I direct your attention to TheoSource, a website devoted to the review and collection of good theology books. Put this in your bookmarks somewhere and refer back to it when you are thinking of what to purchase next.
TheoSource has also compiled several recommendation lists for commentaries and other volumes you might need in your theological library. What is unique about their lists is that they have poured through several recommendation lists and compiled the suggestions, along with who recommended what. So, glancing through the list, you can see if a book was recommended by Don Carson, Danny Akin, and Denver Seminary - or others whose opinion you think is valuable.
The drawback of the list (every list as at least one), is that they nowhere detail their basic criteria for the inclusion of a volume. Many volumes are listed without being referenced in one of the source lists - why are they there? This lack of criteria carries over into a related problem. For instance, Dr. Akin’s list suggests several liberal/critical commentaries for their technical details or alternate point of view. Just because they are on his list does not mean that Dr. Akin thinks these are the volumes that should guide your theology or teaching. They are secondary resources, but they appear on the TheoSource list as recommended by Dr. Akin, which can be misleading. Still, the compilers do provide limited comments as to the conservative/liberal emphasis of the book, which helps mitigate any confusion.
After you have collected your first commentaries, you should download the TheoSource lists (as well as buy John Glynn’s Survey) for additional purchases. Overall, the site seems to provide helpful resources and is worth a look.
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Posted by blestou on September 29th, 2007 — Links, Review, Church Life, Ministry, Doctrine, Online
I have completed my sermon series on biblical Covenants. The series is heavily indebted to Dr. Peter Gentry and his lectures on “Kingdom Through Covenant.” Of course, the sermons draw from other’s teachings as well and any errors or faulty thinking are my own.
I think a healthy understanding of the Covenants is important to a healthy understanding of Jesus Christ. I do not think that “Covenant” is the end all / be all of theology - Jesus is. Yet, if we are to appreciate Jesus Christ in all his fullness, if we are to worship God the Father in all his providence, if we are to serve by the Spirit in all obedience, then we need to know the basics of the Missio Dei, and I think we get a little closer via this kind of study.
This is my first attempt at theological preaching (as opposed to preaching through a biblical book). It was challenging, especially the time element. You’ll find some of these run 45 minutes. I am thankful for a congregation that is bearing with a new pastor who is still really learning how to preach. Over the course of the sermon series, Sunday morning attendance rose about 15%. We’ll see if those levels stay the same as I return to a more comfortable verse-by-verse style. Don’t worry about my voice, I don’t like it either.
The Covenant with Creation
The Covenant with Noah
The Covenant with Abraham
The Mosaic Covenant
The Covenant with David
The New Covenant
The Covenant in Jesus
The Covenants and the Church
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Posted by blestou on September 26th, 2007 — Links, Illustration, Church Life, Ministry, Doctrine, Daily Life, Online
The (Re)Publican has a nicely worded post about the substitutionary aspect of the atonement.
We need to get over this false dichotomy that what is legal is necessarily impersonal and that what is personal is necessarily not tied up with legal matters.
And just as in human relationships, the legal serves as a foundation for the personal relationship with God through the cross.
Go read the whole thing. Nice thoughts that will make you feel fuzzy inside, and that’s saying something in a post about penal substitution.
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Posted by blestou on September 25th, 2007 — Illustration, Ministry, Daily Life, Doctrine, Family
Tim Challies gives some tips for a healthy discipline of reading. He has also collected lists of books that have been influential to people you may have heard of over at the Discerning Reader. Check it out next time you can’t think of what to read next.
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Posted by blestou on September 17th, 2007 — Links, Review, Church Life, Ministry, Culture, Daily Life, Doctrine
A long term study following nearly 100 homosexual men and women who pursued therapy designed to help them leave the homosexual lifestyle found that genuine conversions do occur and the therapy itself has no harmful psychological effects.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–In what some are calling groundbreaking research, a new four-year study concludes it is possible for homosexuals to change their physical attractions and become heterosexual through the help of Christian ministries.
