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Reading G.K. Beale’s “New Testament Biblical Theology”

By on January 25, 2012 in Books, New Testament, Reading

Starting in a week or so I’m going to start reading through G.K. Beale’s New Testament Biblical Theology, which was released toward the end of last year. I’m starting this pursuit with a couple of other blogger/reviewer types; Craig Hurst and Bob Hayton. We’ll be setting up a discussion forum shortly to discuss what we are reading and learning. Our goal is to read two chapters per week until we are finished. Since this is a larger book it will likely take us the better part of three months to accomplish. If anyone is interested in joining us let me know, we would be glad to have you.

If you are not familiar with Beale and his work in the New Testament you should be. Beale has written some important contributions to the New Testament and biblical theology as a whole. He is frequently highlighted with The Gospel Coalition and is likely best known for his work with Carson, Commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament.

Check out this video of Beale discussing this new work.

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Another Win for the Good Guys!

By on January 23, 2012 in Conceal Carry

This is another example of how a law abiding citizen, exercising his second amendment rights, helped exercise some justice. “Sheriff defends man who shot armed robber at SC Waffle House,” check out this article at American Vision News.

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Parking Lot #4 | Wal-Mart Edition

By on January 21, 2012 in I Can't Park

It has been a while since I posted one of these gems, so today I give you the Wal-Mart edition of how to park your car. The caption for this photo I found on a friend’s Facebook page said “Apparently because there is snow on the ground you can park as crazy as you want to….(please note, you can still see the yellow lines).”

Click the image below to enlarge and see how horrible this really is.

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TotalFinder for Mac | A Review

By on January 19, 2012 in Review

For the last couple of weeks I have using a piece of software called TotalFinder. The idea behind TotalFinder is bringing a tabbed layout to your Finder window. (If at this point I have lost you and you are trying to figure out what you are supposed to be finding, then you likely are not using a Mac and OS X). Continue Reading →

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Revive & Plant | A Church Planting Conference

By on January 18, 2012 in Announcement, Church Planting

Some of my friends in the Virginia Beach/Chesapeake area are organizing and hosting a church planting conference this March which looks to be a great gathering to promote church planting and church revitalization. I know a couple of the speakers well and have greatly benefited from them in my life.

Who is speaking?

Scott Osborne, one of the organizers, will be speaking in a couple of sessions. Scott is the pastor of Redemption Church in Chesapeake, VA. Scott and his wife were my campus parents while I was a freshman in college. Years later I had the privilege of being in seminary with Scott. The man loves the gospel and wants to show it through church planting.

Ian McConnell was my pastor in Philadelphia at Grace Bible Church. Spend 5 minutes around this guy and you’ll see he is serious about the gospel and church planting…and Philadelphia sports! I cannot speak highly enough of Ian. When I left Grace Bible Church a couple of years ago to come to Northland the hardest part was knowing that Ian would no longer be caring for my soul as my shepherd.

The third speaker is Tyler Jones, who is one of the movers and shakers in Acts29 (church planting organization) in the southwest area of the US. He and his family are pastoring in the Raleigh area of North Carolina.

When & where should I show up?

The conference is March 22 and 23rd in Chesapeake, VA. The schedule and registration information can be found on the Revive & Plant website.

If you want to connect with them you can find them on Twitter and on Facebook.

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D. A. Carson on Teaching

By on January 14, 2012 in Gospel, Teaching

I’ve come across this quote a few times and have never shared it. I should have…because it is great! I first saw this quote in an article Andy Naselli wrote called “D. A. Carson’s Theological Method” and then again today Justin Taylor posted it on his blog. The original quote is actually from a book called The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry, page 98-99.

If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.

I hope I can keep this kind of focus.

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Reading Your Bible in 2012

By on January 2, 2012 in Reading

You have probably heard, like I have, that if you “fail to plan you plan to fail.” I think there is tremendous truth in that as one considers how they will be reading their Bible in the new year. I am not a new year resolution sort of guy, however, I do think that a new year does bring a certain responsibility to have a solid Bible reading plan. So I ask you, what do you plan to do to read your Bible in the new year? Let me share with you my approach for the new year and then I’ll point you to some resources for some other methods.

Six to eight months ago I came across what is known as the Grant Horner method of Bible study. Horner is a professor at The Masters College in California. He has come up with a method of reading your Bible that accomplishes two things: (1) It allows you to read a lot of Scripture over the course of a year and (2) it allows you to remember where to find the passages in your Bible.

In essence if you follow Horner’s method you will read 10 chapters of the Bible each day. This method certainly doesn’t come without a commitment of time! The average reader will have to set aside 45 minutes a day for this.  What other pursuit in life is more worthy of our time than reading the Scriptures? This is why I am going to [try] to follow Horner’s method. There are a variety of sources available to help you with Horner’s method should you choose this path.

