Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Murray Harris’s 6-Page Expanded Paraphrase of Colossians

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HarrisMurray Harris has served as a professor of New Testament exegesis and theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and as Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, England. He presently resides in New Zealand.

I describe him more (and relay a funny story about him) in this post, which highlights his book Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament. [Read more…] about Murray Harris’s 6-Page Expanded Paraphrase of Colossians

The Message and Influence of Deuteronomy: A Festschrift for Dan Block

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BlockFs

Colleagues and former students of Dan Block surprised him with this Festschrift last month during a session at the Evangelical Theological Society in Baltimore:

Jason S. DeRouchie, Jason Gile, and Kenneth J. Turner, eds. For Our Good Always: Studies on the Message and Influence of Deuteronomy in Honor of Daniel I. Block. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013. xxxvi + 572 pp.

You can read a two-paragraph description of the book at Eisenbraun’s site. [Read more…] about The Message and Influence of Deuteronomy: A Festschrift for Dan Block

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

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KeenerThis new edition is scheduled to release in February 2014:

Craig S. Keener. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. 2nd ed. Downers Grove: IVP, 2014.

The first edition, which has sold over 600,000 copies, released twenty years ago in 1993, and the second edition slightly revises it. (Keener’s foreword and acknowledgments to the second edition doesn’t specify what he has revised in the second edition, and I haven’t compared the two editions to spot changes.) [Read more…] about The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

My Carriage Is Broken! (John Newton on the Folly of Complaining)

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Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate, and his [carriage] should break down a mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way; what a fool we should think him, if we saw him ringing his hands, and blubbering out all the remaining mile, “My [carriage] is broken! My [carriage] is broken!”

–John Newton

Joe Rigney Explains How Envy Works and How to Fight It

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Joe Rigney recently preached two insightful sermons on envy to my church:

  1. Winning the War Against Envy and Rivalry
  2. Learning to Love the Dance of Grace

(Video, audio, and manuscripts are available at those links.)

I’ve often witnessed well-intentioned people warn others against pride, but I don’t recall similar warnings against envy. This excerpt from the first sermon was an aha-moment for me: [Read more…] about Joe Rigney Explains How Envy Works and How to Fight It

Ben Witherington: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” is “not good theology”

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“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21b).

The daughters of two well-known theologians recently died, and both theologians publicly reflected on the tragic events. One is an Arminian, and one is a Calvinist:

  1. Ben Witherington (an Arminian), “What Good Grief Looks Like When a Daughter Dies: Walking the Way of Grace in the Midst of My Grief” (April 11, 2012)
  2. Fred Zaspel (a Calvinist), “Reflections on the Loss of Our Daughter” (November 13, 2013)

(HT: Tony Reinke)

Losing a daughter in the prime of her life must be unimaginably painful! But my jaw dropped when I read what Ben Witherington asserts about Job 1:21 (bullet points added):

[Read more…] about Ben Witherington: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” is “not good theology”