I added an Audio tab to the site (parallel to Publications).

I previously linked to some of these MP3s hosted on other sites, but after a few years, many of the URLs no longer work. So I uploaded 26 MP3s and link to them here.

In January, Bob Yarbrough and Don Carson spoke at the EFCA’s theology conference: “Understanding the Complementarian Position: Considering Implications and Exploring Practices in the Home and the Local Church” (TGC report). The MP3s are well worth listening to.

In a Q&A someone asked Don Carson about William Webb’s redemptive-movement hermeneutic, and Carson replied that it is unconvincing. Carson followed up with an email (see this 3-page PDF): “As for bibliography,” writes Carson, “the literature is pretty extensive, but the two most substantive review articles evaluating Webb’s book are” these: (more…)

Justin Buzzard, Date Your Wife: A Husband’s Guide (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 23–25 (numbering added):

A dream is what drives a man. As a boy grows up, he gradually forms a dream for his future marriage. . . .

Some men dream about marrying a woman who will satisfy their every desire, preference, and need.

Some men form an antidream; they simply dream of a marriage that is not like their parents’ marriage (or lack of marriage). Early on, they decide they want a wife who is not like mom. They decide they want to be a man who is not like dad.

Some men dream of a marriage that is conflict free or not a lot of work.

Some men dream of a marriage that honors God and that is a lot of fun.

The dream that drove you to that first date, that drove you to the altar, is likely still driving your marriage today. That dream set the course, and is probably still setting the course, of your marriage. . . .

The way to uncover something is to ask more questions. . . .

1. What is the earliest memory of marriage that you can think of? How has that memory influenced you?
2. Who taught you about marriage? Who taught you about what it means to be a man and how that’s different from what it means to be a woman? What did these teachers teach you?
3. What is the healthiest, happiest marriage you’ve ever seen? What made that marriage so attractive?
4. What is the most dysfunctional marriage you’ve ever seen? What made that marriage so unattractive?
5. What kind of a man was your dad? What kind of a relationship did you/do you have with him? If we were having coffee together, what would you tell me about what it was like growing up as his son?
6. What is your greatest fear for your marriage?
7. What is your greatest frustration with yourself, with your wife, and with your marriage?
8. What is your wife’s greatest complaint about being married to you? What does she appreciate most about being married to you?
9. What is your greatest hope for your marriage? What do you really want to see happen in you, in your marriage, and in your life before you die? How’s it going to happen?

You just deconstructed the dream that’s been driving your marriage. Each answer to the questions above represents one piece of the dream that drives how you operate as a husband. All the pieces don’t make complete sense yet. Right now we’re staring at an engine that’s been taken apart. The aim of this book is to make better sense of these different pieces, to do some clean-up work, and then to rebuild the engine to run better than before.

Eckhard Schnabel, 40 Questions About the End Times (40 Questions; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011), 321 (numbering added):

1. Archer, Gleason L., ed. Three Views on the Rapture: Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.  [The second edition came out in 2010, and the only repeat author is Doug Moo.]
2. Blomberg, Craig L., and Sung Wook Chung, eds. A Case for Historic Premillennialism: An Alternative to “Left Behind” Eschatology. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.  [See A. J. Gibson’s review in Themelios.] (more…)

In 2010, Ray Ortlund preached a series on Proverbs, and it’s now available in Kent Hughes’s Preaching the Word series:

Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. Proverbs: Wisdom That Works. Preaching the Word. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 216 pp. (28-page sample PDF)

How do you preach the book of Proverbs? Chapters 1–9 form logical units that one may preach sequentially, but the logical arrangement is hard to discern for much of the rest (especially 10:1–22:16). (more…)

Dave Harvey, Am I Called? The Summons to Pastoral Ministry  (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 63–64:

[E]verything we’ll talk about presupposes that your sense of call is focused more on serving the church than on fulfilling a dream.

Here are some questions you should think about now, because they’re going to make a big difference later.

• What’s your present involvement in a local church? If you were a pastor, would you be any more committed to the church than you already are? What does your answer say about you? (more…)

The concluding chapter of this new book lays out six key theses about Luke’s theology:

Darrell L. Bock. A Theology of Luke and Acts: God’s Promised Program, Realized for All Nations. Biblical Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012.

“Although there are many themes,” Bock notes, “six issues within the scholarly conversation are most important” (p. 448–50): (more…)

Admission: I read a book about the Harry Potter series. And I liked (most of) it:

John Granger. How Harry Cast His Spell: The Meaning Behind the Mania for J. K. Rowling’s Bestselling Books. 4th ed. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2006. 304 pp. (34-page sample PDF)

I actually read a few others, too:

• Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader
• One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter
• The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles

But they weren’t as captivating as this one (at least as this one starts out—it fizzles a bit).

