After Kara learned Ephesians 6:1 (“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right”), our twenty-two-month-old started teasing us last night that parents should obey children!
Gospel Meditations for Women
By Jenni Naselli
Andy recently gave me Gospel Meditations for Women by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak. I’m enjoying and being edified by it. It’s not fluffy.
The thirty-two-page booklet is broken into thirty-one days of specific Scripture-readings with a corresponding gospel-meditation. It applies the gospel, for example, to relationships (“The Gospel Crushes Relational Conflict”) and trials (“Jesus’ Crucifixion and My Trials”). The topics range from theology (e.g., sanctification, inspiration, Christ’s substitutionary death) to specific applications for women (e.g., modesty, singleness, romance, motherhood, older women mentors). I especially appreciate the little nuggets of application at the bottom of each page, which sum up the meditations. This morning I read, “Let the Gospel affect your relationships.” Very good. I need this.
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A Personal Update
My last “personal update” was in June 2008. Once again, I’ve lost track of whom I’ve told what at this transitional time, so this post should fill in some gaps.
1. Family
Jenni is an outstanding homemaker and mom, and she’s loving it! Shepherding Kara Marie, who turns two in June, has taught Jenni and me a lot about God and ourselves. She lives up to her first name by bringing us joy, and we love watching her develop. God has gifted her with a mind that loves to learn: by the time she was twenty months old, she could recognize 1-10, knew the entire alphabet including the sounds of each letter, and was speaking in four- or five-word sentences. We’re probably typical first-time parents, but we think she’s pretty bright.
And I’m almost officially old. I turn thirty in May.
2. School
I defended my first PhD dissertation on July 17, 2006, and two weeks later Jenni and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment on the campus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School so I could work on a PhD in New Testament. Nearly four years later, we’re still here. The program is rigorous, but by God’s grace I . . . [Read more…] about A Personal Update
Themelios and a Review
1. The April 2010 issue of Themelios came out this afternoon. It’s loaded.
2. It includes my review of Pablo T. Gadenz, Called from the Jews and from the Gentiles: Pauline Ecclesiology in Romans 9–11.
Internet Pornography: The God of Truth and the Lies of Porn
Mike Salvati, the youth pastor at my church, addressed the men at our church last Saturday morning on “The God of Truth and the Lies of Porn.” This 68-minute MP3 begins with a man’s testimony followed by Mike’s talk.
Mike presented “seven biblical truths to keep you from being lied to, from clicking and sinning against your great, holy God!” Here’s the outline:
1. Intimacy (sexual intimacy in particular) is God’s good gift (Gen 2:24-25; Prov 5:15-23; Heb 13:4).
- How has pornography distorted your understanding of God’s good gift of sexual intimacy?
- What is one way you can cultivate relational intimacy with your wife?
- When was the last time you thanked God for your wife?
2. Porneia is in you (Mark 7:20-23; James 1:14-15).
- How does knowing that porn is not just outside of you but inside of you change the way you think about battling it?
- If the problem is in your heart, what is the solution? [Read more…] about Internet Pornography: The God of Truth and the Lies of Porn
The God Who Is There
Coming this July:
D. A. Carson. The God Who Is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010. 
- Leader’s Guide:
- The chapters correspond to Carson’s fourteen-part overview of the Bible that he presented at Bethlehem Baptist Church in February 2009.
- The God Who Made Everything
- The God Who Does Not Wipe Out Rebels
- The God Who Writes His Own Agreements
- The God Who Legislates
- The God Who Reigns
- The God Who Is Unfathomably Wise
- The God Who Becomes a Human Being
- The God Who Grants New Birth
- The God Who Loves
- The God Who Dies—and Lives Again
- The God Who Declares the Guilty Just
- The God Who Gathers and Transforms His People
- The God Who Is Very Angry
- The God Who Triumphs
- See Carson’s brief introduction to the series.
- The corresponding audio and video should be available later this year.
- This resource will serve the church well because it simultaneously evangelizes non-Christians and edifies Christians by explaining the Bible’s storyline.
Update on July 29, 2010: Audio and video are available.
Update on December 1, 2010: Unabridged video is now available.
Carson on the Trials of Biblical Studies
In The Trials of Theology: Becoming a “Proven Worker” in a Dangerous Business (ed. Andrew J. B. Cameron and Brian S. Rosner; Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2010), D. A. Carson contributes a chapter entitled “The Trials of Biblical Studies” (pp. 109–29).
- See my summary of Carson’s chapter on the TGC blog.
- TGC is hosting a PDF of Carson’s chapter.
- WTS Books includes a PDF with the book’s foreword.
Marsden on Edwards
This weekend I listened to the audiobook of George Marsden’s 160-page A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards (Amazon | WTS Books). It’s considerably shorter than Marsden’s 640-page Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Amazon | WTS Books).
Marsden is a good writer and superb historian. Edwards is a remarkable man and God-intoxicated theologian. Good combination. Time well spent.