Between Two Worlds

Andreas Kostenberger reviews Richard Bauckham's magnum opus, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

In his latest sermon John Piper sets forth a theology of singleness.

Piper borrows heavily from the work of Barry Danylak, “A Biblical-Theological Perspective on Singleness” (2006) (unpublished).

Denny Burk: "Two weeks ago, I saw a little story in the Associated Press about some Christians who were murdered in Turkey. The story was relatively non-descript. It briefly noted that three Christians had their throats cut by some Islamic radicals. The rest of the piece talked about how religious persecution might hurt Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Little did I know then the horror and the glory of what really happened."

Read the whole thing.

Carl Trueman: "If I had my time over again, I would have studied patristics rather than Reformation; the evangelical Protestant world has a dearth of good patristic scholars. Michael Haykin and Don Fairbairn are notable exceptions; but we have not done well in this field as a whole; and we have neglected it to our own impoverishment."

Read the whole post for his thoughts on the benefit of studying the Church Fathers.

Mark Dever writes about Together for the Gospel and the addition of Thabiti as a speaker.

Robert Webber--who devoted much of his time and energy to champion an "ancient-future" vision for the church--passed away Friday April 27, 2007.

Paul Helm writes: "This is a nearly-final draft of a contribution to be published in Karl Barth’s Theology: Collected Critical Perspectives, edd. David Gibson and Daniel Strange, (Leicester, Apollos, 2007). Posted by permission of the publisher." See: Karl Barth and the Visibility of God.

Chinese smokers.

The 34th PCA General Assembly appointed an ad interim committee "to study the soteriology of the Federal Vision, New Perspective, and Auburn Avenue Theologies which are causing confusion among our churches. Further, to determine whether these viewpoints and formulations are in conformity with the system of doctrine taught in the Westminster Standards, whether they are hostile to or strike at the vitals of religion, and to present a declaration or statement regarding the issues raised by these viewpoints in light of our Confessional Standards (MGA 34:229-30)."

The report is now here. Doug Wilson, though saying that the report contains some "standard misunderstandings," appreciates that "the timbre of the report was judicious, and it looked to me as though the committee members did labor to understand us."

Martin Luther on never tiring of the gospel of God's grace:

People don't earn God's approval or receive life and salvation because of anything they've done. Rather, the only reason they receive life and salvation is because of God's kindness through Christ. There is no other way.

Many Christians are tired of hearing this teaching over and over. They think that they learned it all long ago. However, they barely understand how important it really is. If it continues to be taught as truth, the Christian church will remain united and pure — free from decay. This truth alone makes and sustains Christianity. You might hear an immature Christian brag about how well he knows that we receive God's approval through God's kindness and not because of anything we do to earn it. But if he goes on to say that this is easy to put into practice, then have no doubt he doesn't know what he's talking about, and he probably never will. We can never learn this truth completely or brag that we understand it fully. Learning this truth is an art. We will always remain students of it, and it will always be our teacher.

The people who truly understand that they receive God's approval by faith and put this into practice don't brag that they have fully mastered it. Rather, they think of it as a pleasant taste or aroma that they are always pursuing. These people are astonished that they can't comprehend it as fully as they would like. They hunger and thirst for it. They yearn for it more and more. They never get tired of hearing about this truth.

-Martin Luther, Quoted in Faith Alone, James C. Galvin

(HT: Bill Walsh)

John Fonville today highlights this Luther quote:

“Christ, with most sweet names, is called my law, my sin, my death, against the law, sin and death: whereas, in very deed He is nothing else but mere liberty, righteousness, life, and everlasting salvation. And for this cause He is made the law, the sin of sin, the death of death that He might redeem from the curse of the law, justify me, and quicken me. So then, while Christ is the law, He is also liberty: while He is sin (for “He was made sin for us”), He is righteousness: and while He is death, He is life. For in that He suffered the law to accuse Him, sin to condemn Him, and death to devour Him, He abolished the law, He condemned sin, He destroyed death, He justified and saved me. So Christ is the poison of the law, sin, and death, and the remedy for the obtaining of liberty, righteousness, and everlasting life.” Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians

Michael Haykin asks: Why Study the Fathers? He also offers A Test Case: Basil of Caesarea on Abortion.

Philip Ryken explores a Christian response to Risk Management.

Carl Trueman is amused by the evangelical practice of domesticating radicals.

Jeremy Smith wonders why Global Warming is so popular.

Laura Miguelez (Associate Professor of Theology at Wheaton College) reviews Lauren Winner's Real Sex.

Paul Helm reviews Scott Oliphint's Reasons for Faith.

Derek Thomas offers some comments on volume six of Hughes Old's series on Christian preaching through the centuries.

David Gilbert reviews Richard Phillips's commentary on Hebrews in the Reformed Expositional Commentary series.

The Langham Partnership:

John Stott would like his many friends around the world to know that, having reached the age of 86 in April, he has taken the decision finally to retire from public ministry after fulfilling one final speaking engagement at the upcoming Keswick Convention in July.

He will be moving from his flat in central London where he has lived for more than 30 years, to a retirement community for Anglican clergy in the south of England, which will be able to provide more fully for his present and future needs. Dr Stott has made this decision with the strong belief that it is God's provision for him at this stage.

(HT: Adrian Warnock)

Joe Thorn: "To all the bloggers out there who are using the SnapShots link preview feature on their blogs. We hate it. It makes looking through your blog less enjoyable. No, it’s worse than that - it annoys us. In fact, 10 out of 10 blog readers surveyed say the SnapShot feature discourages them from returning to a blog (I made that up). Don’t believe that most people find it annoying? If you use it, take a poll on your blog and ask. Or you can just do the right thing and disable the feature."

Do you agree? (SnapShot is that thing that gives you a preview window of outgoing links.) If you hate it, I'll remove it!

Josh Harris: "In response to the tragedy at Virginia Tech, our church has created a special resource page that gathers helpful articles, sermons and recommended books. These resources are worth giving attention to not just for processing the sad events in Blacksburg, but to prepare our hearts for the inevitable suffering that comes in this life."

Registration for the next Together for the Gospel Conference opens on May 1, 2007. It will be held in Louisville, April 15-17, 2008.

Speakers include the four--Al Mohler, Ligon Duncan, C. J. Mahaney, Mark Dever--with guest speakers again including R. C. Sproul, John Piper, and John MacArthur. And Thabiti Anyabwile will be added this year as well.

