Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Practical Theology

Thank God for Biblical Scholars Who Write for Lay People

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Ben Witherington III, Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 83–84:

[excerpt from ch. 7: “The Write Stuff: The Ability to Research and Write”]

Unfortunately, we live in a culture of “experts” where expertise is revered; sadly, people’s egos get bound up in the desire to be a “world’s leading authority in X.” The expert too often feels it is enough to do pure research. He has no need to distill things for the masses; that’s beneath his dignity and pay scale. It is enough to live in one’s head and to talk only to other equally heady folk in the same field.

Whatever the merits of this approach to research in other fields, a Christian who is a Bible teacher or scholar should never take such an approach. Never! Research by a Christian is never done just for its own sake, or even just to advance knowledge in a given field. It is done in service to the Lord and to his church. I must confess I am sometimes baffled by some Christian NT scholars who are perfectly content to just talk to small circles of like-minded experts without any sense of responsibility to share their knowledge with a broader audience—indeed with the church.

Cf. this chapter:

D. A. Carson, “The Scholar as Pastor,” in The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry (ed. David Mathis and Owen Strachan; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 71–106.

It’s based on this talk from this event:

Professors Who Can’t Teach

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Ben Witherington III, Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 113:

[excerpt from ch. 9: “Honing Your Rhetoric: The Ability to Lecture and Teach”]

Learning Is Not Enough for Good Lecturing

Sadly, some Christian teachers ought not to be teachers, but because there are so few pure research professors in biblical studies or in any sort of Christian studies, these folks become teachers by default. Some of them can’t lecture their way out of a paper bag. I had a teacher like this in college. The running joke was that the difference between this teacher and the textbook was that the textbook didn’t mumble or stutter. As cruel as that joke may seem, it was an accurate assessment of this poor man’s attempt to teach. He couldn’t explain anything. He just kept quoting the textbook.

Tragically, too few Bible teachers or scholars have had any training in pedagogy, much less in Christian education. Furthermore, they have never even been taught the rudiments of good communication.

Another Pilgrim’s Progress Book for Children

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I recently highlighted my favorite versions of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress that I’ve read to my three-year-old daughter:

  1. The Pilgrim’s Progress for Children
  2. Formalist and Hypocrisy Taking a Shortcut

Here’s another:

John Bunyan. Pilgrim’s Progress. Edited by Gary Schmidt. Illustrated by Barry Moser. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.

  • Large hardcover (12.3 x 9.4 x 0.6 inches):
  • Small hardcover (8.6 x 6.7 x 0.8 inches):

Young children would appreciate it if the picture-to-text ratio were better, but the text is beautifully written.

My top two favorites for young children are still the Pictorial Pilgrim’s Progress and Dangerous Journey .

“My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed—and each of the five has been me.”

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Tim Keller writes in The Meaning of Marriage  ,

Christian ethicist Lewis Smedes wrote an article that I read as a young pastor and a still new husband. It helped me enormously as both a counselor and spouse. It is called “Controlling the Unpredictable—The Power of Promising” [Christianity Today 27:2 (January 21, 1983): 16–19]. (p. 90)

Keller then interacts with the article to underscore his point that “marriage is essentially a covenant” (p. 90). Here are some excerpts from Smedes’s article:

Some people ask who they are and expect their feelings to tell them. But feelings are flickering flames that fade after every fitful stimulus. Some people ask who they are and expect their achievements to tell them. But the things we accomplish always leave a core of character unrevealed. Some people ask who they are and expect visions of their ideal self to tell them. But our visions can only tell us what we want to be, not what we are.

Maybe we can best find out who and what we are by asking about the promises we have made to other people and the promises we are trying to keep for their sakes.

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When I married my wife, I had hardly a smidgen of sense for what I was getting into with her. [Read more…] about “My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed—and each of the five has been me.”

