Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Books

“The Flames of Rome”: A Documentary Novel by Paul Maier

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Last night Jenni and I finished reading Paul Maier‘s The Flames of Rome. It is outstanding! It is a bit more explicit than Maier’s Pontius Pilate (sometimes uncomfortably so, e.g., re Nero’s depravity), but overall, it is a fine tool to engage one’s mind with first-century Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian history in a way that is virtually impossible by reading only encyclopedia-type summaries of the day. Bravo!

I would not be surprised if both of these books become required reading for NT classes I may teach in the future. They’re that useful.

Related: “Pontius Pilate”: A Documentary Novel by Paul Maier

Three Ways to Spoil the Gospel

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While addressing the question “Ought We to Pray to the Holy Spirit?”, Graham Cole notes that there are three “ways to spoil the gospel” (p. 64):

  1. addition
  2. subtraction
  3. disproportion (“by a lack of due weight in theological emphasis, by giving an element in it either too much or too little accent”)

Here’s the context (from Graham Cole, Engaging with the Holy Spirit: Real Questions, Practical Answers [Wheaton: Crossway, 2007], 64):

To pray to the Spirit is not wrong theologically, but if that practice displaces prayer to the Father in the name of the Son in reliance upon the Spirit, then there may be another sort of problem that emerges. The problem is that of disproportion. There are many ways to spoil the gospel. [1] One such way is by addition: Christ plus Mosaic circumcision as the gospel for the Gentiles. Galatians addresses this error. [2] The gospel may be spoiled by subtraction. Christ is divine but not human. The recently publicized Gnostic Gospel of Judas appears to take this road. Jesus is depicted as saying to Judas: “You will be greater than all the others, Judas. You will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” This error subtracts human nature from Christ and turns him into only a seeming human. This docetic error was the problem facing the original readers of John’s first letter (1 John 4:1-3). [3] But the gospel may also be spoiled by a lack of due weight in theological emphasis, by giving an element in it either too much or too little accent. A biblical truth may be weighted in a way that skews our thinking about God and the gospel. Arguably, to make prayer to the Holy Spirit the principal practice in Christian praying would be such an error. The Holy Spirit may be prayed to. He is God. But the Holy Spirit is not to be prayed to in such a way as to mask the mediatorship of Christ and our location in Christ as members of his body. For to pray to the Father in the name of the Son in reliance upon the Spirit is to rehearse the very structure of the gospel . . . .

It would be wise to ask yourself (and others who know you!), “Am I spoiling the gospel by disproportion? Is there an area that I am failing to give due weight in theological emphasis by giving an element in it either too much or too little accent?”

ESVSB

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My Leather TruTone Classic Black ESV Study Bible arrived last Tuesday, but I had just left campus for a week so I didn’t get it until I returned to Deerfield this morning. I’m planning to read it in time to submit a review of it by March 1, 2009 for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. For now I think one word sums up my initial reaction: wow.

Related:

Three Views on the NT Use of the OT

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I’m planning to write my second dissertation on the use of the OT in a passage in Romans, so I am particularly grateful that Zondervan is publishing this volume:

Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde, eds. Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Counterpoints. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008. 256 pp.

Structure

(The table of contents and an excerpt from chapter 1 is available as a 10-page PDF here.) [Read more…] about Three Views on the NT Use of the OT

“Pontius Pilate”: A Documentary Novel by Paul Maier

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Last night my wife and I finished reading a historical novel together (Maier calls this genre the “documentary novel”):

Paul L. Maier [Wikipedia], Pontius Pilate (Doubleday, 1968; Kregel, 1990), 372 pp.

The book is outstanding! It is engagingly written from Pontius Pilate’s vantage point, starting with Pilate’s political life in Rome and appointment as prefect in Judea (AD 26) and continuing through the murder of Jesus (33 by Maier’s calculation, which is feasible though many scholars prefer 30), death of Tiberius (37), assassination of Caligula (41), and beginning of the reign of Claudius (41-54). The overall plot and every proper name used in the book is historically accurate, and Maier fills in this factual skeleton with colorful fictional details. It reconstructs many events described in the Gospels and Acts from the viewpoint of an educated, unbelieving Roman prefect.

God used this book to engage our minds even more with the Greco-Roman and Jewish history of NT times in a way that has helped us understand the NT better. It also has deepened our understanding of why Paul calls the gospel offensive foolishness to non-Christians (1 Corinthians 1). Praise God for a historically rooted faith and historically reliable revelation.

Next up: A historical novel during the reign of Nero (AD 54-68):

Paul L. Maier, The Flames of Rome (Doubleday, 1981; Kregel, 1991), 444 pp.

HT: JT

The New Media Frontier

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Yesterday I read a fascinating book set to release on September 30:

John Mark Reynolds and Roger Overton, eds. The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ. With a foreword by Hugh Hewitt. Wheaton: Crossway, 2008. 254 pp.

More info (the content online, endosements, etc.) are likely forthcoming on the Crossway site. In the mean time, here are a few highlights: [Read more…] about The New Media Frontier