Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Practical 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.)

John Piper’s Tribute to Don Carson

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I love this. One of my favorite people affirms one of my favorite people:

Though I am Don Carson’s elder (by eleven months), and count him a personal friend, I revere him both spiritually and academically. The level at which Don works in the academic guild is beyond my ability and bent. I stand outside and below, looking up with profound admiration and respect. Make no mistake, my admiration is not awakened by fame and notoriety. It rises for real excellence and faithfulness and usefulness. Don has taken the bricks and mortar of his academic trade and built structures where God’s people have found safety and nourishment and joy and power. [Read more…] about John Piper’s Tribute to Don Carson

Episode 10 of Dispatches from the Front (set in the Middle East in southern Arabia and northern Iraq)

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The latest episode of the edifying and motivating Dispatches from the Front DVD Series releases on April 1: The Fourth Man.

Episode 10 is set in the Middle East in southern Arabia and northern Iraq, and it features our friends Dave and Gloria Furman (and others). When my DVD arrived in the mail, I promptly sat down with my daughters to watch it together. [Read more…] about Episode 10 of Dispatches from the Front (set in the Middle East in southern Arabia and northern Iraq)

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

The Collected Works of John Piper

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This new set releases on March 31:

John Piper. The Collected Works of John Piper. Edited by David Mathis and Justin Taylor. 13 vols. + one volume of indexes. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017. 8,464 pages. Available from Amazon  and Westminster Bookstore .

Both Justin Taylor and David Mathis have spent years serving as John Piper’s assistant, and they know Piper and his publications unusually well. Justin wrote his fascinating PhD dissertation on Piper, and David is the executive editor for Desiring God.

The editors explain in the introduction to volume 1, [Read more…] about The Collected Works of John Piper

Do Not Love the World: Breaking the Evil Enchantment of Worldliness

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In C. S. Lewis’s brilliant address “The Weight of Glory,” he talks about our “desire for our own far-off country.” Then he asks,

Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.

On March 1 I preached a sermon on 1 John 2:15–17 in Bethlehem College & Seminary chapel about breaking “the evil enchantment of worldliness.” (By the way, preachers used to address worldliness more often. I searched Charles Spurgeon’s published sermons and discovered that he used the word worldliness over 350 times.)

Here’s a video of the 40-minute sermon:

I ask and briefly answer twelve questions about 1 John 2:15–17: [Read more…] about Do Not Love the World: Breaking the Evil Enchantment of Worldliness