Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

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Summer Break

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I’m taking a little blogging break in July and early August so that I can focus on some other projects. God-willing, I’ll be back by mid-August.

The archives are open.

E.g., these two posts from 2014 have received the most views thus far this year:

  1. How I Set Up My Desks: One for Sitting, One for Walking
  2. Be More Specific Than “Points” or “Things”

These posts from 2013 received the most views in 2013 (my favorites are #25 and #29):

  1. Diabolical Ventriloquism: A 1-Sentence Summary of Each of Screwtape’s Letters
  2. How should churches relate to others with same-sex attractions? Read Peter Hubbard.
  3. 3 Reasons I Don’t Enthusiastically Recommend the History Channel’s “The Bible: The Epic Miniseries”
  4. Wayne Grudem on the Jason Bourne Films
  5. Piper Illustrates for Children How Faith Glorifies God
  6. Keller and Carson: Greco-Roman Slavery ≠ Race-Based Slavery
  7. Don Whitney: How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian?
  8. Top 10 Tips for Being Clearer
  9. How a Recent Thesis Defines the Glory of God
  10. 6 Discontinuities between the Old and New Covenants
  11. Carson: The most painful things I’ve ever borne are betrayals by Christian friends
  12. How to Listen on Double Speed with an iPhone or iPod
  13. How Reliable Is Your Memory? 3 Practical Lessons
  14. Murray Harris’s 6-Page Expanded Paraphrase of Colossians
  15. The Best Book on Sexual Purity
  16. MacArthur: “It’s very easy to be hard to understand”
  17. Ben Witherington: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” is “not good theology”
  18. What Is the Message of Each Book of the Bible?
  19. Brothers, We Are Not Professionals
  20. How to Disagree with Other Christians about Disputable Matters
  21. Exulting in Harry Potter
  22. How Should Parents Discipline Their Children? Is Spanking Wrong?
  23. An Unmistakable Sign of a Legalistic Spirit
  24. We’re Moving to Minneapolis: 5 Reasons We’re Excited to Serve at Bethlehem College & Seminary
  25. Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts
  26. Why You Should Not Be Dogmatic about All of Your Convictions: Lloyd-Jones on Silk Stockings, Baths, Radios, and More
  27. The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson
  28. Why It’s Important to Understand Direct vs. Mitigated Speech
  29. The 2 Issues I Most Frequently Address When Copy-Editing

These 20 posts from 2012 received the most views in 2012 (my favorite is #20):

  1. John Frame’s Advice: 30 Suggestions for Theological Students and Young Theologians
  2. 3 Ways to Nourish and Cherish Your Wife: Practical Advice C. J. Mahaney Would Give You If He Met with You at Starbucks
  3. Why People Hate the Sermon on the Mount
  4. Don Carson’s Three Secrets of Productivity and Godly Efficiency
  5. HCSB vs. ESV vs. NIV
  6. Ten Narnia Resources
  7. Must a Wife Always Follow Her Husband’s Leadership?
  8. Videos of All 44 Stories in The Jesus Storybook Bible
  9. Ten Resources for Enjoying Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
  10. Covenant Eyes
  11. My New Book: From Typology to Doxology
  12. 22 Mistakes Pastors Make in Practicing Church Discipline
  13. Progressive Covenantalism: A Via Media between Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism
  14. This Is How We Pray for Our Children
  15. A New Systematic Theology by an Eccentric Genius
  16. Falsifying Views on the Extent of the Atonement
  17. Limited Atonement in the Bible, Doctrine, History, and Ministry
  18. Tom Schreiner’s Top Three Commentaries on Each of Paul’s Letters
  19. Critiquing William Webb’s Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic
  20. Announcing Emma Elyse Naselli

These ten posts from 2011 received the most views in 2011:

  1. Why John Piper Doesn’t Own a TV
  2. iPad Resources
  3. Courageous
  4. How to Manipulate People to Make (Fake) Professions of Faith
  5. Is C. S. Lewis the Patron Saint of American Evangelicalism?
  6. Bible Memory for Young Children
  7. Evernote or OneNote?
  8. The Importance of Dignified Translations
  9. The Myth of Mutual Submission
  10. Mirror Reading

Charts on the Book of Revelation: Literary, Historical, and Theological Perspectives

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chartsDon’t be put off by this book’s title. It’s not what you think.