The data was released Sept. 13 at a news conference in Nashville, Tenn., and will be published in the forthcoming book, “Ex-Gays?” (InterVarsity Press) by psychologists Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse. Thirty-eight percent of the subjects followed in the study said they had successfully left homosexuality, while an additional 29 percent said they had had only modest successes but were committed to keep trying. In another significant finding, Jones and Yarhouse said attempts at conversions do not appear to be psychologically harmful.
Truth Wins Out, a gay advocacy group, has been lobbying news organizations to discredit the study. Their main contention seems to be that MRIs were not used to measure physical responses to lying and truth-telling to ensure that those who described themselves as successfully leaving the gay lifestyle were not lying to researchers.
“Any ‘ex-gay’ study that does not include physical components that measure truth are [sic] essentially meaningless,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen.
“It seems that ex-gays would rather mislead and practice skullduggery than get behind the skull,” said Mr. Besen.
I think the MRI might be a good idea for a future study, but does not in any way invalidate the research of Jones and Yarhouse. Truth Wins Out could stand a measure of its own criticism.
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Posted by blestou on September 14th, 2007 — News, Illustration, Links, Ministry, Culture, Politics
The BBC is reporting on a “Diamond synchrotron” that can image ancient scrolls without the danger of unrolling them. The plan is to finally read all of the Dead Sea scrolls.
Intense light beams will enable scientists to uncover the text in scrolls and books without having to open - and potentially damage - them.
Scientists from the University of Cardiff have developed a technique that uses a powerful X-ray source to create a three-dimensional image of an iron-inked document.
The team then applies a computer algorithm to separate the image into the different layers of parchment, in effect using the program to unroll the scroll.
This article explains the process in a simple way.
To “read” rolled up parchments, the X-rays are used in much the same way as they are in hospitals to produce images of bones.
Because the ink used for thousands of years to write on parchment contains iron, it creates a “shadow” on the X-ray image. Numerous X-ray scans are taken from different angles and the information digitally fed into a computer, which unscrambles the data to “unroll” the document and produce text that can be read. In tests, the technique has worked with 80% accuracy.
He said many old documents could not be unrolled or unfolded without them falling apart. Parchments were generally made from animal skin which over time can become jellified.
As well as investigating rolled parchments, the scientists also hope within the next three or four years to overcome the more difficult challenge of reading books without turning their pages.
Cool.
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Posted by blestou on September 13th, 2007 — Illustration, News, Culture, Doctrine
Kay Hymowitz describes why, though sympathetic, I am ultimately uncomfortable with libertarianism in her article, Freedom Fetishists.
On the one hand, libertarians make a fetish of freedom; it is their totalizing goal. On the other hand, libertarians depend on the family–an institution that, in crucial respects, is unfree–to produce the sort of people best suited to life in a free-market system (not to mention future members of their own movement). The complex, dynamic economy that libertarians have done so much to expand needs highly advanced human capital–that is, individuals of great moral, cognitive and emotional sophistication. Reams of social-science research prove that these qualities are best produced in traditional families with married parents.
Children do not come into the world respecting private property. They do not emerge from the womb ready to navigate the economic and moral complexities of an “age of abundance.” The only way they learn such things is through a long process of intensive socialization–a process that we now know, thanks to the failed experiments begun by the [left-wing] Aquarians and implicitly supported by libertarians, usually requires intact families and decent schools.
There is more to a successful, stable society - more to sustainable growth - than “everybody do what you please, just try not to hurt anybody.”
Absolute freedom does not maximize actual freedom.
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Posted by blestou on September 12th, 2007 — Links, Illustration, Daily Life, Culture, Doctrine, Politics, Family
Caleb Dean LeStourgeon
8 pounds, 6 oz. — 19 in.
Welcome to the world, little one. May you have a different spirit inside you and whole-heartedly serve the Lord.
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Posted by blestou on September 5th, 2007 — Daily Life, Family
Many Eyes is a social data-visualization site. They have several cool visualizations of data sets, but have recently added a Word Tree for Genesis (KJV). Check it out.
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Posted by blestou on September 1st, 2007 — Illustration, Links, Tech, Online