Some Practical Counsel for Marriage Seekers

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Tim Keller has been pastoring Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City since he planted it in 1989, and the church reflects the city’s demographics: over 80% of the people are single. So Keller has a lot of experience shepherding singles.

His new book The Meaning of Marriage  includes a chapter entitled “Singleness and Marriage.” It concludes with “some practical counsel for marriage seekers,” which unpacks eight guidelines (pp. 207–18):

  1. Recognize that there are seasons for not seeking marriage.
  2. Understand the “gift of singleness.”
  3. Get more serious about seeking marriage as you get older.
  4. Do not allow yourself deep emotional involvement with a non-believing person.
  5. Feel “attraction” in the most comprehensive sense.
  6. Don’t let things get too passionate too quickly.
  7. However, also don’t become a faux spouse for someone who won’t commit to you.
  8. Get and submit to lots of community input.

Related:

  1. “You Take Me the Way I Am”
  2. “My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed—and each of the five has been me.”

You Take Me the Way I Am

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I recently heard Ingrid Michaelson’s catchy pop song “The Way I Am”:

It encapsulates the “I love you because you make me feel good about myself” idea that Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage  repeatedly refutes (see especially chapters 1 and 3). Keller rejects the contemporary idea that love means finding your perfectly compatible thrill-inducing soul mate:

[S]exual attractiveness was not the number one factor that men named when surveyed by the National Marriage Project. They said that “compatibility” above all meant someone who showed a “willingness to take them as they are and not change them.” “More than a few of the men expressed resentment at women who try to change them. . . . Some of the men describe marital compatibility as finding a woman who will ‘fit into their life.’ ‘If you are truly compatible, then you don’t have to change,’ one man commented.” (pp. 30–31)

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It would be wrong to lay on men the full responsibility for the shift in marriage attitudes. [Read more…] about You Take Me the Way I Am

Honor and Shame

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I recently read three books in a row that each happen to highlight a common theme: how the honor-shame culture of NT times differs drastically from our culture. Not only is it fascinating; it’s important for understanding the Bible.

1. Ben Witherington III. Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.

[Excerpt from a section entitled “Rhetorical Conventions or Apostolic Hubris? (pp. 63–64)]

Let’s consider an example of socio-rhetorical conventions. What in the world is going on in 2 Corinthians 10–13, especially considering what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that he will boast in nothing but the cross of Christ? Isn’t he boasting about himself in 2 Corinthians 10–13 (or in Phil. 3)? What should we make of Paul’s autobiographical remarks in such texts?

As it turns out, there were rhetorical rules about boasting. In fact, Plutarch wrote a little treatise on what constituted “Inoffensive Self Praise.” What is interesting about 2 Corinthians 10–13 is that while Paul does follow these rules in a self-deprecating sort of way, he also subverts the whole way that ancients would normally boast about themselves by boasting of things they would never brag about. No one would brag about how many times they had been stoned, how many times they had been run out of town, how many times they had been shipwrecked, and how many times they had been pursued and betrayed by their co-religionists, and especially no one would have bragged about how they escaped danger by being lowered over a city wall in a basket under the cover of darkness. I like to call this story (mentioned in both Acts 9:25 and 2 Cor. 11:32–33) St. Paul the Basket Case. [Read more…] about Honor and Shame

Confront and Engage

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Carl R. Trueman, Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow  (2nd ed.; Fearn, Scotland: Focus, 2011), 8–9:

[W]ere I to write the book today, it would be different in certain respects. . . . I would want to modify, or at least off-set, my promotion of biblical theological teaching and preaching by emphasizing the need for the preacher to confront and engage his hearers. ‘Hey, I bet you never saw Jesus in this text before,’ is not an adequate application of the Bible; and yet too many so-called redemptive historical preachers and teachers in the Vos (or perhaps, to be charitable and not to impute the sins of the followers to the founder) pseudo-Vos tradition, consider their job to be done when they produced a nice, neat, dry-as-dust lecture on a passage which does just that and no more.