Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Systematic Theology

A New Systematic Theology by an Eccentric Genius

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I’ve never met Gerald Bray, but based on many stories I’ve heard about him from friends, he’s an eccentric genius. Some have told me that he’s the most brilliant person they know.

Bray is an Anglican theologian who knows something like two dozen languages. The bachelor has one of those English accents that, to many Americans, makes him automatically sound intelligent—though it’s acquired because he is Canadian by birth. And I’ve heard that native Russians can’t tell that he has a foreign accent when he speaks Russian!

His latest book is about as eccentric as he is:

Gerald Bray. God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 768 pp. [Read more…] about A New Systematic Theology by an Eccentric Genius

Resources on Worldview

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The book I highlighted last Friday concludes with an annotated bibliography:

Douglas S. Huffman and Philip E. Lueck. “For the Biblical Worldview on Academic Disciplines.” Pages 171–223 in Christian Contours: How a Biblical Worldview Shapes the Mind and Heart. Edited by Douglas S. Huffman. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011.

The first part is entitled “General Reading on the Biblical Worldview”  (pp. 172–76), and Kregel gave me permission to share it here. They explain, “The books we mark as classics in their fields (‡) need not represent what we think is the best perspective. Our goal for this bibliography is to encourage interactive reflection on the biblical worldview and not merely to list books we agree with.”

Bertrand, J. Mark. (Re)Thinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in this World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2007.

A seminar leader on Christian worldview, Bertrand covers worldview as the story of creation, fall, and redemption (part 1). He focuses on wisdom (part 2) and witness (part 3) as essential for intentional living, including treatments on critical reading, apologetics, and cultural contribution. [Read more…] about Resources on Worldview

Worldview

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This book came out this month:

Douglas S. Huffman, ed. Christian Contours: How a Biblical Worldview Shapes the Mind and Heart. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011.

Huffman explains,

For several decades, the integration of faith and learning has been a major topic for Christian higher education. Robert Harris argues correctly that Christians need to think about this intentionally. But such intentionality is actually artificial, made necessary only by our sinfulness. Humans naturally integrate everything, trying to make things fit into a coherent system.

If I told you that I had breakfast on Mars this morning, you would try to fit this claim into the beliefs you already hold about the universe. Perhaps you would select one of these options:

  • (a) Huffman had breakfast at a new restaurant called “Mars”;
  • (b) Huffman had breakfast while riding a horse named “Mars”; or
  • (c) Huffman is deluded.

Your set of beliefs about the world as you know it would not allow you to believe that I actually had breakfast on the planet called Mars.

This illustrates our propensity to combine all of our knowledge and beliefs into one overarching system. [Read more…] about Worldview

Moon : Sun :: Old Covenant : New Covenant

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“If the sun is up, the brightness of the moon is no longer bright.”

—M. Zerwick, Analysis Philologica Novi Testamenti Graeci (3rd ed.; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1966), 396; translated by and quoted in Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 289, commenting on 2 Cor 3:10.

When I slept under the stars for a week last summer while rafting through the Grand Canyon, there were a few nights when the moon was so bright that it didn’t quite seem like nighttime. But you couldn’t mistake the contrast when the flaming sun was at full strength.

  • For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. (2 Cor 3:10)
  • Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant. (Heb 7:22)

Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday?

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I’m grateful that The Atlantic gave my buddy Owen Strachan a platform to preach the gospel on the front page of their website yesterday (and it’s still on their front page today). They asked him earlier this week out of the blue to write this article: “Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday?”

It’s similar to one Owen wrote a month ago for TGC (“Tebow, Calvin, and the Hand of God in Sports”), but it’s more evangelistic since he wrote it for a different audience.

Related recent articles on Tim Tebow:

  1. Randy Alcorn, “How Tim Tebow Messed Up My Plans and Forced Me to Preach This Coming Weekend”
  2. Rick Holland, “If I Were Tim Tebow’s Pastor”
  3. Nathan Busenitz, “Tebow Time: 10 Thoughts and a Cloud of Dust”
  4. Michael Flaherty and Nathan Whitaker, “Tim Tebow’s Role Model”
  5. Rick Reilly, “I Believe in Tim Tebow”

A New Book on Christology

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If you want to study Christology (and you should), then here’s a book to add to your reading list:

Robert A. Peterson. Salvation Accomplished by the Son: The Work of Christ. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 619 pp.

John Frame, professor of systematic theology and philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, says this of the book:

Dr. Peterson told me in correspondence, “my work is not [systematic theology] as much as laying biblical foundations for systematics.” Well, people can define terms as they like. But I think Salvation Accomplished by the Son is systematic theology at its very best. It deals with doctrines of systematic theology by bringing them into closest proximity with the biblical texts that justify them. That is the kind of systematics of which we need much more. This is the book to which, after Scripture itself, I would first turn to explore any question about Jesus’s incarnation, atonement, or resurrection.

Am I Really a Christian?

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This is probably the best all-around book to give to someone who is struggling with “assurance of salvation”:

Mike McKinley. Am I Really a Christian? The Most Important Question You’re Not Asking. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.

(See Brian Hedges’s review and my previous blog post on Mike’s first book, Church Planting Is for Wimps.)

The book’s website has several videos. In this one Mike answers the question, “Can someone believe the gospel but not really be repentant?”

 

 

In Praise of Paradox

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K. Scott Oliphint, God with Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God  (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 225–26:

In Praise of Paradox

I mentioned in the introduction that we must get used to the idea that antinomy and paradox will inevitably surround discussions such as this one. But the appeal to antinomy, paradox, and mystery is oftentimes troubling to those sympathetic to a less-than-Reformed understanding of God’s character and decree. In an attempted refutation of Calvinism and the “problem” of divine sovereignty, Jack Cottrell complains: [Read more…] about In Praise of Paradox