Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Historical Theology

Logos Pre-Pub: Charles Spurgeon Collection

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It’s amazing how many outstanding resources Logos Bible Software keeps producing.

I already own and benefit greatly from “The Complete Spurgeon Sermon Collection,” which contains Spurgeon’s sermons from the Park Street and Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpits. I just became aware of another Spurgeon collection that is now on pre-pub for $250: “Charles Spurgeon Collection.” It’s currently 78 volumes and 17,361 pages, so that’s about a penny ($0.014) per page in a highly efficient format.

Content:

  • The Treasury of David, Spurgeon’s 7-volume commentary on the Psalms
  • Spurgeon’s 4-volume Lectures to My Students, which includes his best-selling Commenting and Commentaries
  • 228 issues of Spurgeon’s magazine, The Sword and the Trowel published between 1865 and 1884
  • Spurgeon’s 4-volume Sermon Notes
  • The 2-volume Salt Cellars
  • Spurgeon’s 4-volume Autobiography, the first and most detailed account of Spurgeon’s life and ministry
  • A collection of Spurgeon’s letters and correspondence
  • Dozens of additional volumes on preaching, prayer, evangelism, and much more!

What a treasure trove!

Update: Phil Gons adds this on the Logos blog:

And it gets even better. I said presently above because we’re still in the process of researching another dozen or so titles for possible inclusion in this collection. The best part is that if you pre-order now, you’ll be locked in at the lowest possible price, even if the price goes up to cover the additional cost.

So pre-order this unparalleled collection of the writings of C. H. Spurgeon now (and his sermons, too, if you don’t already have them), and get ready to take advantage of the power of Logos to integrate this wealth of material into your devotions, Bible studies, and sermons with ease.

Inconsistent Grace?

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Here is an observation that is related to the discussion generated by my previous post (though it may not apply to anyone in that discussion): People are often more gracious to those on either their left or right.

  1. Some people are more gracious to those to the left of them than they are to those to the right of them. For example, some (not all) more broadminded evangelicals will tip-toe around a postconservative evangelical or emergent leader in order to give the least possible offense, but they will also strongly denounce “fundamentalists” without the least concern about offending them.
  2. Other people are more gracious to those to the right of them than they are to those to the left of them. For example, some (not all) fundamentalists will overlook egregious errors by fellow fundamentalists (e.g., errant bibliology or soteriology) in order to give the least possible offense to those in their camp, but they will also strongly denounce “new evangelicals” for less serious issues without the least concern about offending them.

Is this a fair observation? Perhaps there are too many exceptions for this to be any sort of a general trend.

Old Fundamentalists Never Die

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Fascinating statement:

Ehrman proves the dictum that old fundamentalists never die; they just exchange fundamentals and continue in their unimaginative, closed-minded rigidity and simplicity.

-William H. Willimon, review of Bart D. Ehrman, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer, The Christian Century, December 30, 2008.

“Fundamentalist baggage”

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Here are a couple of interesting paragraphs from Greg Beale‘s latest book, The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008).

In fact, there is an increasingly popular attitude that the Chicago Statement and the term inerrancy carry significant “fundamentalist baggage,” with all the negative associations that go with the word fundamentalism (e.g., narrow, obscurantist, anti-scholarly, unsophisticated). I have found that this perspective is also shared by some more conservative biblical and theological scholars. This is not the place to discuss the origins of the word fundamentalism and the development of the use of the word. Suffice it to say that what appears to be “fundamentalist” is in the eye of the beholder.

J. I. Packer in his “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God has given a nice, brief discussion of the origins of fundamentalism and how the word has come to be used. Though that was written in the late 1950s, his basic points still hold. There he distinguishes a fundamentalist view of Scripture from an  evangelical view, the latter of which he subsequently identified with the Chicago Statement on inerrancy since he himself was one of the more well known among its signatories in 1978 (p. 21).

Eusebius on Nero

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Jenni and I are just finishing up Paul Maier‘s The Flames of Rome (cf. my thoughts on Maier’s Pontius Pilate), a “documentary novel” that fleshes out how Nero’s insanity affected early Christianity. While I was reading Eusebius‘ Church History today (translated by none other than Paul Maier), I nodded in agreement with Eusebius’ portrayal of Nero:

Once Nero’s power was firmly established, he plunged into nefarious vices and took up arms against the God of the universe. To describe his depravity is not part of the present work. Many have accurately recorded the facts about him, and from them any who wish may study his perverse and degenerate madness, which led him to destroy innumerable lives and finally to such indiscriminate murder that he did not spare even his nearest and dearest. With various sorts of deaths, he did away with his mother, brothers, and wife, as well as countless other near relatives, as if they were strangers and enemies. Despite all this, one crime still had to be added to his catalogue: he was the first of the emperors to be declared enemy of the Deity. To this the Roman Tertullian refers as follows: [Read more…] about Eusebius on Nero

4 Reflections on Suetonius’s “The Twelve Caesars”

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Over the last  couple of days, I read The Twelve Caeasars (cf. Wikipedia) by Suetonius. I marked up my print copy while listening to a 13-hour audio book. It is a gossipy chronicle with a fascinating perspective on the lives of the first twelve Roman Caesars that significantly intersects with Second Temple Judaism and the birth and spread of Christianity: [Read more…] about 4 Reflections on Suetonius’s “The Twelve Caesars”