“I was sixty years old when this story began—when I was forced to have friends,” admits introvert Noël Piper, wife of John Piper. She explains why and what happened in this Tabletalk article.
Related:
Ten Theses on Union with Christ and Transformation
Robert Letham, Union with Christ: In Scripture, History, and Theology 
(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2011), 123–28:
Ten Theses on Union with Christ and Transformation
- The union we enjoy with Christ is more real and more fundamental than the union we have with members of our own bodies. . . .
- This is not a union of essence—we do not cease to be human and become God or get merged into God like ingredients in an ontological soup. This is not apotheōsis. . . .
- We do not lose our personal individual identities in some universal, generic humanity. . . .
- Union with Christ comes to expression in, and is cultivated by, the Word and sacraments. . . .
- The body and blood of Christ are not materially, corporeally, or physically present in the Lord’s Supper. . . .
- In the Lord’s Supper we are lifted up by the Holy Spirit to feed on Christ. . . .
- We are not hypostatically united to the Son. . . .
- We are united with Christ’s person. . . .
- It is effected and developed by the Holy Spirit through faith, in and through the means of grace: the ministry of the Word, the sacraments, and prayer (WSC 88). . . .
- It will eventually lead to our being “like [Christ]” (1 John 3:1–2; see also Rom. 8:29–30; 2 Cor. 3:18), for “it is the intention of the gospel to make us sooner or later like God” (Calvin).
Related: Phil Gons has collected a helpful list of resources on union with Christ.
Three of My Favorite Books from 2011
- Sam Crabtree. Practicing Affirmation: God-Centered Praise of Those Who Are Not God. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
- Tony Reinke. Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
- Thomas R. Schreiner. Interpreting the Pauline Epistles. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.
Short explanation here (along with recommendations from three others from TGC’s staff).
Top Ten Posts in 2011
These ten posts from 2011 received the most views:
10. Mirror Reading
9. The Myth of Mutual Submission
8. The Importance of Dignified Translations
6. Bible Memory for Young Children
5. Is C. S. Lewis the Patron Saint of American Evangelicalism?
4. How to Manipulate People to Make (Fake) Professions of Faith
3. Courageous
Wordsmithy
This pithy book is fun to read:
Wilson, Douglas. Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life. Moscow, ID: Canon, 2011. 120 pp.
Wilson gives seven pieces of advice (pp. 10–11):
- Know something about the world, and by this I mean the world outside of books. This might require joining the Marines, or working on an oil rig or as a hashslinger at a truck stop in Kentucky. Know what things smell like out there. If everything you write smells like a library, then your prospective audience will be limited to those who like the smell of libraries.
- Read. Read constantly. Read the kind of stuff you wish you could write. Read until your brain creaks. Tolkien said that his ideas sprang up from the leaf mold of his mind: your readings are the trees where your fallen leaves would come from. Mind mulch. Cognitive compost. [Read more…] about Wordsmithy
Tim Keller Started Redeemer Church Because of Watergate
Sort of.
- Tim Keller planted Redeemer Church because he entered a Presbyterian denomination that encouraged church planting.
- Keller entered that denomination because in his last semester at seminary he took two courses with a professor who convinced him to adopt Presbyterian theology.
- Keller sat under that professor because at the very last minute the professor arrived at the seminary after having bureaucratic visa problems. (The professor was British.)
- While that professor was having visa problems, the seminary dean prayed one day about how he didn’t know how they were going to get the professor to arrive, and his prayer partner happened to be a seminary student named Mike Ford.
- Mike Ford happened to have some clout to get them through the bureaucratic snag because he was the son of Gerald Ford, the sitting President of the United States. [Read more…] about Tim Keller Started Redeemer Church Because of Watergate
Framing Christian Ethics: Doug Moo Reviews John Frame
I was present when Doug Moo reviewed this book at ETS in 2009:
John M. Frame. The Doctrine of the Christian Life. A Theology of Lordship. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2008.
You can view the contents of Frame’s book in a 29-page PDF here.
After recently reading Frame’s book, I asked Doug if his review has been published. It hasn’t, and he gave me permission to upload it here:
Douglas J. Moo. Review of John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life. 61st Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. New Orleans, November 2009.
Moo’s conclusion:
The book is an admirable, biblically rich, and very satisfying exploration of the meaning, implications, and practical contemporary outworking of biblical law through the lens of the Decalogue. I learned a lot from it. I was challenged in my own too often superficial level of Christian obedience. And it is an important counterbalance to those who err on the side of turning Christian ethics into a vacuous and undefined call to love one another. But at the end of the day, by not focusing enough attention on the grand New Testament themes of Christ’s lordship, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the transformation of mind and heart in conformity with Christ, the book did not satisfy me as a whole and balanced description of the Christian life.
A Book with Lots of Endorsements
This new book has fourteen pages of endorsements (counting the back cover):
Andreas J. Köstenberger and Richard D. Patterson. Invitation to Biblical Interpretation: Exploring the Hermeneutical Triad of History, Literature, and Theology. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011. 891 pp.
Fourteen pages of endorsements. You can view thirteen of those pages here in a 77-page sample PDF.