Amen to God’s God-Centeredness, and the Whole Bible Says So, Too

John Piper has a fascinating post today on how Brad Pitt stumbled over God’s concern for his own glory.

Does the Bible teach that God seeks his own glory?

Let me invite you to consider the evidence for the claim that God’s glory is his own ultimate purpose, the main theme of the whole Bible, the linchpin in the Bible’s theodicy, and the theological centerpiece of every single biblical author.

There’s a lot of evidence for the idea that God seeks his own glory. This book has not exhausted it, but if you have trouble with the idea, how about joining me on a guided tour of the whole Bible? At many points I’m not sure I’ve done it justice, but the journey will repay all the effort you can give it.

 

Biblical Theology Interview on the CBD Academic Blog

Matthew Miller writes an academic blog for Christianbook.com, and he has put up a very encouraging post about God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment, which is followed by an interview on the book.

“How many Christmas cards do you get with the word ‘judgment’?”

“Interview”

He raised great questions that I enjoyed answering.

Completion!

A FedEx Truck just left this copy of God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology on our front doorstep.

Praise the Lord! May his favor be upon us, and may he confirm the work of our hands (Ps 90:17).

Some time back I thought through the timeline on this project. It’s a joy to reflect on God’s faithfulness to me and my family through these years:

Spring 2002, Prof. Mark Seifrid’s Seminar on New Testament Theology introduced me to the discussion of the question of the center of biblical theology, and in reading these discussions I was struck that no one had proposed that God’s glory was central to biblical theology.

October 2002, Finished my first trip through Isaiah in Hebrew, very impressed with the theme of God’s glory in salvation through judgment.

Summer 2004, Presented a paper at the Triennial Conference of the Tyndale Fellowship, responded to by I. Howard Marshall, attended by, among others, G. K. Beale and T. Desmond Alexander.

Spring 2005 (April), Met Bruce Winter at the Wheaton Theology Conference, and he told me that the paper would be published in Tyndale Bulletin.

November 2005, Presented a paper at ETS on “The Center of Biblical Theology in Acts.”

Spring 2006, “The Centre of Biblical Theology: The Glory of God in Salvation through Judgment?” appears in Tyndale Bulletin.

June 24, 2006, Justin Taylor emailed me asking if I had ever considered proposing a book on the center of biblical theology.

September 20, 2006, Justin emails again, and I send him initial proposals.

January 2007, Proposal shaping up, positive emails with JT, Schreiner, and Beale.

January 17, 2007, Discussion of August 2007 or January 2008 as completion dates!

February 7, 2007, Passes first hurdle at Crossway.

February 21, 2007, Offer to publish (contract!) comes from Crossway.

Fall 2008, “The Center of Biblical Theology in Acts” published in Themelios.

January 1, 2010, Completed manuscript submitted to Crossway.

Spring/Summer 2010, Read through the book three different times in various editorial stages.

November 4, 2010, The book arrives at Crossway, and they overnight me a copy.

November 5, 2010, Today the book arrives on my doorstep while we were eating lunch as a family. Our 6 year old son went to the door and came back with a package. Rejoicing and celebration ensues.

Glory to God in the highest.

In Houston This Weekend

Lord willing, I’ll be at Bethel Church Houston (formerly Bethel Independent Presbyterian Church) this Sunday, November 7, 2010. I’ll be preaching from Revelation 5 in their two morning services, and then at 5pm leading a Sunday Night Seminar on “God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology.”

If you’re in the Houston area, it would be a delight to see you again.

Amazon says that God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology has not yet been released. But, praise God, attendees of the Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference received copies earlier this week, and Bethel Church has boxes of the book available.

I still don’t have a print copy myself! So if you want a copy of the book, it appears that right now Bethel Church in Houston is the only place in the world where you can get it.

Danny Akin: There’s a Hell Rushing at You

Nice profile here on SEBTS’s Dr. Danny Akin. Some gems:

“I don’t want to stand before God and say I did very little with what you gave us,” Akin said.

. . . .

Of the many sights he has seen on his travels, one keeps him up at night. On a trip to Thailand with wife Charlotte, he and a couple of missionaries were on their way to a restaurant when their car passed a half-mile-long strip of prostitutes, many who apparently were between the ages of 12 and 15.

“Buddhism isn’t going to do a thing to stop that,” he said. “Hinduism isn’t going to do a thing to stop that. What could change the hearts of the pimps and the men who exploit these girls is the gospel.”

But Akin knew that less than 3 cents of every dollar given to his denomination goes abroad. So he set about to change that. Although the Great Commission Resurgence has no financial mandates for change, its approval set the wheels in motion for more money collected in donations to the Southern Baptist Convention to flow to international missions.

. . . .

“It’s always easier to dig a well than to look someone in the face and say ‘Can I share the Gospel of Jesus Christ?'” Akin said.

. . . .