Mark Wilson. Charts on the Book of Revelation: Literary, Historical, and Theological Perspectives. Kregel Charts of the Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007.

Check out this 32-page PDF sample, which includes the table of contents and many of the charts. But don’t skip over the first two pages of the PDF: the endorsements. The Revelation scholars who endorse the book include [Read more…] about Charts on the Book of Revelation: Literary, Historical, and Theological Perspectives

The Flight to the Ford in Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring Movie

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My family loves The Lord of the Rings.

See “Ten Resources for Enjoying Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.” For Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (resource 7), I write,

This is one of the few cases where Jenni and I think that the films are better than the books. We probably just lost all of our literary credibility (not that I had much of it). We find Tolkien’s writing style often tedious.

artI recently read a book that has helped me more critically view films:

Paul Munson and Joshua Farris Drake. Art and Music: A Student’s Guide. Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.

Munson and Drake take a little over four pages to critically analyze the scene from Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring in which Arwen and Frodo flee on horseback to the ford.

Here’s what Munson and Drake think (pp. 77–81): [Read more…] about The Flight to the Ford in Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring Movie

ESV Reader’s Bible

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ESVRBThis new Bible releases at the end of this month:

ESV Reader’s Bible. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.

Bible readers should celebrate this new Bible because it strips out the verse numbers (but, unfortunately, not the chapter numbers!).* It’s the first ESV Bible to do this. Check out the format in this 10-page PDF sample.

*My friend Mark Ward’s mostly enthusiastic review of the ESV Reader’s Bible more passionately makes the same point.

How does this format benefit readers?

  1. See “Tip #3. Read without any chapter or verse references.”
  2. See thoughts #6, 9, and 10 here.
  3. See my book reviews that explain this in more detail.
  4. See Gordon Fee’s third reason for revising his commentary on 1 Corinthians.

My Top Choice for a Textbook on the Doctrine of the Church

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AllisonLast semester at Bethlehem College & Seminary I taught a systematic theology course on the doctrines of the church and the end times. This is the primary text I used for the doctrine of the church, and I plan to use it again when I teach the course in the future:

Gregg R. Allison. Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church. Foundations of Evangelical Theology Series. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

I love how Allison organizes the book, and I agree with his theological method. His arguments are well-reasoned and usually persuasive. [Read more…] about My Top Choice for a Textbook on the Doctrine of the Church

Dispatches from the Front: Stories of Gospel Advance in the World’s Difficult Places

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dispatchesJustin Taylor describes my friend Tim Keesee exactly right in his foreword to Tim’s new book:

Tim Keesee. Dispatches from the Front: On Gospel Transformation, Suffering, and Witness. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.

(You may recall Tim Keesee from his telling the stories in the Dispatches from the Front DVDs by Frontline Missions.)

Here’s Justin Taylor’s foreword (pp. 11–13): [Read more…] about Dispatches from the Front: Stories of Gospel Advance in the World’s Difficult Places

Taking God at His Word

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takingSeveral years ago I attempted to write a short, accessible chapter on the doctrine of Scripture as part of a book that Kevin DeYoung edited. Now Kevin’s most recent work is a short, accessible book on the doctrine of Scripture:

Kevin DeYoung. Taking God at His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.

It’s what we’ve come to expect from Kevin: sound, edifying, accessible, and witty. This is the best overall popular-level book on Scripture that I’m aware of.

  1. This 20-page PDF sample includes the front matter and chapter 1.
  2. Two DeYoung interviews: (a) TGC and (b) Books at a Glance
  3. Kevin preached on this topic at T4G a few weeks ago: “Never Spoke a Man Like This Before: Inerrancy, Evangelism and Christ’s Unbreakable Bible.” My school’s president called this sermon “powerful and massively important.”