Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Jason DeRouchie’s Survey of Jesus’ Bible

by

surveyI can’t think of another OT seminary professor I’d rather team up with than Jason DeRouchie (pronounced deh-ROW-shee). He embodies Ezra 7:10. 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.

Jason has been working on a 500-page book for about seven years, and it releases today:

Jason S. DeRouchie, ed. What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2013. 496 pp.

I love the subtitle.

My endorsement: [Read more…] about Jason DeRouchie’s Survey of Jesus’ Bible

Live Like a Narnian

by

rigneyThis book releases this week in time for the Desiring God national conference on C. S. Lewis this weekend:

Joe Rigney. Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis’ Chronicles. Minneapolis: Eyes & Pen, 2013. 182 pp. (Available in Kindle.)

Joe is scheduled to speak on the topic of this book tomorrow at the DG conference.

My endorsement: [Read more…] about Live Like a Narnian

How Should Parents Discipline Their Children? Is Spanking Wrong?

by

I contributed this article to the latest issue of Southern Seminary’s Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry:

Naselli, Andrew David. “Training Children for Their Good.” The Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry 3.2 (2013): 48–64.

The article addresses parental discipline. This is a lightly edited manuscript from a sermon I preached on June 3, 2012.

Here’s the outline:

1. Seven Propositions about Discipline from Hebrews 12:4–11

      1. God disciplines his children (Heb 12:5–7, 10).
      2. God disciplines all his children (Heb 12:6, 8).
      3. God disciplines only his children (Heb 12:6–8).
      4. Discipline is training: God disciplines his children for their good (Heb 12:10–11).
      5. Discipline seems unpleasant and painful (Heb 12:11).
      6. God’s children should endure God’s discipline (Heb 12:5, 7, 9).
      7. God’s disciplining his children compares to human parents’ disciplining their children (Heb 12:5, 7–10).

2. Levels of Discipline in the Book of Proverbs

The above table is from Paul D. Wegner, Catherine Wegner, and Kimberlee Herman, Wise Parenting: Guidelines from the Book of Proverbs (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 2009), 32.
      • Level 1. Teach
      • Level 2. Warn
      • Leve 3. Enforce
        • Does “the rod” represent discipline but exclude physical discipline (Prov 13:24; 22:15; 23:13–14; 29:15)?
        • Is spanking a form of physical and psychological child abuse?
        • Do the proverbs about using the rod refer to young men rather than children?
        • Is spanking an obsolete part of the Mosaic law-covenant in the Old Testament?
        • Is spanking antithetical to the gospel?

3. Concluding Application

      1. Pray for your children.
      2. Evangelize your children.
      3. Use multiple levels of discipline.
      4. Love your children, and tell them and show them that you love them.
      5. Beware of two extremes: (a) not disciplining and (b) over-disciplining.
      6. Fathers, take the lead in discipline.
      7. Learn how to discipline each of your children most effectively.
      8. Distinguish between family rules and the Bible.
      9. Be humble about parental discipline; don’t be proud and judgmental.
      10. Persevere with a long-term view that trusts God’s word.

4. Recommended Resources

Related:

  1. Endnote 8 in the article: I preached on Hebrews 12:3–17 on March 3, 2013 to Sovereign Grace Church in Greenville, South Carolina, and I only briefly mentioned parental discipline because that is not the passage’s primary point.
  2. Ask Pastor John: “How Do I Know If I’m Being Disciplined by God?”

Carson on Ecumenism and John 17

by

farewellD. A. Carson, The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus: An Exposition of John 14–17 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 201–4:

To some people, the term ecumenism has only good connotations. Utter the word, and they hear harps playing and angels singing; or if harps and angels are deemed too ethereal, at very least a certain fire lights up their eye. To others the same word evokes only images of evil. Ecumenism is intrinsically a doctrine of compromise which emasculates the gospel and wickedly flirts with apostasy and assorted forms of unbelief. The first group tends to cite John 17 in its favor; the second group tends either to ignore John 17 or else to include within the unity only a very small group, while defining the unity in such innocuous terms (e.g., making it entirely a positional unity with no entailment for conduct) that it becomes difficult to see how such unity could ever serve as a witness of anything to the world. What does the text say? [Read more…] about Carson on Ecumenism and John 17