Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

What the Bible Teaches about Ethnic Harmony

by

In this new 44-page article, I support eight propositions about ethnicity:

Naselli, Andrew David. “What the Bible Teaches about Ethnic Harmony.” Midwestern Journal of Theology 19.2 (2020): 14–57.

    1. God created every human in his image with equal worth in his sight, so ethnic partiality is sinful.
    2. Humans in the Bible’s storyline are multiethnic.
    3. God’s global plan to save sinners includes people from every ethnic group.
    4. God approves of interethnic marriage.
    5. God’s people must love their neighbors across ethnic lines.
    6. The church—both Jewish and Gentile Christians—must maintain the unity (including ethnic harmony) that Christ powerfully created.
    7. The church should welcome ethnic diversity.
    8. The church should love justice, which entails treating all ethnicities justly and encouraging its members to pursue justice in society.

Update: I helped condense the gist of this article into “Ethnic Harmony Affirmations and Denials,” a statement by the Bethlehem Baptist Church elders on February 6, 2021.

12 Books I Recently Endorsed

by

Here are 12 books I recently endorsed (nine for 2020, three for 2021):

  1. Albuquerque, Roque N. Presupposition and [E]Motion: The Upgraded Function and the Semantics of the Participle in the New Testament. New York: Lang, 2020. “Dr. Albuquerque skillfully analyzes what the authors of the Greek New Testament intend to communicate when they begin a sentence with an adverbial participle before the main clause.”
  2. Beale, G. K., and Benjamin L. Gladd. The Story Retold: A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020. ”Beale and Gladd concisely survey each book of the New Testament through a biblical-theological lens. I plan to require this book for my seminary course that focuses on the theological message of each New Testament book.“
  3. Crowe, Brandon D. Every Day Matters: A Biblical Approach to Productivity. Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020. “Brandon Crowe distills the best secular books on productivity but with a distinctively Christian approach. What drives his common-sense advice is for us to glorify God.”
  4. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020. ”Grudem’s Systematic Theology is well organized, easy to understand, usually persuasive, and devotional. Grudem does not merely inform you; he stirs your affections to love and worship the triune God. Grudem is not attempting to write a cutting-edge contemporary theology that plays theological Ping-Pong with trendy non-evangelical theologians. Nor is he attempting to write a historical theology that exhaustively explains what significant Bible interpreters and theologians have believed. Rather, he is serving the church by helping Christians who are not experts in theology better understand what the whole Bible says about God, God’s word, man, Christ, the Holy Spirit, angels and demons, salvation, the church, and the end times.”
  5. Harris, Murray J. Navigating Tough Texts: A Guide to Problem Passages in the New Testament. Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020. “Murray Harris is a veteran New Testament scholar who knows the Greek of the New Testament better than most English-speaking people today know English. In this book he shares 66 short devotional interpretations of challenging passages in the New Testament.”
  6. Leeman, Jonathan. One Assembly: Rethinking the Multisite and Multiservice Church Models. 9Marks. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020. “Evangelical churches that are multisite and/or multiservice are like that for good-intentioned pragmatic reasons. Jonathan Leeman challenges us to think exegetically and theologically about a popular practice that may not be as strategic as so many assume.”
  7. Morgan, Christopher W., with Robert A. Peterson. Christian Theology: The Biblical Story and Our Faith. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2020. ‘‘Chris Morgan’s systematic theology is concise, easy to understand, and edifying. He models how to do theology by rooting his conclusions in exegesis and biblical theology while considering historical theology and culminating in practical theology.”
  8. Verrett, Brian A. The Serpent in Samuel: A Messianic Motif. Eugene, OR: Resource, 2020. “Brian Verrett’s work on the serpent is first-class. He skillfully combines rigorous exegesis with whole-Bible biblical theology.”
  9. Winston, Richard Wellons. Misunderstanding, Nationalism, or Legalism: Identifying Israel’s Chief Error with Reference to the Law. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020. ”Winston demonstrates that the main idea of Romans 9:30–10:13 is not that Israelites are guilty for zealously maintaining their nationalistic boundary markers—circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws. Rather, Paul argues that many Israelites failed to believe in Jesus and foolishly attempted the impossible—to earn righteousness based on the law.”
  10. Crabtree, Sam. Practicing Thankfulness: Cultivating a Grateful Heart in All Circumstances. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. “I thank God for Sam Crabtree. He is a wise and jovial brother who practices what he preaches in this book: he gives thanks in all circumstances. (Don’t miss the last chapter—a creative list of one hundred practical ways to be thankful.)”
  11. Piper, John. Providence. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. “John Piper helps us see and savor God’s purposeful sovereignty by inductively demonstrating what the whole Bible teaches about its ultimate goal, its nature, and its extent.”
  12. Wellum, Stephen J. The Person of Christ: An Introduction. Short Studies in Systematic Theology. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. “Christians affirm seemingly contradictory claims about Jesus: self-existent and depending on food and water; all-powerful and getting tired and sleeping; all-knowing and growing in knowledge; everywhere present and localized; eternal and born from a mother’s womb; unable to sin and tempted as we are; immortal and dying; in short—God and man. How can that be? And why is that so glorious? I require my seminary students to read Steve Wellum’s 500-page God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ because Wellum masterfully answers such questions by integrating exegesis, biblical theology, historical theology, and systematic theology. This book is shorter, more accessible, and less intimidating—an ideal entry point for someone who wants to better understand who Christ is.”