The seating capacity will be doubled (to 6,000). Though the focus will be on speaking to pastors, they are welcoming women in ministry and wives of pastors to attend.

For those who don't know what RSS is or how it works, Tim Challies provides a nice little summary.

I only started using a feed-reader a couple of months ago (Bloglines) and have found it very helpful.

Last week I posted a troubling article by N. T. Wright, who, after making many true and edifying points, went on to defend Steve Chalke as affirming a "form" of penal substitutionary atonement and to castigate and mock the authors and supporters of a new book defending penal substitutionary atonement. It made me wonder to what degree Wright truly understands the traditional doctrine.

I'm thankful, therefore, to see these Wright quotes provided by Jim Hamilton which clearly affirm the doctrine. And more relevant quotes can be found in this paper.

Here's a program that may interest some bloggers out there:

The Lord has blessed wtsbooks.com with phenomenal growth over the past few years. This has occurred without any advertising—except our customers telling their friends about us. We have become aware that a great deal of that conversation occurs on blogs that link to our books. Bloggers have been a large part of God's blessing to us, and now we want to share some of that blessing in return!

WTSBOOKS Blog Partners Rewards
Got a blog? Like books and like to write about them? WTSBOOKS Blog Partners Rewards is a trial program that offers you the chance to earn books or other merchandise from our store while introducing your readers to quality Christian books. Participation couldn't be easier. Once you've registered for the program, simply link to our store on your blog or personal web site. Each time a total of 50 visitors to your site click on a link to us, you've earned a $10 Westminster Bookstore gift certificate! (Certificates are redeemable in our store or online.) Create as many links as you like—all click-throughs will be grouped together to contribute to your rewards. There is no limit to how much you can earn!

How to Get Started
In order to participate in our Blog Partners Reward program you must register your site with us. Send the complete URL (Internet address) of the home page of your site to info@wtsbooks.com with a subject line of “Blog Partners Program.” We will confirm your site's eligibility (see below) by return email. Once you've received confirmation from us, create links on your site to www.wtsbooks.com or any of our product pages. That's it! You will receive an email report from us once a month listing your total clicks to date and rewards you've earned. Any gift certificate's you've earned will be emailed to you at the end of each monthly period.

For more details, see our FAQ.
For instructions, see our Tips & Ideas page.

Westminster Bookstore is providing an opportunity for you to ask the authors questions about the book as you read it.

You can read Sinclair Ferguson's introduction and the table of contents online (PDFs).

Doug Wilson begins a response to Christopher Hitchens's new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

The Children Desiring God Conference is underway in Minneapolis, with John Piper, David Michael, C.J. Mahaney, and Wayne Grudem. The theme is "Standing on the Truth: How Great a Salvation."

The audio for John Piper's opening address--The Gospel for 11-Year-Olds Plus--is already online.

Alex Chediak is live-blogging the talks.

Here is the Church Times' list of the top 50 religious films (PDF).

HT: ThinkChristian

Via Thabiti:

New! Best of WTS Sale!
As our local customers know, our retail store on the campus of Westminster Theological Seminary has been closed for several weeks now due to some major reconstruction needs. While our web and phone customers have been keeping us busy, there is no doubt that loss of the retail store has impacted our sales.

Frankly, we need your help. So from now until the store reopens, Westminster Bookstore will hold the first major price-slashing sales in the history of our webstore. Each week Check the "Best of WTS" link on our webstore after each newsletter for the latest sale. Each sale will be built around a theme, with specially selected books at reductions of up to 45% off list price!

The Girltalkers have been interviewing author Sharon James.

• Sharon James Interview, Pt. 1
• Sharon James Interview, Pt. 2
• Sharon James Interview, Pt. 3
• Sharon James Interview, Pt. 4

I have to admit that I thought this feat of technology last night on American Idol was pretty cool:

Via Kevin Cawley:

Bono Still Hasn't Found What He's Looking For (Ryan Anderson, First Things)

In this article, Anderson comments on the foolishness of spending $100 million in advertising to raise a mere $18 million for Africa, and shares my general sentiments regarding the consumeristic ego massaging nature of Bono's campaign:

Buying overpriced luxury items—the true meaning of the Parable of the Good-Looking Samaritan. Anyway, it’s been a year now, and the results seem poor. Unhappy with the Advertising Age report, the CEO of (RED) issued a public response. It makes some valid points: The money was going to be spent on product advertising anyway, so we might as well raise awareness about AIDS in Africa and raise some money at the same time. Certainly the sick in Africa aren’t sneering at the $18 million. For many, it has been the difference between life and death.

But there is something wrongheaded—even repulsive—about the approach. Turning the life-and-death plight of an entire continent into just another advertising strategy. Making charitable giving a matter of satisfying consumerist desires. Attempting to solve African need by Western greed.

It reminded me of one of Bono’s earlier endeavors: the ONE Campaign. Bono titled this “the campaign to make poverty history.” Its strategy was simply to rally Americans to call upon President Bush to allocate one additional percentage point of the U.S. budget to fighting extreme poverty across the globe.

Surprisingly, they never ask for any direct contributions: “ONE isn’t asking for your money, we’re asking for your voice. ONE does not accept donations. Instead, we hope that you’ll take action with ONE by contacting Congress, the President and other elected officials and ask them to do even more to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty. We encourage you to sign the ONE declaration and help by spreading the word about the ONE Campaign by talking about it with your friends, family and co-workers. Additionally, you can show your community that you support ONE by purchasing ONE merchandise on our website.”

Just sign our petition! Just call President Bush! Wear our wristband! That’s all it takes to make poverty history! You don’t even need to give a dime!

What a bizarre method. Why not appeal to our consciences directly and ask every American to donate 1 percent of our personal budget to the poverty-fighting charity of our choice? The ONE Campaign made significant inroads with the religious communities—having them demand more from the government. Why not ask for a tithe? Why not call for personal contributions instead of political noise-making?

But that would require sacrifice. And that wouldn’t sell. Nor would it be trendy. It’s so much easier to say we can fight AIDS by buying Armani and Gap. It’s so much easier to say we’ll end world poverty by telling Congress to do something about it. My “good-looking” “fine self” sleeps so much better at night knowing that my (RED) purchase has bought pills for someone in Africa, that my signature on the ONE declaration means I’ve done my part.

