In honor of Kent Hughes joining the WTS faculty, the WTS Bookstore is holding a huge sale on a bunch of his books. Hughes has been in ministry for 35 years and has written an incredible amount of books, many of them in the Preach the Word series. Some of the Preach the Word volumes are on sale, and you can pre-order the entire NT set as well.
Blogs
Nijay Gupta posted an interview with George Guthrie about his recent commentary on 2 Corinthians in the BECNT series. Books At a Glance also posted a two-part interview with Guthrie about the commentary.
At the Center for Ancient Christian Studies Shawn Wilhite, Coleman Ford, and Trey Moss interviewed Dr. Jarvis Williams on his academic journey in relation to Pauline studies and Jewish backgrounds. They also discussed Williams’s latest book Christ Died for Our Sins: Representation and Substitution in Romans and their Jewish Martyrological Background….
I just came across four titles from B&H Academic all for $0.99 on Kindle. I bought two of them myself! Buy them now before the deals end.
In 2012 I was in the Dominican Republic helping to rebuild a church when I got into a discussion about whether we really needed the Old Testament. I tried to defend the OT by arguing that the NT by itself would be like a childrens’ coloring book, with all the shapes drawn but with no color to fill in the pictures to get all the fullness of the biblical picture of God and his purposes. I also pointed out that many heresies likely would arise without the OT to guide us in our understanding of God. Well, John Goldingay has done away with a defensive strategy and he’s gone on the offense. He flips the common question of whether we need the OT on its head and asks: Do we really need the New Testament?…
Book Deals
FREE on Kindle: Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp
$0.99 on Kindle: Colossians and Philemon (Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament), by Murray Harris
New Books
‘Return To Me’: A Biblical Theology of Repentance (New Studies in Biblical Theology), by Mark Boda (IVP Academic)
Forbes follows up Murray Harris’ Colossians and Philemon volume in this same series with the same approach, format, and clarity of expression as the inaugurating volume. The purpose of this series is to offer analysis of the grammatical, syntactical, and lexical features of every word, clause, and sentence in the NT book it analyzes. Those who would benefit most from these volumes would be intermediate Greek students or those who have been away from their Greek for a while and want to regain their language skills….
I’m not sure why a series such as this one wasn’t published sooner. The Baylor Handbooks on the Greek New Testament are a beautiful addition to the library of any student, pastor, or scholar. The purpose of these volumes is to give a grammatical and syntactical analysis of the Greek text of each book of the Bible. This is the “prequel” to commentary proper (ix). However, as we will see, deSilva’s volume does more than label Greek words or phrases with their corresponding syntactical category.
Blogs
Tim Keller posted a review of Matthew Vines book God and the Gay Christian, including also Ken Wilson’s A Letter to My Congregation. He provides six types of errors that he finds in Vines’ and Wilson’s books, both historical, personal, and theological. Matthew Vines has responded on his blog, suggesting that Keller has made some historical errors and misrepresented his arguments on many points. This was quite the little back-and-forth and easy to follow since Keller made his critiques in 6 categories, to which Vines responded point by point.
I would classify this work as first Christian, second critical, and third Catholic. While I’m not Catholic, the benefit of a Catholic textbook on the OT is that it includes discussion of the other seven Greek intertestamental works that are important for NT backgrounds (and, of course, for seeing to where the stream(s) of the OT flow). Moreoever, Boadt enlists Pope Pius XII’s support for a critical approach to the OT based on his Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943). More recently in 1989, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) called for a “criticism of criticism”….
I first encountered Tim Keller in a recorded class that was put on iTunesU by WTS. It was called Preaching Christ in a Post-Modern Age. If you’re still able to find the class, it’s a great set of lectures. Ed Clowney confuses you (in a good way) by preaching parts of the OT climaxing in the cross (how did he do that?!) while Keller brings the practical advice on communicating to post-moderns. Keller’s experience from living in New York and intentionally mingling with non-Christians to understand them and better communicate to them is invaluable….