Two Recent Interviews on the Conscience

by

Here are two recent podcast interviews I did on the conscience:

1. “The Conscience and the Home” with Abigail Dodds and Tilly Dillehay for their Home Fires podcast (recorded 10/8/2020)

(By the way, you won’t regret subscribing to that podcast. Lots of wisdom and encouragement. My family loves the Dodds family. No pretense. Genuine. Hospitable. Earnest. Joyful. Delightful. Faithful and fruitful.)

2. “Applying the Bible to Conscience Issues” with Mark Ward for Faithlife’s Bible Study Magazine Podcast (recorded 5/15/2020, about two months into the initial COVID lockdowns)

(Mark Ward is a longtime friend. As I wrote a few years ago, he’s a sharp thinker and witty communicator.)

40 Questions about Biblical Theology

by

I teamed up with two friends—a Christ-centered Old Testament scholar (Jason DeRouchie) and a Christ-centered systematic theologian (Oren Martin)—to write an introduction to biblical theology:

Jason S. DeRouchie, Oren R. Martin, and Andrew David Naselli. 40 Questions about Biblical Theology. 40 Questions. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2020. 400 pages.

From the introduction: [Read more…] about 40 Questions about Biblical Theology

Kill the Dragon, Get the Girl! A Biblical Theology of Snakes and Dragons (The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer)

by

This book is my attempt to present a biblical theology of snakes and dragons:

Andrew David Naselli. The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer. Short Studies in Biblical Theology. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020. 157 pp.

Available from Amazon (including Kindle), Westminster Bookstore, and Logos Bible Software.

Serpent is an umbrella term that includes both snakes and dragons. It’s the big category. Snakes and dragons are kinds of serpents. [Read more…] about Kill the Dragon, Get the Girl! A Biblical Theology of Snakes and Dragons (The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer)

Joe Rigney Is President-Elect of Bethlehem College and Seminary

by

Today the trustees of Bethlehem College & Seminary announced that they have selected Joe Rigney as president-elect. Details here.

I’m grateful to God for President Tim Tomlinson’s faithful leadership as our school’s first president.

Here are seven reasons I’m grateful that our trustees selected Joe Rigney to serve as our school’s second president:

  1. My school’s presidential profile says that the president must “embody, grasp, embrace, and be able to articulate and defend the Bethlehem College & Seminary Affirmation of Faith,” especially what John Piper, our Chancellor, calls ”Christian Hedonism.” If there is a person on the planet who can articulate Christian hedonism better than John Piper, that person is Joe Rigney. (I have heard John Piper say that he thinks Joe Rigney does it better.)
  2. Rigney is committed to believe and celebrate whatever God’s word teaches no matter how unpopular that may be. As one of my friends put it, Rigney ”would rather die than drift a millimeter from the Bible. A man whose grip on Reality is so firm that you’d have to chop off his hand to undo it. And even then, he’d be holding on with his teeth and his toes.”
  3. Rigney is a rigorous, perceptive, penetrating thinker. He models what Piper calls assiduous attentiveness. He can wisely analyze multilayered intellectual and cultural issues. He is unflappable and intellectually honest.
  4. Rigney has good theological instincts, intuitions, and burdens.
  5. Rigney is humble and eminently persuadable, and he is principled and not easily manipulated. He can sympathize with others while being aware of how empathy can be sinful.
  6. Rigney is gifted at communicating in a clear, articulate, and compelling way. (I borrow the phrase ”Kill the dragon, get the girl!” from him.) He is one of the few people I enjoy listening to talk about anything—whatever the topic—because he is consistently interesting, thought-provoking, and edifying.
  7. Rigney is not just a gifted professor but a faithful family man and pastor. I recently listened to every sermon he has preached to Cities Church (a church that Bethlehem Baptist Church planted about five years ago), and he served me well by faithfully explaining and applying the Bible.

To learn more about Bethlehem College & Seminary, see here.

Update on October 1: John Piper thanks God for Joe Rigney as the president-elect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgdV9bmM4Rw

My Concise Commentary on 1 Corinthians

by

My concise commentary on 1 Corinthians is now available:

Andrew David Naselli. “1 Corinthians.” Pages 209–394 in Romans–Galatians. Vol. 10 of ESV Expository Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020.

It is part of a single volume that includes three other concise commentaries:

  1. Robert W. Yarbrough on Romans (pp. 21–208)
  2. Dane Ortlund on 2 Corinthians (pp. 395–566)
  3. Frank Thielman on Galatians (pp. 567–652)

The volume is available from Amazon, Westminster Bookstore, and Logos Bible Software.

Recommended Resources on 1 Corinthians

(What follows is the concise annotated bibliography at the end of my commentary.) [Read more…] about My Concise Commentary on 1 Corinthians