Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Historical Theology

Whose team is Tom Wright on?

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While blogging through N. T. Wright’s Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, Douglas Wilson pithily observes,

Wright is like a wonderful three-point shooter in American basketball, but one who can’t be troubled to find out who is wearing what uniform, or which team is supposed to be going in what direction, so when he takes to the floor, he scores a dazzling series of points—sixteen for the home team, and twenty-four for the visitors. One can be simultaneously impressed and wish that he would just stop it.

What’s even more sad is that many people don’t take theology as seriously as they take sports (though, granted, the analogy breaks down on several levels when applied to theology). To recall an extreme (and unfortunate) example, do you remember what happened to the soccer player Andrés Escobar after he accidentally scored a goal for the opposing team in the 1994 World Cup?

Collin Hansen Reflects on Young, Restless, Reformed

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Collin Hansen reflects on his book Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists. (Cf. my review.)

Note his comments re fundamentalism:

Increasing my coverage of Reformed blogging is not the only change I would make. Readers have emerged from the woodwork to tell me about growing pockets of Reformed interest in Great Britain and among African Americans and fundamentalists. . . . As for fundamentalists, I have heard testimonies of college and seminary students who tell me something big is stirring. Perhaps there is hope that these young Calvinists will rebuild the bridges burned generations ago between evangelicals and fundamentalists.

D. A. Carson MP3s Now Hosted by TGC

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My blog’s most popular post has been “D. A. Carson MP3s” (December 17, 2006). It’s a compilation of links to about 200 Carson MP3s. I updated it diligently through the beginning of 2008, but I stopped because I knew that it would soon become obsolete.

For about the last six months, I’ve attempted to compile a comprehensive collection of Carson MP3s so that TGC could host them. So far I’ve uploaded 443 MP3s (and some MV4s, too), and the plan is to add more as they become available. You can browse most of them in the “sermons” category.

Here are some advantages to the Carson MP3s now hosted by TGC:

  1. Price: They are all free. Previously ChristWay Media sold dozens of Carson MP3s for $1.50 each. Now those same MP3s are available at no charge from TGC site.
  2. Number: Never before have so many Carson MP3s been available online. Many of them have not been available online previously. For example, I obtained CDs from Carson with his talks on them from conferences all over the world (including several in French).
  3. Convenience: Never before have so many Carson MP3s been available online at a single website, and no user name or password is needed to download them.
  4. Continuity: The MP3s are hosted by the same website. Maintaining my previous list of Carson MP3s was challenging because links would constantly change when websites were updated.
  5. Labels: The MP3s are uniformly tagged with as much information as I could find (e.g., title, Scripture text, series, topic, date), and the format of the names of the MP3s themselves are also consistent (e.g., “20020619_Eph_2.11-22_community_and_the_cross.mp3”).

I’d highly recommend that you redeem the time and systematically and thoughtfully listen to these MP3s. I have profited immensely from them. Carson’s manner of speaking is just as articulate, thoughtful, and engaging as his publications. He exalts Christ by exegeting his words, tracing themes through the Bible’s salvation-historical storyline, addressing hot topics with clarity and nuance, and engaging and confronting bad theology as well as the culture.

Related:

  1. D. A. Carson Publications
  2. D. A. Carson’s Theological Method

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.