbers. Genesis and Deuteronomy frame the whole and provide the beginning and the conclusion of the narrative. The central narrative problem of the Pentateuch, according to Leder, is exile from the presence of God. The holiness material in Leviticus is central because it is essential to overcoming this narrative problem.

The heart of this book are the five chapters that examine the five books of the Pentateuch. For each of these Leder provides a summary of the book, identifies the "central narrative interest," identifies the narrative problem of the book, outlines key points of the plot, and traces the structure of the book.

The title of the book identifies a minor theme that runs throughout. Each of the five central chapters ends with a section on waiting for the land. The final chapter of the book also takes up this theme. Leder’s basic contention is that the Pentateuch closes with Israel outside the land to show the relative unimportance of the land in comparison to God’s presence. Exile from Eden is not resolved by the land promise but by the presence of God among his people. I remain unconvinced by this thesis, especially as it leads Leder to take the wilderness wanderings and Babylonian exile as normative for the church. The conquest of Canaan and dwelling in the land are discussed in somewhat negative terms. This approach would seem to make normative the judgments of Israel rather than the promises. Yet if the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God, is a microcosm that also reflects Eden, then the theme of God’s presence should not be separated from the land promise. God intends to dwell with his people in his land (cf. Exodus 33)—which in the end will encompass all the earth. This is not to discount some agreement with Leder: there is some parallel between Israel outside the land but enjoying God’s presence in the tabernacle and the church, which is the temple of God’s Spirit, awaiting the renewed earth.

Overall, the book is accessibly written. Though it contains what I view as some missteps, and though he could have dug deeper at several points, the book also contains good insights into the themes and structure of the Pentateuch.

De Angeli, Marguerite. The Door in the Wall. Laurel Leaf, 1949.

Cook, David. Understanding Jihad. Berkley: University of California Press, 2005.

Cook helps his readers do exactly what his title says. He carefully works his way through the sources about Jihad from Mohammad until the present day. He finds the evidence that jihad meant an internal struggle rather than military conflict historically wanting. He is sympathetic with Muslims who make these claims in the hope of reforming Islam, but he finds these claims historically inaccurate. Cook also finds fault with those who believe that since Islam historically spread by the sword that modern day Islamic terrorists stand within the mainstream of Islamic jihad. The use of martyrdom or suicide bombers and the targeting of non-military targets are two significant departures from the jihad tradition. The careful discussion of primary sources and the distinctions of varying views of jihad make this perhaps the best book on the subject.

Gouge, William. Building a Godly Home. Volume 2. Reformation Heritage, 2013.

Volume one of this edited and slightly modernized version of William Gouge’s Domestical Duties is an excellent exposition of Ephesians 5:22-6:9. This volume provides practical application of the husband and wife’s mutual duties to each other, the wife’s duties toward her husband, and a husband’s duties toward his wife. According to the editors this book was the most influential Puritan book on marriage and family. It is easy to see why. It is full of careful, biblical guidance. Hermeneutically, Gouge is sometimes over-reliant on biblical examples that should not be taken as normative. Overall, however, his counsel is biblically grounded.

As expected, Gouge presents the biblical teaching of a husband’s leadership in the home and the wife’s submission to her husband. Gouge also sees the wife as holding an exalted position in the home, and his counsel repeatedly calls on the husband to lovingly treat her in way that honors her station. Egalitarian caricatures of what life in a biblically ordered home fall flat here as would any attempts to misuse the biblical teaching about the husband’s authority in order to demean the wife.

The overall effect of this volume is to challenge husbands and wives in their daily life to reflect Christ and the church. Gouge writes in a way that is direct and challenging while also being inspiring. These volumes by Gouge may still be the best books on marriage and the family on the market. They certainly are worthy of being as widely read today as they were in Puritan times.

Hill, Charles E. Regnum Caelorum: Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.

Though the earliest writers who touch on the issue of the Millennium hold a millennial view, both Justin and Irenaeus affirm that some of orthodox Christians also held to an amillennial view. Hill proposes that we can identify who these people were by trying to identify wider systems of eschatology that extend beyond the millennial issue alone. Hill argues that those who affirmed a millennium also held that the redeemed existed in a subterranean intermediate state awaiting the resurrection of the body. On the other hand Christian writers who oppose millennialism all held that the soul ascends to God’s presence in heaven in the intermediate state. Hill grants that it is theoretically possible that a person held to a heavenly intermediate state and a millennium, but he argues in response that there is no evidence that such a position existed.

Based on the link between a heavenly millennial state and amillennialism, Hill concludes that Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Athenagrous, Meilto of Sardis, and others held to the amillennial position. The most significant name on that list is Polycarp. Polycarp is the link between the apostle John and Irenaeus—between the apostle whose writing contains the key New Testament millennial text and the chief early defender of the millennial position.