Many people got fed up with this. They thought it was just an attempt to ease our consciences about being so well off. To give until it feels good, not until it hurts.

Anderson also links BuyLessCrap.org. Though their approach is a greatly improved approach to the glam-clad RED campaign, Anderson notes the weakness of their approach as well:

Giving money will never be the focus of the real solution. This simplistic view assumes that Africa’s only ailment is material lack. But this is to mistake the symptom for the cause. A materialistic understanding of the causes of poverty—at home and abroad—will never suffice. Real answers need to address culture and its institutions.

read the whole article

Michael Spencer suggests some answers and principles.

Hugh Hewitt provides the links to become informed about al Qaeda--and laments with Lawrence Wright the embarrassing situation regarding the ignorance of our leaders regarding this.

Al Mohler on the death of writer David Halberstam.

Hadley Arkes, the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College, and one of the authors of the Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act, is one of the great moral-legal philosophers of our time. In this article he speculates about the next small steps that may result from the recent Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortion. Here's an excerpt:

In India, the use of sonograms has penetrated even poor areas, and brought the beginnings of a demographic crisis: Families anxious for sons have been altogether too willing to abort female babies. And given the sensibility of the time, the disposition of the government in India has not been to ban the killing of babies based on their gender, but rather to forbid clinics to make the information available. Of all things, we are hearing denunciations of these multinational capitalist firms, like General Electric, which do such underhanded things as to produce the equipment that gives people such information about their unborn children.

The next plausible move, then, is to bring back the scheme of banning any abortion performed on the basis of the sex of the child. My hunch is that that position, too, would command a large level of support in the public, comparable to the level of support for banning partial-birth abortion, and it too would recruit people who call themselves “pro-choice.”

But if legislators could take that modest move of banning abortions on the basis of sex, the public mind could be prepared for reasoning about the next step: barring abortions based on the disability of the child. In surveys in the past, more than half of the public were opposed to aborting a child if the child was likely to be born deaf. The opposition seemed to be invariant by the period of gestation. My own reading was that, if people thought it was wrong to kill someone because of his deafness, they did not think that the wrong varied with the age of the victim.

Here the legislatures could invoke the body of their laws dealing with discriminations against the disabled. And then perhaps they could get to the point of banning abortions after the onset of a beating heart. One survey recently found that about 62 percent of the public would support that kind of restriction. It is worth noticing, too, that in none of these cases except that of the beating heart would the legislation start offering protections based on trimesters or the age of the child. There would be no need to play along, and confirm, the perverse fiction that the child becomes more human somewhere in this scale of age, or that it is legitimate to kill smaller people with reasons less compelling than the reasons we would need in killing larger people.

In the most curious way, then, a decision so narrow, so begrudging and limited, may invite a series of measures simple and unthreatening, but the kinds of measures that gather force with each move. We need to remind ourselves that we have seen such things before. We may recall, in that vein, the Emancipation Proclamation. It was limited, as a war measure. For Lincoln did not have the authority to strip people of what was then their lawful property in slaves. The Proclamation freed only those slaves held in areas that were in rebellion against the government. It did not cover the slaves held in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri. And yet ... it was understood instantly and widely in the country that this measure had an “anti-slavery impulse.”

(HT: STR)

The decision on Wednesday, in Gonzales v. Carhart, was severely limited and diminished in its practical effects. But rightly or wrongly, there may be a sense that the decision opens the doors now; that it invites legislators and political men and women to deliver themselves from the reign of judges, and set their hands to this task once again.

Tony Reinke posts his notes on David Powlison's talk concerning the dangers of excessive introspection.

I've blogged several times about plagiarism in the pulpit. Here's a story in the Weekly Standard about ghostwriting and plagiarism in the newsroom.

The authors of Pierced for Our Transgressions have responded to N.T. Wright's criticism. I'll reprint it below (in a more legible font size!).

N. T. Wright does not like Pierced for our Transgressions, as he explains HERE. Some have already responded to him HERE and HERE. While we are grateful for constructive criticism, Wright is mistaken at several important points. We offer a brief response.

First, N. T. Wright takes exception to our criticism of Steve Chalke and Alan Mann’s The Lost Message of Jesus, a book which he continues to endorse. He tries to argue that the now-notorious reference to ‘cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed’ (Lost Message, p. 182) was never intended as a description of penal substitution itself (which Wright assures us that Chalke believes), but was rather an attack on a caricature of the doctrine.

We would be pleased if that were the case, but this reading of Chalke is simply impossible. Wright seems to be unaware that Chalke clarified his position in an article in Christianity magazine entitled Cross Purposes (September 2004, pp. 44–48, available as ‘Redeeming the Cross’ from the Oasis Trust website HERE; reprinted with slight revisions in Consuming Passion: Why the Killing of Jesus Really Matters, ed. S. Barrow and J. Bartley [Darton, Longman & Todd, 2005]), written in response to the controversy triggered by The Lost Message. Here Chalke makes it plain that it is the classic doctrine of penal substitution itself, not merely its caricatures, that he finds objectionable.

‘In reality, penal substitution (in contrast to other substitutionary theories) doesn’t cohere well with either biblical or Early Church thought. Although penal substitution isn’t as old as many people assume (it’s not even as old as the pews in many of our church buildings), it is actually built on pre-Christian thought.’

Or again:

‘In The Lost Message of Jesus I claim that penal substitution is tantamount to “child abuse – a vengeful Father punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed.” Though the sheer bluntness of this imagery (not original to me of course) might shock some, in truth, it is only a stark “unmasking” of the violent, pre-Christian thinking behind such a theology.’

If Chalke has given private assurances to Wright that he wishes to retract his previous denials of penal substitution, we hope that he will realise the importance of making this public.

Secondly, Wright’s central objection to our work seems not to be directed at any of the specific biblical or theological arguments we have advanced in support of penal substitution. Rather, his quibble is a methodological one: he complains that we have not set our whole discussion within the framework of a narrative-theological exposition of Israel’s history as it reaches its fulfilment in Christ. He even goes so far as to assert that we ‘ignore the history of Israel’ (italics original), which seems at best overstated. For example, we set the Passover in the context of the Abrahamic covenant (pp. 35, 41–42), the Levitical sacrifices in the context of the preceding Exodus narrative (pp. 42–43), God’s curse on sin in the context of Israel’s exile (pp. 93–95, 122), the life of Jesus in the context of Israel’s role in God’s purposes (pp. 134–135).

