Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Historical Theology

Andy and Jason Drive It Home

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Here’s a 4-minute video with my brother Jason DeRouchie:

Some background:

Jason and I recently wrote companion volumes on how to understand and apply the Old and New Testaments.

We asked Rick Segal if he would be willing to help us spread the news with a short video. Rick is Vice President of Advancement for Bethlehem College & Seminary, and prior to coming to our school he was president and CPO of a successful global marketing and advertising agency. He used to have about $250,000 to work with when preparing a promotional video, and he got creative with ours with only about $100.

Jason and I commute together, and Rick recorded one of our commutes and titled the video “Andy and Jason Drive It Home.” Our assignment was to get 90 seconds of unscripted footage on our 25-minute drive home.

I confirmed that show business is not my calling.

It felt awkward to record, but it gives viewers a little taste of our camaraderie.

Here’s what I say about Jason in the acknowledgements of my book:

It’s a joy to serve shoulder to shoulder with Jason DeRouchie at Bethlehem College & Seminary. He embodies Ezra 7:10. I can’t think of another Old Testament seminary professor I’d rather team up with. We spend about three hours together each week while commuting, and the better I get to know him, the more I thank God for him. I especially love coteaching a fourth-year graduate course with him on biblical theology. Jason is both an Old Testament scholar and a biblical theologian. He helps me see Jesus more clearly in the Old Testament. It was an honor to collaborate with Jason as I prepared this book and he prepared the companion volume How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology.

Update: I refer to “normal people” in the video, and some friends teased me on Facebook by referring to themselves as normal people. I don’t mind the teasing, but I should clarify something: I didn’t mean to be condescending in any way by using the phrase “normal people.” It’s shorthand for non-specialists—that is, lay people as opposed to academics and scholars. I’m a normal guy for the vast number of domains of knowledge—like European history or economics or criminal law or automobile mechanics or whatever. I’m grateful when specialists communicate in a way that non-specialists can understand. (I write a little more about my philosophy of publishing here and here.)

20 Resources on the Protestant Reformation

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2017 is the 500th anniversary of an event that strangely ignited the Protestant Reformation.

If you want to learn more about the Protestant Reformation, consider these helpful resources. I combed through about 800 relevant resources in my Zotero library and selected only twenty—including some picture books and videos.

1. Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther.

New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1950.

After hearing so many historians recommend this biography as a classic, I finally read it last year. It’s still in print for good reasons.

[Read more…] about 20 Resources on the Protestant Reformation

How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology

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Here’s my attempt to explain how to interpret and apply the Bible:

Andrew David Naselli. How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017. xxx + 384 pages.

Contents

The book’s structure is simple. It begins by introducing exegesis and theology, which I break down into twelve steps. Those twelve steps are the book’s twelve chapters. [Read more…] about How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology

A New Documentary on Martin Luther

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Last night my wife and I watched a screener of the new 90-minute documentary Luther: The Life and Legacy of the German Reformer.

It’s excellent:

  • It interviews reliable guides throughout the film, especially Carl Trueman, Steve Nichols, R. C. Sproul, and Bob Kolb.
  • It’s both sympathetic and critical. It responsibly surveys the life and times of Luther. Some of Luther’s writings make us cheer. Others make us wince. The film helpfully explains why.

Here are two previews:

Mohler before He Became President of Southern: “I Intend to Age”

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mohlerAlbert Mohler became president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in February 1993 when he was 33 years old.

To understand how unusual that is and what sort of challenges Mohler faced, listen to how he told the story ten years later in 2003 at a Sovereign Grace leadership conference: Part 1 | Part 2.

(See also my review of Gregory A. Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859–2009, Themelios 34 [2009]: 403–5.)

[Read more…] about Mohler before He Became President of Southern: “I Intend to Age”

The SBC and the Broader Evangelical Community

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SBCThis is a fascinating new essay:

Collin Hansen and Justin Taylor. “From Babylon Baptist to Baptists in Babylon: The SBC and the Broader Evangelical Community.” Pages 33–49 in The SBC and the 21st Century: Reflections, Renewal, and Recommitments. Edited by Jason K. Allen. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2016.

Their thesis is that (a) evangelicals need Southern Baptist conviction and (b) Southern Baptists need evangelical experience. They show that by examining four overlapping pairs of Southern Baptists: [Read more…] about The SBC and the Broader Evangelical Community

A Biography of a Book: Marsden on C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity

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MarsdenIt was a pleasure reading this biography of a book:

Marsden, George M. C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography. Lives of Great Religious Books. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.

If you haven’t read Mere Christianity, then I suggest you start with this dramatized audiobook. [Read more…] about A Biography of a Book: Marsden on C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity

15 Accessible Books by Historian Paul Maier

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maierPaul L. Maier (b. 1930) is a Lutheran scholar on the history of Christianity. He is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University, where he taught for 53 years (1958–2011). I highly recommend his work. Here are some of his more accessible works.

8 Books on the History of Early Christianity

Pilate

Pontius Pilate: A Novel. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2014. This “documentary novel” depicts the New Testament world in a relatively entertaining way. Reading this genre engages a different part of your brain and encourages you to envision the world of the New Testament more vividly. It makes you think and feel in ways that are virtually impossible by reading only encyclopedia-type summaries of the New Testament’s historical-cultural context. This book is so valuable that I require students to read it for a graduate course I teach called “New Testament Background and Message.” Maier writes from Pontius Pilate’s vantage point, starting with Pilate’s political life in Rome and appointment as prefect in Judea (AD 26) and continuing through the murder of Jesus (which Maier calculates as 33), the death of Tiberius (37), the assassination of Caligula (41), and the beginning of the reign of Claudius (41–54). The overall plot and every proper name in the book are historically accurate, and Maier fills in this factual skeleton with colorful fictional details. He reconstructs many events from the Gospels and Acts from the viewpoint of an educated, unbelieving Roman prefect. [Read more…] about 15 Accessible Books by Historian Paul Maier