Southern Seminary’s magazine recently asked me three questions. Here’s how I answered the first:
What advice would you give to students considering doctoral studies but unsure whether they should pursue them?
Think through diagnostic questions such as these: [Read more…] about Advice for Students Considering a PhD
2017 is the 500th anniversary of an event that strangely ignited the Protestant Reformation.
If you want to learn more about the Protestant Reformation, consider these helpful resources. I combed through about 800 relevant resources in my Zotero library and selected only twenty—including some picture books and videos.
New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1950.
After hearing so many historians recommend this biography as a classic, I finally read it last year. It’s still in print for good reasons.
[Read more…] about 20 Resources on the Protestant Reformation
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)
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.
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
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
This commentary released this month:
Alan J. Thompson. Luke. Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2017. xliv + 414 pp. [Read more…] about Alan Thompson on the Gospel of Luke in Greek
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
My favorite two sentences in the Bible are Romans 11:36:
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Here’s how I trace the argument in Romans 11:33–36:
(I wrote a PhD dissertation on that passage, focusing on the previous two sentences—published in 2012.)
I asked Joe Tyrpak, one of my accountability partners, if he would design Romans 11:36 for canvas so that I could display it over the fireplace in our home and over my desk in my school office. Most people think of Joe as a faithful pastor and gifted preacher (and he is), but he also has an undergraduate degree in graphic design. Here’s what he designed for me:
[Read more…] about My Favorite Two Sentences in the Bible (Romans 11:36) on Canvas