However, there is a difference between the kind of narrative theology project in which Wright has been engaged for so many years, and the approach of classical systematic theology, which looks to provide an integrated picture of the Bible’s teaching on particular themes. Surely both are helpful and appropriate. A book professing to summarise the message of John’s Gospel must begin with the whole structure of his narrative, the place of the signs, and so on. Conversely, the section on John in a systematic work on the Trinity will necessarily – and rightly – focus on those specific passages which have most to say about the Father-Son relationship, the sending of the Spirit, etc.

Wright accuses us of ‘sifting’ the Gospels for material relevant to our subject, and indeed that is exactly what we were trying to do! That does not mean that we are free to abstract ‘proof-texts’ from their contexts, but we took pains to avoid that. But Wright censures us for failing to hit a target we were not aiming at. We did not profess to answer the question, ‘What do the gospels teach about Jesus?’ nor even, ‘What picture of the atonement emerges from the gospels as a whole?’ Our aim, as we explain in the introduction to our exegetical section (pp. 33–34) was more modest. We are trying to establish simply that penal substitution has a place in this bigger picture.

Thirdly, Wright criticises our exegesis of Romans and Galatians. Interpretation of these epistles must reckon with the ongoing debates over the so-called New Perspective on Paul, in which Wright himself is a central figure. Not wanting to privilege exclusively either side, our approach in Galatians was to demonstrate that penal substitution follows from both the traditional and the New Perspective approaches; we even devoted a section to a (sympathetic) discussion of Wright’s narrative reading of the curse as exile in Galatians 3 (pp. 93–94).

In Romans we took care to avoid conclusions that depend exclusively on either framework (p. 80). Wright objects that we should have said more about the meaning of ‘the righteousness of God’ and its relationship to the Abrahamic covenant. But he himself concedes that these things are controversial, and since they are not necessary to establish the more general points (on which all can agree) that God is angered by sin (Rom. 1–3) and that Christ’s death turned aside his anger (Rom. 3:21–26), it seemed wise to omit them.

Wright is clearly dissatisfied, and wants us to make his way of reading the Bible our controlling hermeneutic; anything short of this he deems ‘sub-biblical’. But to base our case solely on a position that continues to be hotly debated in New Testament Studies would have been counterproductive. As it is, our aim was that our exegesis should stand ‘regardless of which path is taken with respect to the issues of recent controversy’ (p. 89).

As a postscript, we should say something in reply to Wright’s surprise that we ‘omit all mention or discussion of Anselm.’ The reason is simply that, contrary to (popular?) belief, Anselm did not teach penal substitution. Yes, he brought to prominence the important vocabulary of ‘satisfaction’, which became important in later formulations. But in Anselm’s feudal thought-world, it was God’s honour that needed to be satisfied by substitutionary obedience, not his justice by substitutionary penalty. Thus his omission from our list of those who have endorsed penal substitution was not accidental.

S. M. Hutchens:

If I were to identify what I think is the most frequent mistake of the writers of bad writing we receive, I would say that it is the same that most of us have with speaking: we express ourselves without first thinking clearly and carefully—and with brutal self-criticism--about what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. We have the impression that our minds are pregnant with valuable thoughts that really must be heard without recalling that unless exercise the labor and discipline necessary to put them in a form that can be understood by others, as thoughts-to-be-shared they remain sterile. This is why writing is an art--a rhetorical art--and a process that, while it depends on good thinking, should be thought of as another thing entirely. For while good thinking depends on the internal coherence of the thought itself, good writing, like good speaking, is the art of word-use and knowing the mind of one’s audience.

Read the whole thing--especially if you are a student or an aspiring writer!

Andy Naselli: "Today the Review of Biblical Literature published D. A. Carson's review of N. T. Wright's Evil and the Justice of God. Carson's penetrating review is available as a 10-page PDF."

I highly recommend it. Here are the closing, insightful paragraphs:

I do not detail these things because I have not benefited from Wright’s book. Far from it. But it appears that Wright’s powerful and imaginative mind is stronger in the domain of constructive systematic theology than in the domain of exegesis. He is stronger in understanding what the resurrection is about than in understanding what the cross is about. Or, otherwise put (as Douglas J. Moo once suggested), where Wright is right (and he often is), he tends to background what the biblical texts put in the foreground and foreground what they put in the background.

Finally, a few merely annoying things. (1) Why is it that everyone else’s understanding of the atonement can be repeatedly dismissed as mere abstract theories of the atonement, while his own presentation escapes the rubric? Are not the (other) “theories of the atonement” grounded, in their writers’ minds, in what actually happened, in what God actually accomplished? And does not Wright’s own understanding of what God actually accomplished constitute another “theory of the atonement”? The shift in terminology is merely a way of dismissing the views of others and sanctifying his own. (2) More broadly, Wright has a penchant for replicating the Elijah syndrome: “And I, even I only, am left.” To offer but one of many examples: “The trouble with imagining the future world is that we’ve all been given the wrong impression” (114). Well, I suppose we should be grateful that we have now been given the Wright impression.

See also Adrian Warnock's interaction with a new Wright article. And Jim Hamilton offers some measured thoughts and asks some good questions.

All 20 years' worth of Desiring God Pastors Conferences audio files are now available online for free.

“This is about a procedure that any parent would want her daughter to have access to if she needed it. And to frame it as an abortion issue is doing a disservice to medicine and to our young women and our country. So I hope we can get the focus back on the fact that this Supreme Court is deciding what medical procedures are necessary for child-bearing women.”
--Quoted in San Francisco Chronicle.

(HT: Denny Burk)

Joshua Sowin interviews Tim Challies.

Thabiti Anyabwile is continuing his series of interviews with Reformed black pastors. Today he interviews Lance Lewis, a church planter in West Philly.

InterVarsity Press has launched three blogs:

InterVarsity Press launched three new blogs on its website that are intended to give readers an inside look at the publishing process as well as the discussions that take place as books are developed and sold. Combined, these discussion boards give an unprecedented glimpse into the thoughts and practices of a successful editorial department in the Christian book industry.

