Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Practical Theology

Audio

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I added an Audio tab to the site (parallel to Publications).

I previously linked to some of these MP3s hosted on other sites, but after a few years, many of the URLs no longer work. So I uploaded 26 MP3s and link to them here.

Deconstruct the Dream Driving Your Marriage

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Justin Buzzard, Date Your Wife: A Husband’s Guide (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 23–25 (numbering added):

A dream is what drives a man. As a boy grows up, he gradually forms a dream for his future marriage. . . .

Some men dream about marrying a woman who will satisfy their every desire, preference, and need.

Some men form an antidream; they simply dream of a marriage that is not like their parents’ marriage (or lack of marriage). Early on, they decide they want a wife who is not like mom. They decide they want to be a man who is not like dad.

Some men dream of a marriage that is conflict free or not a lot of work.

Some men dream of a marriage that honors God and that is a lot of fun.

The dream that drove you to that first date, that drove you to the altar, is likely still driving your marriage today. That dream set the course, and is probably still setting the course, of your marriage. . . .

The way to uncover something is to ask more questions. . . .

  1. What is the earliest memory of marriage that you can think of? How has that memory influenced you?
  2. Who taught you about marriage? Who taught you about what it means to be a man and how that’s different from what it means to be a woman? What did these teachers teach you?
  3. What is the healthiest, happiest marriage you’ve ever seen? What made that marriage so attractive?
  4. What is the most dysfunctional marriage you’ve ever seen? What made that marriage so unattractive?
  5. What kind of a man was your dad? What kind of a relationship did you/do you have with him? If we were having coffee together, what would you tell me about what it was like growing up as his son?
  6. What is your greatest fear for your marriage?
  7. What is your greatest frustration with yourself, with your wife, and with your marriage?
  8. What is your wife’s greatest complaint about being married to you? What does she appreciate most about being married to you?
  9. What is your greatest hope for your marriage? What do you really want to see happen in you, in your marriage, and in your life before you die? How’s it going to happen?

You just deconstructed the dream that’s been driving your marriage. Each answer to the questions above represents one piece of the dream that drives how you operate as a husband. All the pieces don’t make complete sense yet. Right now we’re staring at an engine that’s been taken apart. The aim of this book is to make better sense of these different pieces, to do some clean-up work, and then to rebuild the engine to run better than before.

Diagnostic Questions for Aspiring Pastors

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Dave Harvey, Am I Called? The Summons to Pastoral Ministry  (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 63–64:

[E]verything we’ll talk about presupposes that your sense of call is focused more on serving the church than on fulfilling a dream.

Here are some questions you should think about now, because they’re going to make a big difference later.

What’s your present involvement in a local church? If you were a pastor, would you be any more committed to the church than you already are? What does your answer say about you? [Read more…] about Diagnostic Questions for Aspiring Pastors

Harry Potter Is Filled with Implicit and Explicit Christian Themes

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Admission: I read a book about the Harry Potter series. And I liked (most of) it:

John Granger. How Harry Cast His Spell: The Meaning Behind the Mania for J. K. Rowling’s Bestselling Books. 4th ed. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2006. 304 pp. (34-page sample PDF)

I actually read a few others, too:

But they weren’t as captivating as this one (at least as this one starts out—it fizzles a bit).

I didn’t plan to read to read it straight through. I checked it out via my public library’s inter-library loan, and I planned to give it about 30 to 60 minutes. But after reading the first few chapters, I bought it in Kindle format and marked it up as I read the whole thing straight through. Chapters 1–10 and 19–20 are more interesting than the others.

The book is popular, not academic, and sometimes it is a bit corny. But its insights are worth the read. I don’t follow all of the symbolic connections Granger makes in this book: some of them seem like too much of a stretch (especially when deriving hidden meanings via tenuous etymologies), but most of them make sense.

I didn’t know that there are “Potter Scholars,” but TIME calls John Granger the “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars.”

One point that Granger demonstrates very well is that all seven Harry Potter books are filled with implicit and explicit Christian themes. He begins to unpack his argument in this sample PDF, but the rest of the book relentlessly and overwhelmingly proves that argument.

[Read more…] about Harry Potter Is Filled with Implicit and Explicit Christian Themes

Give Them Jesus: Parenting with the Gospel

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Jenni and I coauthored this review article:

“Give Them Jesus: Parenting with the Gospel; A Review of Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus.”  Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 17:1 (2012): 52–56.

It has six parts:

  1. Give Them Grace? We explain the book’s title.
  2. Tracing the Argument. We summarize each of the book’s ten chapters in one sentence.
  3. Weaknesses. We highlight just two relatively minor issues.
  4. Yes, Grace, but . . . . I check if the book passes what I call “the God-forbid test.”
  5. A Mom’s Perspective. Jenni humbly shares her perspective. (I love my wife!)
  6. Conclusion. We compare the book to three other popular Christian parenting books. [Read more…] about Give Them Jesus: Parenting with the Gospel

Videos of All 44 Stories in The Jesus Storybook Bible

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Good news: Videos of all 44 stories in The Jesus Storybook Bible are now available. (Before only some of them were available.)

Sally Lloyd-Jones and Sam Shammas. The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name; Curriculum Kit: 44 Lessons for Early–Middle Elementary; with Notes for Teachers Based on Material by Timothy Keller. Grand Rapids: Zonderkidz, 2012.

Bad news: The stories don’t play continuously. You have to click on each individual one. (They are about five minutes each.)

Good news: The videos come on a DVD loaded with PDFs of a new children’s curriculum that supplements The Jesus Storybook Bible. (View two PDFs here: the table of contents and introduction and a sample lesson.)

Related:

  1. Jesus Storybook Bible Deluxe Edition
  2. Theology for Kids
  3. Bible Memory for Young Children
  4. A Good Bible-Story Book with Thousands of Pictures

15 Gospel-Centered Questions to Ask

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Jonathan K. Dodson,“Gospel-Centered Questions to Ask,” appendix 1 in Gospel-Centered Discipleship  (Re:Lit; Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 155–56 (formatting added):

Here is a list of questions to help you cultivate gospel motivations.

Questions 11–15 are taken from Sam Storms’s book A Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ.

See . . . forty-five more questions in David Powlison’s list of “X-ray Questions.”

  1. What do you desire more than anything else?
  2. What do you find yourself daydreaming or fantasizing about?
  3. What lies do you subtly believe that undermine the truth of the gospel?
  4. Are you astonished with the gospel? [Read more…] about 15 Gospel-Centered Questions to Ask