  1. Tim Challies has created the 3650 Challenge, which represents the number of chapters you will read in the Bible if you stick to the plan for the entire year. His post on the topic can be found here, and you can find the Facebook page he created for the challenge at this link.
  2. You can find a published PDF that talks through the system, which provides how it works and why it is unique. | LINK
  3. If you are looking for an iOS app that will help you track your reading I would suggest Bible Bookmarks. It was created specifically for Horner’s method and is what I am using.
  4. Challies has also listed some other resources that will add in your pursuit.

Perhaps Horner’s method is a little too ambitious for you…understandable. You can find some other plans over at The Gospel Coalition on Justin Taylor’s blog. There are a variety of helpful plans listed here and will help you digest Scripture this year. Remember, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. Love reading the Scriptures in this new year and see what God will teach you through it!

Happy New Year to you and your family.

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Books & Reading for 2012

By on December 30, 2011 in Books

 

Coming on the heals of reading and reviewing Tony Reinke’s book Lit!, I thought it would be wise to have a game plan going into 2012 for devouring some books. I am not certain how many books I read in the last year—though if I were to guess it would be somewhere around 40-50. I am thinking ambitiously for this next year and I’m hoping to blaze through 75-100. Here is what is going to help me accomplish such a goal:

  1. I am setting a goal of reading 2 biographies a month for the year. I will do this reading primarily at home during the evening hours after dinner. So far I have picked out 15 to read, but just read one of them yesterday and today so I am now down to 14. Biographies are easy to read and don’t tax my mind like reading theology does. Learning from other people and their lives is very rewarding.
  2. I’ll begin work on my dissertation in this next year and that will force me to crank though some material. I will do a good bit of this work during the day while in the office. I figure that I will set aside 2 hours a day for reading. This obviously won’t work for every day, but it gives me something to shoot for.
  3. I am teaching a course this spring on the book of Genesis. Doing so will allow me to keep reading books on narrative, genre, commentaries about Genesis…which will all fuel my dissertation work as well.
  4. Also in the mix I am hoping to throw in some fiction. This is an area I identified I need substantial growth in while reading through Lit! and want to grow in. I’m not sure where I should start so if you have suggestions on what I should tackle first I am all ears.

The number one excuse people have when asked why they don’t read is typically all about time. I am personally going to make time. However, if people just redeem the small amounts of time they do have then they would be shocked at how much they could read. I read something just recently that pointed to a logical statement by John Piper:

Most of us don’t aspire very high in our reading because we don’t feel like there is any hope. But listen to this. Suppose you read about 250 words a minute and that you resolve to devote just 15 minutes a day to serious theological reading to deepen your grasp of biblical truth. In one year (365 days) you would read for 5,475 minutes. Multiply that times 250 words per minute and you get 1,368,750 words per year. Now most books have between 300 and 400 words per page. So if we take 350 words per page and divide that into 1,368,750 words per year, we get 3,910 pages per year. This means that at 250 words a minute, 15 minutes a day, you could read about 20 average sized books a year!

So those of you that think you have no time…start by redeeming 15 minutes of your day then build that to 30 minutes. You’ll be amazed at how many books you’ll be able to get through.

I’ll have a few more things to say about books and reading as we move into the new year. Until then though, figure out where you are going to start using your 15 minutes!

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Parking Lot #3 | Guest Post

By on December 30, 2011 in I Can't Park

I guess defining “compact” is subjective? Thanks to my pal Denny Vauters for snagging this one today.

Click to enlarge

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Book Review | “Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament”

By on December 25, 2011 in Book Review

In this volume Daniel Wallace edits a series of articles combined to form Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence. This work is the first volume in a new series called “Text and Canon of the New Testament,” which Kregel just started. If this first volume is any indication of how this series will serve the academy, I think the series will be very helpful.

The topic and tone of the articles are clearly academic and meant to serve the scholar more so than the pastor or the layman. Those contributing articles are Philip Miller, Matthew Morgan, Adam Messer, Tim Ricchuiti, Brian Wright, and the editor, Daniel Wallace. Coming into this book I was only familiar with Wallace, all of the other men are new to me…likely because most of them were interns for Wallace during their Th.M’s.

I found that I could not improve on Kregel’s explanation of the book:

In recent years popular culture has experienced a revival of interest in  the early church and the beginning of the canonizing of Scripture. Extremely critical of the nature of the New Testament canon, however, many writers have suggested that the New Testament authors “interrupted” Jesus and misquoted His message. This scholarly book presents a strong case for the historicity and accuracy of the Bible, refuting the accusation that the Bible is unreliable.

From Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament, students of New Testament and textual criticism will learn how the New Testament was written, compiled, and transmitted. This book is a detailed rebuttal to confident remarks about the inaccuracies indeed the corruption of the New Testament.

Overall I see this book as a help to the academy and to seminarians, however, it is not one that I would direct a typical pastor or laymen to. The terminology and subject are quite advanced and serve a niche.

FTC Rhetoric: I do not receive payment for my book reviews. I do sometimes receive free review and giveaway copies from authors, publishers, and publicists. My first responsibility is to my readers, therefore, I am committed to honest reviews.

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