Behind the Books will deal with publications in the IVP Books line, and will include the thoughts and comments of editors Al Hsu, Cindy Bunch and Dave Zimmerman, as well as others in the editorial department, as they consider issues, trends and news related to the general publishing program. . . .

Andy Unedited will be written by IVP's editorial director for twenty-two years, Andrew T. Le Peau, and will include his thoughts on the publishing industry in general. According to Le Peau, the reason for the creation of the blogs is threefold: "We want to give readers and authors and folks in the industry a behind-the-scenes look at IVP, help create stickiness for our website, and increase customer loyalty and interest in our books. I also look forward to hearing what others have to say as we discuss our interests in publishing, books and the world of ideas."

Addenda & Errata will focus on the IVP Academic line, and will include contributions by academic and reference editors Dan Reid, Joel Scandrett, Jim Hoover and Gary Deddo. In explaining the function of this blog, Reid states, "Academically speaking, blogs are the faculty lounge or student commons-informal venues for exchanging ideas, catching up and even engaging in the occasional friendly debate. Editors inhabit this chattering world as comfortably as penguins on an iceberg-and while we may not be as cute, we can talk with style."

With over sixty years of combined academic publishing experience, there should be a great deal to talk about.

(HT: MB)

There is a new Together for the Gospel video online--a continuing conversation among Mark Dever, Albert Mohler, Ligon Duncan, and C.J. Mahaney.

Registration for T4G 2008 opens soon.

The book built from the 2006 conference--Preaching the Cross--is now available.

John Fonville--who has done a lot of thinking about "growing in holiness by living in Union with Christ"--has started a new blog: Gospel-Driven Blog. His first few posts explain his journey from legalism to gospel-centered sanctification.

Throughout the years my friend James Grant, Jr.--pastor of First Baptist Rossville in Rossville, TN--has taught me a lot about the gospel and how to live in light of the gospel. I'm delighted he's decided to start a blog, appropriately titled In Light of the Gospel. I expect it to be a site worth bookmarking for its gospel-centered meditations and resources.

Ligonier has posted the April 2007 issue of Tabletalk online for free:

As we mourn with the students and families directly impacted by the tragic killings at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute on April 16, 2007, we who are believers in the one, true God turn to His promises for comfort (Psalm 119:50).

With the hope that we might assist those struggling with the questions and feelings raised by this horrific event, Ligonier Ministries humbly offers for your reading the feature articles and columns from the April 2007 issue of Tabletalk magazine, which, in God’s providence, discusses the subject of grief.

We pray that these resources, in some small way, will help you find comfort in the arms of our sovereign God and will help you look for the day when He will “wipe away every tear” from the eyes of His people who rest assured in the finished work of Jesus Christ (Revelation 21:4).

April 2007 Tabletalk Articles:

• Sin, Death, and Grief by Burk Parsons
  


• A Grief Observed by R.C. Sproul
  


• From Grief to Glory by Jim Coffield
  


• Mourn with Those Who Mourn by Archie Parrish
  


• Good Grief? by Anthony Carter
  


• True Shepherding by Joel R. Beeke
  


• Hope by R.C. Sproul Jr.
  


• A Tale of Two Funerals by Gene Edward Veith

(HT: Heidelblog)

Howard Kurtz, media critic for the Washington Post:

In all the years I've been chronicling the media, I have rarely seen the tidal wave of resentment that has washed over television organizations that showed the now-infamous Cho video. In the minds of many Americans, this was a horribly offensive act, and no amount of explanation about the obligations of journalism is going to change that view.

In Him We Proclaim, Dennis Johnson writes:

Exegesis itself is impoverished when specialization and professional pressures in the academy inculcate into faculty and students a model of biblical interpretation that aborts the process short of application, depriving it of its sweetest fruit.

. . . Just as interpretation without proclamation in the Academy is fruitless, so proclamation without sound interpretation in the pulpit is rootless.

We need to rediscover the church’s older insight, drawn from the Bible itself, that the purpose of understanding Scripture is nothing less than to believe and obey its Author, and the purpose of preaching Scripture is to ground hearers’ faith and life in the depths of wisdom, justice, and grace hidden in Christ and unveiled in infinite variety on every page.

I've only read portions of this book thus far, but based on what I've seen, I would encourage every seminarian and pastor (and others!) to purchase and digest this excellent book!

Douglas Wilson looks at the new atheism (ala Dawkins, Harris, et al) and the Virginia Tech murders.

Mark Lauterbach on the importance of Christ's beauty and the relative unimportance of introspection.

Adrian Warnock reports:

This Easter a clear line was drawn in the sand in British Evangelicalism. For years, whenever the word “evangelical” was mentioned, people in the UK would think almost immediately of Spring Harvest — easily the UK's largest Christian conference. Part of that package has been Word Alive, a distinct all-age event run by UCCF (who owns the UK-based Intervarsity Press) and the Keswick Convention in partnership with Spring Harvest. At the heart of Word Alive has been a separate student track with up to 2,000 students. Beginning in 2008, there will be no more Word Alive at Spring Harvest.

Read the whole thing.
UCCF responds:

Steve Chalke has made his dislike of penal substitution very clear by likening God's act of punishing Jesus in our place to a cosmic child abuser. In good conscience, we simply could not allow Steve to teach during the Word Alive week. We're very sad that after 14 years of fruitful ministry, Spring Harvest has decided to end the Word Alive partnership because we feel unable to shift on this position.

Tony Reinke posts some notes from Mark Dever's talk, Watch the Past: Living Lessons from Dead Theologians, a breakout session at the 2007 Sovereign Grace Ministries Leader's Conference.

That's what Hugh Hewitt is asking about NBC's decision to air video and pictures from the Virginia Tech murderer. More here.

What do you think?

Update: John Mark Reynolds weighs in. An excerpt: "They have the right to do it, but it was not right to do it. . . . NBC should not be censored by the government, but any good person censors self. Freedom to do a thing (which NBC should have) does not make it right or keep the rest of us from making the proper judgment that NBC was wrong."

Joe Carter is posting some entries on PBA:

• The Infanticide Procedure: Doctors Describe Performing Partial Birth Abortions
• The Infanticide Procedure: Part II -- Responding to Objections to the PBA Ban

Yesterday Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, reportedly suggested that in Romans 1-2, Paul's main point was that believers should refrain from judging others--which is a point that is missed by those who oppose homosexual practice and the church's validation of such behavior.

