Last week I read Steve Jobs, the recent biography by Walter Isaacson.
(The audiobook is about 24 hours long, and I listened to it in 12 hours on double speed. The narrator reads very slowly.)
Fascinating.
If I had to summarize Steve Jobs with just two words, I’d choose these:
Reflections on the book and the man:
This is the most readable defense of capitalism I’ve read (and it’s more relevant than ever with the recent “Occupy Wall Street”-type protests):
Jay W. Richards. Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. New York: HarperOne, 2009.
Richards debunks eight myths, which are listed in the book’s table of contents:
Here are some excerpts from chapter 4:
Winston Churchill summed up the dilemma with characteristic wit: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Most of us know perfectly well that socialist solutions are worse than the disease. (p. 83)
[Read more…] about If I Become Rich, Won’t Someone Else Become Poor?
I read this book several months ago, and I’ve enjoyed subsequent discussions about it:
Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert. What Is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011. 
Here’s how D. A. Carson recommends it:
Among the many books that have recently appeared on mission, this is the best one if you are looking for sensible definitions, clear thinking, readable writing, and the ability to handle the Bible in more than proof-texting ways. I pray that God will use it to bring many to a renewed grasp of what the gospel is and how that gospel relates, on the one hand, to biblical theology and, on the other, to what we are called to do.
Ed Stetzer’s Themelios review is critical, but I generally agree with DeYoung and Gilbert on this one.
Related:
1. TGC discussion (11:43)
2. Desiring God interview with Scott Anderson (1:44:55)
3. 9 Marks interviews with Mark Dever
5. Review by John Starke
6. Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, “Some Answers to Some Nagging Questions”
7. Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, “One More Time on Good Works and the Mission of the Church”
8. Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, “A Response to Ed Stetzer’s Review of ‘What Is the Mission of the Church?’”
9. Justin Taylor, “Responding to Stetzer and Critics on the Mission of the Church”
10. Kevin DeYoung, “The Mission of the Church in Living Color”
11. Collin Hansen, “Mission Critical”
TGC published the latest issue of Themelios this morning.
I contributed two book reviews:
Note also Rod Decker’s “An Evaluation of the 2011 Edition of the New International Version.” (It revises a paper I mentioned in July.) Related to Decker’s article is a recent unpublished one:
William W. Combs. “The History of the NIV Translation Controversy.” A paper presented at the Mid-America Conference on Preaching in Allen Park, MI (hosted by Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary). October 20, 2011 (MP3).
I love how Christian replies to Apollyon when they face off in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. After Apollyon accuses Christian of a series of sins, he basically replies, “You’re right. But I’m actually even worse than that.” That disarming statement sets up the death blow:
Apollyon accused,
- “You almost fainted when you first set out, when you almost choked in the Swamp of Despond.
- You also attempted to get rid of your burden in the wrong way, instead of patiently waiting for the Prince to take it off.
- You sinfully slept and lost your scroll,
- you were almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions, and
- when you talk of your journey and of what you have heard and seen, you inwardly desire your own glory in all you do and say.”
[Christian replied,] [Read more…] about When Satan Tempts Me to Despair
Ben Witherington III, Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 83–84:
[excerpt from ch. 7: “The Write Stuff: The Ability to Research and Write”]
Unfortunately, we live in a culture of “experts” where expertise is revered; sadly, people’s egos get bound up in the desire to be a “world’s leading authority in X.” The expert too often feels it is enough to do pure research. He has no need to distill things for the masses; that’s beneath his dignity and pay scale. It is enough to live in one’s head and to talk only to other equally heady folk in the same field.
Whatever the merits of this approach to research in other fields, a Christian who is a Bible teacher or scholar should never take such an approach. Never! Research by a Christian is never done just for its own sake, or even just to advance knowledge in a given field. It is done in service to the Lord and to his church. I must confess I am sometimes baffled by some Christian NT scholars who are perfectly content to just talk to small circles of like-minded experts without any sense of responsibility to share their knowledge with a broader audience—indeed with the church.
Cf. this chapter:
D. A. Carson, “The Scholar as Pastor,” in The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry (ed. David Mathis and Owen Strachan; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 71–106.
It’s based on this talk from this event:
Ben Witherington III, Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 113:
[excerpt from ch. 9: “Honing Your Rhetoric: The Ability to Lecture and Teach”]
Learning Is Not Enough for Good Lecturing
Sadly, some Christian teachers ought not to be teachers, but because there are so few pure research professors in biblical studies or in any sort of Christian studies, these folks become teachers by default. Some of them can’t lecture their way out of a paper bag. I had a teacher like this in college. The running joke was that the difference between this teacher and the textbook was that the textbook didn’t mumble or stutter. As cruel as that joke may seem, it was an accurate assessment of this poor man’s attempt to teach. He couldn’t explain anything. He just kept quoting the textbook.
Tragically, too few Bible teachers or scholars have had any training in pedagogy, much less in Christian education. Furthermore, they have never even been taught the rudiments of good communication.
The annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society is scheduled to take place in San Francisco later this month. The program is available as a PDF.
There are four prioritized reasons to attend this annual meeting:
This session may interest you:
Perspectives on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism
Thursday, November 17, 2011 | 3:00-6:10 pm | Parc 55 – Divisadero
Moderator/Introduction: Andy Naselli (The Gospel Coalition)
Presenters:
- R. Albert Mohler Jr. (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary): A Conservative Evangelical View on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism
- Kevin T. Bauder (Central Seminary): A Fundamentalist View on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism
- Carl Trueman (Westminster Theological Seminary): Response to Albert Mohler and Kevin Bauder
Panel Discussion
The discussion will be related to the book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism.