Mullins Lectures with Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old, March 3-5, 2009

Here’s the schedule for the Mullins lectures at SBTS with Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old this week:

 

Tuesday, March 3rd

10:00 a.m.      Chapel Service, Alumni Chapel, “Preaching as Telling the Story of God’s Mighty Acts of Redemption”

1:00 p.m.       Lecture, Heritage Hall, “A Balanced Diet of Public Prayer”

Wednesday, March 4th

10:00 a.m.       Lecture, Heritage Hall, “Worship as Remembering”

Thursday, March 5th 

Keeping Holiday, by Starr Meade

“I love this book! I am so glad I am reading this book. You have got to read it!”

Those are usually phrases that go out of my mouth into my wife’s ears, but this time she was saying these things to me!

She absolutely loved Starr Meade’s Keeping Holiday, and she has me convinced. I’m eager to read it. I tend to read fiction when I travel, so if I don’t read it before my next flight, I hope to then.

For an interview with Starr Meade on the book, see the Crossway Blog.

If you’re not sold on Keeping Holiday yet, let me add this: my sweet wife has an MA in biblical studies, and she is far more intelligent than I am. A book that impresses her has got to be good! Moreover, she read it aloud to our five year old, and he never wanted her to stop reading and raved about it every night at dinner. This book accomplished the difficult task of capturing the heart of a homeschooling mother and a five year old boy.

Congrats to Starr Meade, and thanks to Crossway for what I anticipate to be a great tale.

Dumisani Theological Institute

Dumisani Theological Institute in South Africa is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. I only know of this school because of my friend Alistair Wilson, who teaches there. Alistair also serves as the New Testament book review editor for Themelios, so if you’re sympathetic with the aims of The Gospel Coalition, you have a friend who teaches at Dumisani Theological Institute in South Africa.

For more on the Wilsons see this link.

Let me encourage you to join their cause on Facebook, add them to your prayer list, and consider supporting them in other ways you’re able.

May the Lord prosper the advance of the gospel in South Africa!

Tyndale Bulletin Essay on the Center of Biblical Theology Now Online

I have just been notified that my essay on the center of biblical theology published in Tyndale Bulletin in 2006 is now online:

The Glory of God in Salvation through Judgment: The Centre of Biblical Theology? (that’s not a typo, and that’s not me deploying British spelling; the editors changed my American spellings to the British ones). I’m glad this is now online!

See also: “The Center of Biblical Theology in Acts: Deliverance and Damnation Display the Divine,” Themelios 33.3 (2008), 34-47.

And my manuscript on a book project on the center of Biblical Theology arguing for this center is due to Crossway January 1, 2010. I would appreciate your prayers that the Lord would enable me to help his people, particularly the shepherds and teachers of his people, understand the Bible in a deeper way (borrowing the motto of the ESV Study Bible).

Sharia Law in Great Britain?

Ministers of the Gospel should be calling people to faith in Christ and repentance from sin. We are stewards of the mysteries of God, charged to preach the word, and given the good news of a way to be reconciled to God through faith in Christ and the power of the Spirit. Christ has died to pay the penalty for sin, risen in triumph over sin and death, and poured out the Spirit to inaugurate the age to come. Jesus is Lord. We serve his Kingdom.

Our business is not politics, except insofar as we warn people of the wrath to come on behavior that defiles the holiness of God and call them to repent of sin, trust in Christ, and live for his glory.

All this to say, what Great Britain needs from her ministers is the gospel, not advocacy of Sharia Law, which apparently is making inroads with the Archbishop’s approval: “Archbishop of Canterbury: Society is coming round to my views on sharia.”

Southern Seminary and the History of American Christianity

If you’re in the Louisville area, do check out the conference here at SBTS next week on Southern Seminary and the History of American Christianity.

The lineup of speakers is an impressive array of historians from whose writings I have profited.

The schedule is here.

Mr. President, Think about Your Daughters: The Nomination of David Ogden Is Shameful

Dr. Mohler’s column today, “Pornography, Public Culture, and the New Administration,” has the details on Barack Obama’s shameful nomination of extremist-pornography-defender David Ogden for the post of Deputy Attorney General of the United States. 

This is a shameful outrage. David Ogden has sued to create a society in which children are easily snared by the filth and smut of the perversions of pornography.

God sees. God knows. God will defend the little ones: “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt 18:6). 

I pray that Barack Obama will consider what David’s Ogden’s actions mean for his daughters, change his mind, and pressure Ogden to withdraw himself from consideration for this post. 

Proverbs 14:3, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

Visit the Sick, by Brian Croft

Auburndale Baptist Church is doing good ministry here in Louisville, KY, and it has been a joy to get acquainted with their pastor, Brian Croft, in recent days. Brian has taken up a topic that is all too often overlooked, and he has done us all a favor by doing it concisely!

If you’re a pastor, let me encourage you to grab this little volume and let Brian encourage you to shepherd the flock as you Visit the Sick. And, if you’re a pastor, don’t just get a copy for yourself, get a half dozen to give to those young guys you’re mentoring in the ministry, or to those older guys, maybe your deacons, who help you out with the visitation of those in hospitals or nursing homes.

I’ll never forget the time that Tommy Dahn visited my wife and me in the hospital at a time of pain and sorrow. He had the courage to show up. He loved us. He prayed for us. And he sealed himself to our hearts as our pastor on that day.

Don’t miss these opportunities to apply the gospel and the love of Christ to people–indeed, opportunities to live out the gospel and the love of Christ for their benefit. Take and read. And Visit the Sick!

Harold Hoehner, 1935-2009

May the Lord comfort the Hoehner family as they mourn the passing of Dr. Harold Hoehner.

Dr. Hoehner’s children are scattered all over the world in the Lord’s service, so they are in need of prayer as they seek to make long journeys to an unexpected funeral.

DTS has a tribute up to Dr. Hoehner here.

SBTS Rolls Out a New Website

Check it out.