Robert Gagnon responds: Rowan Williams’ Wrong Reading of Romans (also available in PDF).

Lydia Brownback interviews Elyse Fitzpatrick (part 1 | part 2).

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today on Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380 and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382, upholding a nationwide ban on partial-birth abortion. The Justices voted 5-4 to retain the ban. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter dissented.

Bloomberg: "The law, which has never taken effect, is the first federal abortion restriction since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established the constitutional right to end a pregnancy."

Here are some articles from Stand to Reason about partial-birth abortion:

• Partial-birth Abortion Isn't about Abortion
• Paritial-birth Aobrtion: Objections and Misunderstandings
• Nothing Hidden in D&X

The Drudge Report has reactions from the presidential candidates:

Hillary: 'Erosion of our constitutional rights'...
Giuliani: 'I agree with it'...
Obama: 'I strongly disagree'...
Romney: 'A step forward'...
McCain: I'm very happy...
Edwards: 'I could not disagree more strongly'...

The New York Times has set up a page giving information about the victims of the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech.

(HT: Hugh Hewitt)

Voddie Baucham answers Colin Adams' Ten Questions for Expositors.

Bob Kauflin:

Last week I had the privilege of participating in the Sovereign Grace Leader's Conference. What a fire hydrant of grace, encouragement, truth, conviction, and fellowship. RC. Sproul spoke on the holiness of God and the holiness of Christ, David Powlison helped us apply the doctrine of indwelling sin without getting morbidly introspective, and C.J. Mahaney spoke to us on the final night on "Trinitarian Pastoral Ministry" from 2 Cor. 13:14. You can download the messages by R.C., David, and C.J. for $8 at the Sovereign Grace website.

Bob also posts some reflections by Josh Harris on planning your Sunday-morning meetings.

(HT: Z)

Last fall at the Society of Biblical Literature N. T. Wright gave a review, with reflections, on C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. It has now been published in Touchstone Magazine: Simply Lewis: Reflections on a Master Apologist After 60 Years.

ABC News:

[The Children of Hurin,] released today by Houghton Mifflin, is a publishing event: It is the first new book by the creator of "The Lord of the Rings" in 30 years. The publisher calls it the culmination of an effort to bring to the public the vast body of work J.R.R. Tolkien had left unpublished, and largely unfinished, when he died in 1973.

Tolkien began writing "The Children of Hurin" 99 years ago, abandoning it and taking it up again repeatedly throughout his life. Versions of the tale already have appeared in "The Silmarillion," "Unfinished Tales" and as narrative poems or prose sections of the "History of Middle-earth" series.

But they were truncated and contradictory. Outside of Tolkien scholars and Middle-earth fanatics, few read them.

These works were, after all, largely unreadable dense, hard to follow histories and legends of Tolkien's vast, imaginary world, crammed with complicated genealogies, unfamiliar geography and hard-to-pronounce names. Readers who took up such books hoping for another Rings saga or charming yarn such as "The Hobbit" abandoned them after a few pages.

"The Children of Hurin" is the book for which these readers have been longing.

It is the fruit of 30 years labor by Christopher Tolkien, the author's son, who has devoted much of his life to editing and publishing the work his father left behind. By meticulously combining and editing the many published and unpublished versions of the tale, he has produced at last a coherent, vivid and readable narrative. . . .

Christopher Tolkien says that in reconciling the various versions of his father's story, he added no new material, save for an occasional transition. The words, he says, are virtually all his father's.

For a summary, see the rest of the article.

(Inquiring minds want to know: has Tim Keller read it yet, and if so, what does he think?)

Philosopher William Lane Craig has launched a new website/ministry: www.reasonablefaith.org.

And it looks like J. P. Moreland has done the same.

(HT: STR)

Here's an exciting new work: The Council of Reforming Churches.

Goals
The Council of Reforming Churches (CRC) exists to impact the black church and greater black community with biblical theology which has its fulfillment in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Our aim is to see reformed theology planted, take root and eventually flourish within and among the black community, for Christ, the Church, and the Truth.

Who They Are
The Council of Reforming Churches is an association of churches subscribing to the historic five solas of the reformation, the core doctrines of grace commonly known as the five points of Calvinism and the system of theology summed up in such catechism/confessions as the historic Baptist Confession of Faith 1689, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Heidelberg Catechism.

Our purpose is to see biblically reformed theology sown, take root in, flourish among and eventually become the dominant theology within the black church and African-American community.

Why They Exist

• CRC exists to fill the vacuum created by the absence of any institution dedicated to the promotion and practice of biblically reformed theology within the African-American community.
• CRC exists in light of the increasing rejection of sound biblical preaching and teaching among a significant number of black churches.
  
• CRC exists to address the black community's need to be instructed properly in the historic truths of reformed theology.
  
• CRC exists to engage the increasing secularization of the black church and subsequent danger to our Christian witness.

There's also a blog: reformingchurches.org/blog, with contributions by Pastors Thabiti Anyabwile, Tony Carter, Michael Leach, Lance Lewis, Eric Redmond.

John Fund: "Accountability for misogynistic and racist remarks should apply equally to Don Imus and Snoop Dogg."

Great advice here: Thabiti's Top Ten Tips for Talking About Race:

1. Don't talk about race.
2. When you do talk about race, don't tell people you're "color blind."
3. When you do talk about race, be sure to empathize wherever you can.
4. When you do talk about race, be sure to call injustice injustice.
5. When you do talk about race, be honest.
6. When you do talk about race, be patient.
7. When you do talk about race, please fight against the tendency to stereotype.
8. When you do talk about race, accept legitimate responsibility but refuse illegitimate guilt.
9. When you do talk about race, go ahead and offend.
10. When you do talk about race, root the conversation in the Gospel.

Read the whole thing.

Lee Irons and Scott Clark remember their former professor.

John Piper on The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission.

The latest issue is dedicated to the issue of pacificism vs. just war. Denny Burk has the details.

CT Movies: "It was only a matter of time. The Hollywood Reporter brings the official word that most of the principles from The Da Vinci Code will be returning for the film's prequel, Angels and Demons. Specifically, star Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard are in final talks to join forces once again for the much-buzzed follow-up to one of the most controversial films in recent memory. (Some sources are already calling Hanks' involvement 'official.') Columbia Pictures plans to being filming as early as January 2008, with hopes to release the film on December 19."