I didn’t plan to read to read it straight through. I checked it out via my public library’s inter-library loan, and I planned to give it about 30 to 60 minutes. But after reading the first few chapters, I bought it in Kindle format and marked it up as I read the whole thing straight through. Chapters 1–10 and 19–20 are more interesting than the others.

The book is popular, not academic, and sometimes it is a bit corny. But its insights are worth the read. I don’t follow all of the symbolic connections Granger makes in this book: some of them seem like too much of a stretch (especially when deriving hidden meanings via tenuous etymologies), but most of them make sense.

I didn’t know that there are “Potter Scholars,” but TIME calls John Granger the “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars.”

One point that Granger demonstrates very well is that all seven Harry Potter books are filled with implicit and explicit Christian themes. He begins to unpack his argument in this sample PDF, but the rest of the book relentlessly and overwhelmingly proves that argument.

(more…)

This week Jenni and I finished re-listening to Jim Dale’s masterful reading of the Harry Potter series.

We enjoyed it so much the first time that we read the books again two years later, and the timing was just right. We loved it right out of the gate in book 1. We made so many more thematic connections the second time through that we missed the first time. (We initially focused on putting together the broad storyline.) What a pleasure.

We can relate to what Alan Jacobs writes about here—at least with reference to Harry Potter and Narnia—in The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011):

Children often have this experience:

• the Harry Potter saga has wrapped up,
• the Anne of Green Gables tales are done. (more…)

Jenni and I coauthored this review article:

“Give Them Jesus: Parenting with the Gospel; A Review of Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus.”  Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 17:1 (2012): 52–56.

It has six parts:

1. Give Them Grace? We explain the book’s title.
2. Tracing the Argument. We summarize each of the book’s ten chapters in one sentence.
3. Weaknesses. We highlight just two relatively minor issues.
4. Yes, Grace, but . . . . I check if the book passes what I call “the God-forbid test.”
5. A Mom’s Perspective. Jenni humbly shares her perspective. (I love my wife!)
6. Conclusion. We compare the book to three other popular Christian parenting books. (more…)

My oldest daughter just finished hearing The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time. After we finished The Last Battle, Kara asked wistfully, “Daddy, are there any more Narnia books?” I had to confirm what she already knew: there are only seven Narnia books.

But she’s already looking forward to reading them again and again and again.

We utilized ten resources to enjoy Narnia, and I recommend them all:

1. The Unabridged Books

These are essential. All other resources merely supplement them.

It is pure pleasure to read these aloud to your children. (more…)

“You are going to die. Take a moment to let that sink in. You are going to die.”

Those cheerful words open this book:

Michael E. Wittmer. The Last Enemy: Preparing to Win the Fight of Your Life. Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 2012. (13-page sample PDF)

This devotional book is sober and edifying, and Mike is a gifted writer. (more…)

Good news: Videos of all 44 stories in The Jesus Storybook Bible are now available. (Before only some of them were available.)

Sally Lloyd-Jones and Sam Shammas. The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name; Curriculum Kit: 44 Lessons for Early–Middle Elementary; with Notes for Teachers Based on Material by Timothy Keller. Grand Rapids: Zonderkidz, 2012.

Bad news: The stories don’t play continuously. You have to click on each individual one. (They are about five minutes each.)

Good news: The videos come on a DVD loaded with PDFs of a new children’s curriculum that supplements The Jesus Storybook Bible. (View two PDFs here: the table of contents and introduction and a sample lesson.)

Related:

1. Jesus Storybook Bible Deluxe Edition
2. Theology for Kids
3. Bible Memory for Young Children
4. A Good Bible-Story Book with Thousands of Pictures

Jonathan K. Dodson,“Gospel-Centered Questions to Ask,” appendix 1 in Gospel-Centered Discipleship  (Re:Lit; Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 155–56 (formatting added):

Here is a list of questions to help you cultivate gospel motivations.

Questions 11–15 are taken from Sam Storms’s book A Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ.

See . . . forty-five more questions in David Powlison’s list of “X-ray Questions.”

1. What do you desire more than anything else?
2. What do you find yourself daydreaming or fantasizing about?
3. What lies do you subtly believe that undermine the truth of the gospel?
4. Are you astonished with the gospel? (more…)

This accessible booklet came out at the end of last month:

Jim Newcomer. Help! I Can’t Forgive. Living in a Fallen World. Leominster, England: Day One, 2012.

It’s 64 pages, but its dimensions are only 5.6 x 4 inches. (Many paperbacks are about 8 x 5 inches.)

Newcomer unpacks and applies Matthew 18.

(more…)