This is the top book I’d recommend to a lay person on church membership:
Jonathan Leeman. Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus. 
9Marks. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 142 pp. 28-page sample PDF.
Some excerpts: [Read more…] about An Accessible Book on Church Membership
If you follow my blog via email or Twitter, then you haven’t been receiving automatic updates since June 12. (If you subscribe via the RSS feed, then you shouldn’t have experienced a problem.) On June 12, I somehow included an unsupported character in a blog post that broke the feed. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Many thanks to my webmaster, Phil Gons, for figuring this out and in the process redesigning the site with a new theme.
Here are links to the eleven blog posts I published between June 12 and July 6 (#10 is my favorite):
The current issue of Tabletalk is on “Drawing the Line: Why Doctrine Matters.”
These two articles are particularly worth reading:
DeYoung suggests and explains “seven steps we ought to pursue in establishing doctrinal boundaries”: [Read more…] about Why, Where, and How Do We Draw the Line?
God has graciously given us our third daughter: Emma Elyse Naselli was born this morning!
(click image to enlarge)
Emma is from emunah (אֱמוּנָה), the Hebrew word for faithfulness.
Elyse is from eleos (ἔλεος), the Greek word for mercy. The Greek translation of the Old Testament typically uses this word (213 of 248 occurrences) to translate the Hebrew word chesed (חֶסֶד), which refers to loving loyalty or loyal love based on a committed relationship that results in kind deeds.
For the LORD is good and his love [KJV: “mercy”; Heb. chesed; Gk. eleos] endures forever;
his faithfulness [Heb. emunah] continues through all generations. (Psalm 100:5)
The cadence of Emma Elyse fits with our other girls: a four-syllable name with the emphasis on one and four:
- Kara Marie
- Gloria Grace
- Emma Elyse
Emma Elyse’s name will constantly remind us of God’s mercy and faithfulness. Here’s part of the back-story, lightly edited from a blog post that Jenni wrote on February 1:
This book is available for free in PDF and Kindle formats:
Kevin T. Bauder, ed. Heart, Soul, Might: Meditations on Knowing and Loving God. Minneapolis: Central Seminary Press, 2012.
“It is a collection of poems, prayers, and essays in devotional theology or, if you prefer, theological devotion” (p. iii).
The authors are the faculty of Central Seminary in Minneapolis. More info here.
There are 38 articles: [Read more…] about Free New Book Edited by Kevin Bauder
The front matter of Robert H. Gundry’s A Survey of the New Testament (4th ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003) lists Todd Bolen’s Pictorial Library of Bible Lands in his “permissions and credits.”
I looked into it, and I recently obtained a complete set of the newest edition of Todd Bolen’s Pictorial Library of Bible Lands (18 vols.). It released in May 2012, and it’s selling now for $389. [Read more…] about Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
I have 17 Bible atlases in my library, and I’ve used several others. I’m very much an amateur at this (I still haven’t visited the Middle East!), but for what it’s worth, these are my favorite four Bible atlases:
This expands on the maps and related notes in the ESV Study Bible.
Related:
These two books are shortened versions of Wayne Grudem’s larger book Politics 
:
Cf. my coauthored review of Grudem’s book Politics.