Publishers Weekly: New Osteen Book at Three Million by Lynn Garrett. "The next book from megaselling pastor Joel Osteen—Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life—will have a first printing of three million and a one-day laydown on October 15. According to Free Press publisher Martha Levin, the house upped the ante from two million just this week, in response to "the enthusiasm of the accounts," she said. "We've been going at full tilt with this book since January, and in talking to people it became clear that two million wasn't going to be enough." The Osteen first printing is believed to be the highest for a hardcover book in S&S history, said spokesperson Adam Rothberg. Osteen made big news last year (PW Daily, Mar. 15, 2006) when he jumped the Warner ship for Simon & Schuster for a deal worth some $13 million, according to informed sources, though S&S denied that figure. Osteen's first book, Your Best Life Now, was published by Warner Faith (now Hachette's FaithWords division) in 2004 and has sold more than four million copies to date, with a constant presence on the bestsellers lists. S&S will publish Become a Better You simultaneously in Spanish-language and audio editions.

Albert Mohler is beginning to post some lists of recommended reading. Here is his first entry, on
Ten Great Christian Biographies.

sLee Irons:

Today I learned that my favorite seminary professor passed away peacefully last night after a long illness. He taught me much about the covenantal and typological structure of the Scriptures. Most of all I will miss his sweet joy and his childlike trust in the inheritance-earning merit of Christ. It is wonderful to know that his longing to imbibe the glory of God in the New Jerusalem is already beginning to be satisfied. Though now asleep in Jesus, he will rise in the parousia-day of Christ, changed into his indoxated likeness.

(HT: James Grant)

Here is the Theopedia entry on Professor Kline. And here is a page devoted to all of Kline's writings.

From the now-why-didn't-I-think-of-that department.

Jerry Falwell considers so-called "limited atonement" to be a heretical doctrine.

From ThinkChristian.net:

Google has teamed up with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to highlight the Darfus crisis using Google Earth:

Google Earth has added a Global Awareness layer to its maps program that lets you learn about the crisis in Darfur. By selecting the Global Awareness layer (in the lower left-hand corner of Google Earth) you can fly over enhanced satellite images of the war-torn region. Sprinkled over the map are icons that link to photographs, data, videos, and narratives of eyewitnesses to the genocide.

What an excellent use of internet technology to educate users about a crisis that many people probably don’t fully understand. Grab a copy of Google Earth and read more about the project at the Holocaust Memorial Museum website. I’m eager to see what other educational uses will be found for Google Earth and similar tools in the future.

A number of bloggers post photos on Friday. Here's one my wife recently snapped of our kids:

The ESV blog has an announcement about the forthcoming Literary Study Bible (edited by Leland Ryken and Philip Ryken), about which I'm quite excited!

Edward Gilbreath on Our "Don Imus" Moment.

Some challenging thoughts here by Carl Trueman on paternalism and imperialism:

With the great demographic shift to the southern hemisphere in terms of evangelical Christianity, the issue of listening to the voices of brothers and sisters from these newly significant areas is a pressing one. But I want to raise some concerns.

1. Culture and geography are only two ways of dividing up the world and the church -- ways that are arguably increasingly arbitrary; and their very trendiness makes them attractive at this point in history. Yet class would seem to be just as significant. Calls for us to listen to voices from other parts of the world should not be used to crowd out the voices of the poor and the working class in the West.

2. The demographic shift may be to the south, but the economic power of Christianity lies stubbornly in America. This is significant for several reasons:

• it means that theological education, for better or worse, is likely to remain controlled by America (institutions, books, journals, magazines all require money -- and if you don't have the capital, sheer numbers of people are less relevant).

• it means there is a very great danger of the old imperialism and paternalism of previous generations simply co-opting the language of cultural sensitivity while continuing with business as usual. Cultural sensitivity, like all cultural phenomena, can easily be processed through the three c's of the modern West: commercialisation, commodification, and consumerism. When it does this, it ceases to be a critical force and becomes simply one more product in the cultural marketplace, internalised and emasculated. Thus, putting "Worldwide" or "International" in the title of an organisation which is funded by Americans and basically run by Westerners does not make the organisation truly international or worldwide. There seems to be a problem when church leaders give lectures on listening to brothers and sisters from the Third World when said leaders have never taken the time or had the courtesy to learn the languages of those to whom they claim to be listening, and who assume that this "listening" should self-evidently go on in organisations founded by -- you guessed it -- Westerners, funded by Westerners, and run by Westerners. There is a real danger here of paternalism: yes, we want to listen to you; but you first have to learn to speak our language and come to our conferences.

The answer? Well, I'm a Reformation academic. I could not credibly be so without being able to operate in four or five different modern European languages (not well, but well enough) and a few ancient ones. It would be absurd for me to lecture my students on listening to, say, German scholars, if I could not read some German. I also have to attend, on occasion, meeting where the medium language is not English, and which are run by, say, the Dutch, the French, or the Germans. Those church leaders who are rightly called to lead us in listening to our Third World brothers and sisters but who wish to avoid looking like old-style imperialists need to show their commitment and integrity by backing this up with a few linguistic skills in the appropriate areas, and perhaps by surrendering their organisations and their status to these brothers and sisters. Only when such leaders learn a few relevant languages and sit humbly and quietly at conferences organised by "the Other" will their words begin to possess that most elusive quality: authenticity.

Tony Reinke has written a helpful review Turretin's Elenctic Theology.

(HT: Conventicle)

Colin Adams interviews Phil Ryken on expository preaching.

Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post:

On any given day, one isn't likely to find common cause with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He's a dangerous, lying, Holocaust- denying, Jew-hating cutthroat thug -- not to put too fine a point on it.

But he was dead-on when he wondered why a once-great power such as Britain sends mothers of toddlers to fight its battles.

. . .Why the West has seen it necessary to diminish motherhood so that women can pretend to be men remains a mystery to sane adults. It should be unnecessary to say that the military is not a proper vehicle for social experimentation but is a machine dedicated to fighting and, if necessary, killing.

For more on this, see Albert Mohler's commentary.

Those in the Alabama area may be interested in this conference on The Miracle of Conversion. Speakers include Voddie Baucham and Russell Moore.

John Lanchester, writing in the UK Guardian, pens a long and interesting article about copyright law, the future of books, and Google Book Search.