If Polycarp held to an amillennial position, how did his student, Irenaeus, come to hold a millennial position? Hill argues that Irenaeus changed to the millennialist position in the course of writing Against Heresies in order to strengthen his position against Gnosticism. Gnostics would be content with a spiritual existence in the presence of God but a subterranean intermediate state defers that until after the bodily resurrection and a Millennial reign of Christ affirms the goodness of the material creation.

If Hill is correct, then Irenaeus inherited an amillennial position from Polycarp that he later abandoned. Since Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John, this would strengthen claims that John was not a millennialist. Indeed, Hill argues that since John (and the rest of the New Testament) teach a heavenly intermediate state at odds with the millennial position’s subterranean intermediate state, the New Testament is amillenial.

Hill is an erudite scholar who is familiar with the patristic writings. In closely examining the passages that Hill claimed evidenced changes in Irenaeus’s theology, I found convincing the claim that he shifted from a heavenly to a subterranean intermediate state. However, I found unconvincing the claim that he shifted from an amillennial to a millennial position. The texts that Hill appealed to as being amillennial were not clearly such. In addition Irenaeus explicitly claims having received his millennial interpretations from the elders, which would likely have included Polycarp. Further, a key point in Irenaeus’s theology is that what is received from the elders is the authoritative interpretation of Scripture. It is unlikely that he would have changed positions on an interpretation he attributes to the elders. The upshot of accepting HIll’s argument that Irenaeus changed positions on the intermediate state but rejecting his argument that Irenaeus changed millennial positions is that evidence does therefore exist for millennialists who also held to a heavenly intermediate state (the early Irenaues being a prime example). Hill’s claim that belief in a heavenly intermediate state is evidence of amillennialism therefore does not hold. Indeed, if one shifts from a focus on the intermediate state to eternal state, it becomes clear that the patristic amillennialists held to a spiritual eternal state while, according to amillennialists such as Turretin, Bavinck, Hoekema, Horton, and Venema, the NT teaches an earthly eternal state.

Lewis, C.S. The Magician’s Nephew.

Articles

Carson, D. A. "Sin’s Contemporary Significance." In Fallen: A Theology of Sin. Edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson. Crossway, 2013.

This is Carson at his best: exegetically careful, theologically insightful, and devotionally stirring.

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach," "The Buried Life," Empedocles on Etna."

Books

Tolkien, Christopher. History of Middle-Earth II’>The History of Middle-earth II. HarperCollins, 2002.

Traces in great detail the manuscript development of the Lord of the Rings.

Verbeek, Theo. Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637-1650′>Descartes and the Dutch. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992.

This book documents the conflict between Descartes, his followers, and the Reformed Orthodox. The Orthodox had several concerns with Descartes.

First, they thought that his methodological skepticism was sinful: to doubt the existence of God is a breach of the first commandment. It is not a way to knowledge. Though Descartes did argue for the existence of God, the Orthodox found his arguments weak. They believed the net result of starting with methodological doubt and following with weak arguments for the existence of God would be an increase in atheism.

Second, they held that reason was an instrument of knowledge that should always be subject to Scripture. They rejected the concept that reason is an "independent source of knowledge." They were concerned that if reason was raised as an authority above Scripture that doctrines such as the Trinity, incarnation, original sin, and eternal punishment might be rejection as contrary to reason. The Orthodox were also concerned by Descartes dismissal of the human senses as reliable. They believed that since the senses were given by God they were, in general, reliable. Voetius indicated that, "People who reject the senses are like the philosopher who, for the sake of wisdom, put out his own eyes in order to meditate at his ease" (56).

Third, the Orthodox were concerned that Descartes approach was too speculative. Descartes argued that even God must be caused, if only by himself, since all beings must have a cause. The Orthodox held that speculations about the being of God are dangerous; they believed they could say from Scripture that God is not caused by anything else. Beyond this they did not wish to go.

Fourth, the Reformed Orthodox were also concerned that Descartes placed human free will over the sovereignty of God.

Wright, N. T. The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential’>The Case for the Psalms: Why They are Essential. HarperOne, 2013.

For anyone interested in an introduction to the Psalms, Gordon Wenham’s, The Psalter Reclaimed would be a much better resource than Wright’s Case for the Psalms. Though not without occasional insight, I did not find time, space, and matter to be the most compelling or insightful way to unpack the themes of the Psalter.

Articles

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion’>Institutes of the Christian Religion’>Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeil. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960. [2.9-14]

Chapters 9-11 deal with continuity and discontinuities between the Old and New Testaments. Calvin is right to see both present, but he is wrong to see the continuity as one covenant of grace under different administrations. I think he is further wrong to locate part of the discontinuity in making the OT about physical promises and the NT about spiritual fulfillments.

Chapters 12-14 deal with the humanity of Christ. Calvin does an excellent job of demonstrating why Christ must be man. He answers the objections of heretics to the humanity of Christ, and he lays out the orthodox position