Richard Ovenden, the keeper of special collections at The Bodleian in Oxford (a copyright library, and considered one of the greatest libraries in the world), says, "I think in the 21st century Google Book Search will be regarded as one of the great historical enterprises. It's not the only one, but it's up there."

John Fund has a good article here in affirmative action and how its gradual demise at the collegiate-application level is helping minorities.

A couple of good pieces of advice here from Jonathan Edwards's letter of spiritual counsel to Deborah Hatheway:

#8 Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and of sweet communion with Christ. It was the first sin committed and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan’s whole building, and is with the greatest difficulty rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret, and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps insensibly into the midst of religion, even, sometimes, under the disguise of humility itself.

#10 If at any time you fall into doubts about the state of your soul, in dark and dull frames of mind, it is proper to review your past experience. But do not consume too much time and strength in this way; rather apply yourself, with all your might, to an earnest pursuit after renewed experience, new light, and new lively acts of faith and love. One new discovery of the glory of Christ’s face will do more toward scattering clouds of darkness in one minute, than examining old experience, by the best marks that can be given, through a whole year.

Sam Storms has a new website (finally Firefox compatible), and has also entered the blogosphere.

The Boston Globe reports on the dawning realization by some researchers that their relentless focus on self-esteem is part of the cause behind the narcissism of today's generation.

Someone sent me the following via email (sorry, I don't know the original source):

It made me think of Isaiah 40:

18 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move.

21 Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23 who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25 To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.

Art Rogers interviews Sam Storms on topics like:

• currents in the SBC
• the future of Reformed theology
• the debates over the moderate use of alcohol
• the role of spiritual gifts
• the Missional Church, Traditional Church, and Emerging Church

I'm happy to announce that Crossway Books will be publishing Pierced for Our Transgressions in North America, due out November 2007.

Gene Veith looks at aesthetic standards and a song like Rich Mullins's "Our God Is An Awesome God."

David Instone-Brewer writes in WSJ today about evangelicals and divorce.

(HT: Christian Mind)

Bob Kauflin on songs to sing at Easter.

Anthony Carter lists a number of African-American reformed brothers whose sermons are available on the web.

(HT: Thabiti)

From The Cross in the New Testament by Leon Morris:

To put it bluntly and plainly, if Christ is not my Substitute, I still occupy the place of a condemned sinner. If my sins and my guilt are not transferred to Him, if he did not take them upon Himself, then surely they remain with me. If He did not deal with my sins, I must face their consequences. If my penalty was not borne by Him, it still hangs over me. There is no other possibility.--The Cross in the New Testament by Leon Morris

(HT: GospelDrivenLife via Thabiti)

ChristanAudio.com's free monthly audiobook is Augustine's classic, On Christian Doctrine.

"From the time that Saint Augustine finished On Christian Doctrine until the end of the Middle Ages, this book was considered by Christians to be one of the most important ever written. Challenging at times though surprisingly relevant for the modern reader, Augustine's book discusses the interpretation of Scripture. It remains valuable for church leaders and serious lay Christians alike."

Receive this quality recording as a free download by going to christianaudio.com and using coupon code: APR2007

(HT: Travis Carden)

La Shawn Barber--who runs one of the most popular conservative political blogs on the web--shares her testimony in Today's Christian Woman.

(HT: Common Grounds Online)

Alan Jacobs writes on Serendipity in Books & Culture. Here's the conclusion:

The cultivation of serendipity, of this alchemy, is an option for anyone, but—so I wish to argue—for Christians living in conditions of prosperity and security and informational richness it is something vital, perhaps even necessary. To practice "accidental sagacity" is to recognize that I don't really know where I am going, even if I like to think I do; that if I know what I am looking for I probably don't know what I need; that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate; that it is a very good thing that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate; that the more often I succumb to the temptation to say "I am my own" the more completely I close off the possibility of a blessing that comes from beyond my own desires and self-love. The cultivation of serendipity is at once a self-abnegation, a disciplining of technological power, a form of trust in God, and an expression of solidarity with the vast multitudes of Christians from all generations whose poverty and powerlessness made it impossible for them to think even for a moment that they could control their own lives. An accidental sagacity is the form of wisdom I most need, but am least likely to find.

Some people never change. Melinda Penner continues to put God in a box!

In Books & Culture Michael Ward provides an entertaining, informative review of the third (and final) volume of C. S. Lewis's correspondence. All in all, 3,228 separate items of correspondence!

Phil Johnson summarizes his overarching concerns about the emerging church movement.

John Piper's sermons can be found according to various categories: Palm Sunday sermons, Maundy Thursday sermons, Good Friday sermons, and Easter sermons.

Carolyn McCulley passes along a very helpful illustration on sin and the human heart. It's simple--but when I first heard it there was the light-bulb-going-on effect.

Follow the links on her post for more edifying material on this topic.

Justin Buzzard interviews Gerrit Scott Dawson, author of Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ's Continuing Incarnation, on this important but neglected doctrine.

Colin Adams interviews Tim Keller, asking him 10 questions about expository preaching. Tim also weighs in on the comment section.

Next week Colin will interview Philip Ryken.

A new girl-talker has been born!

You can access the entire 15-part Q&A here.

One of the more frustrating things I've encountered in theological studies is the general disdain for and caricature of systematic theology. I sincerely hope that the current generation of students will ignore the bumper-sticker analysis of complicated topics like "theoretical," "abstraction," "proof-texting," "common sense realism," and the like.

Paul Helm has posted an excellent little piece on what definitions do and don't do. Despite its brevity, it is a helpful meditation that can go a long way to clearing away some of the confusion.

A few quotes:

"Berkhof’s definition is not an attempt to replace the language of the Psalms or of any other language, or to be cleverer than Scripture. His definition does not take us beyond Scripture, making Scripture second-rate. It is a skeleton, not the entire body."

". . . definitions do not describe, they protect and safeguard."

"Where we are not understanding the scriptures with the skeleton of systematic theology in place then our ‘body of divinity’ will be flabby and misshapen. . . . We ‘participate’ in sound definitions when they engender confidence that they have captured the relevant bit of the skeleton."

"Calling exact, propositional theology rude names like ‘theoretical’ or ‘foundationalistic’ does not alter anything."

Upshot: "So definitions are not imperialistic. They are not the work of theological know-alls. And the theoretical versus practical issue is a red herring."

Read the whole thing!