For Akin, it comes down to the exclusive message of the gospel: “If I believe there is a hell rushing at you, I do you no favor by saying, ‘In the end we’ll get to the same place,’ ” Akin said. “I don’t believe that. My assignment is to help you avoid that crisis in eternity.”

Read the whole thing.

HT: SchreinerPatrick and Nathan Finn

Do You Love God’s Glory?

If you love God’s glory, you’ll be thrilled to see this new book: Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, ed., The Glory of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010).

Here’s the Table of Contents from Crossway’s site:

Contributors	17
Introduction	19
1. The Glory of God Present and Past Stephen J. Nichols	23
2. The Glory of God in the Old Testament Tremper Longman III	47
3. The Glory of God in the Synoptic Gospels, Acts, and the General Epistles Richard R. Melick Jr.	79
4. The Glory of God in John’s Gospel and Revelation Andreas J. Köstenberger	107
5. The Glory of God in Paul’s Epistles Richard B. Gaffin Jr.	127
6. Toward a Theology of the Glory of God Christopher W. Morgan	153
7. A Pastoral Theology of the Glory of God Bryan Chapell	189
8. A Missional Theology of the Glory of God J. Nelson Jennings	209

Of course, I don’t think this should be the only book on God’s glory you buy this year (ahem), but the glory of God is a topic that cannot be exhausted. May we celebrate God and relish the glory of his great name all our days, and may this book help us do so.

The Presuppositions of the Apostles’ Exegetical Method (according to Beale)

Richard Barcellos is doing a series of posts on the New Testament’s use of the Old, and today’s post includes this from Beale’s seminal essay:

Beale lists five distinctive presuppositions of the apostles’ exegetical method:

1. the assumption of corporate solidarity or representation.

2. that Christ is viewed as representing the true Israel of the Old Testament and true Israel, the church, in the New Testament;

3. that history is unified by a wise and sovereign plan so that the earlier parts are designed to correspond and point to the latter parts (cf. Matt. 11:13-14);

4. that the age of eschatological fulfillment has come in Christ;

5. as a consequence of (3) and (4), the fifth presupposition affirms that the latter parts of biblical history function as the broader context to interpret earlier parts because they all have the same, ultimate divine author who inspires the various human authors, and one deduction from this premise is that Christ as the centre of history is the key to interpreting the earlier portions of the Old Testament and its promises.

I’m thrilled to know that Beale’s essay is online: "Did Jesus and His Followers Preach the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?" Themelios 14 (1989): 89–96.

At Redeemer This Sunday

This is a shout-out to the Houston homies. Lord willing, I’ll be preaching on “The Floodwaters of Judgment” this Sunday at Baptist Church of the Redeemer.

It would be a joy to see you if you can make it.

Why Me Lord, by Ross King

For your Saturday listening pleasure, a little perspective from Ross King:

Köstenberger’s new Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters

Congratulations to Andreas Köstenberger on the publication of his massive A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters. This is the first volume in what looks like an exciting new series from Zondervan, and this one is comprehensive.

This book has been long in coming, and it is well worth the wait. The volume eclipses everything else available on the topic of Johannine theology. I sometimes hear complaints that evangelical scholars do not lead the way but lag behind. The next time I hear someone say that, I’m going to point to this volume as a prominent example of an evangelical taking the lead in the discussion.

This book is the new starting place for the study of Johannine theology, and in my opinion everyone building a library of books that deal with the Bible should make sure this one finds an easy to access place on the shelf.

You might even win a free copy from Köstenberger’s website.

Bruce Ware’s Big Truth for Young Hearts

I’m so glad Dr. Ware got this book written just in time for my sons to be old enough to have it read to them!

If you’re in the Louisville area, you’ll want to check out that reading that Dr. Ware is doing TODAY at 10am at the Lifeway Campus Store on the SBTS Campus.

Otherwise, I commend to you Justin Taylor’s interview with Dr. Ware on his new book, Big Truths for Young Hearts.

“We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Psalm 78:4-8).

Logos Coupon Code

Great news from the folks at Logos: feel free to let your readers know about coupon code FORHISRENOWN that will get them 25% off any of our base packages.

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!

SBTS Rolls Out a New Website

Check it out.

Is A. T. Robertson Your Homeboy?

Well, perhaps like me you’re a little hesitant to assert “A. T. Robertson is my homeboy,” because we would not want to communicate any disrespect, and from the stories we’ve heard about the way he would summon students to stand up in class and give recitations of the lesson, we might be a little afraid to provoke a test we might not pass! 

This is a brilliant photo from JT’s post, however, and I think that A. T. Robertson would be glad to have all of us who are committed to the diligent study of the Greek New Testament for the good of God’s people and the glory of Christ say, “A. T. Robertson is my homeboy.” 

Here’s what he wrote in the preface to the third edition of the most important book Broadman and Holman sells, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (you can get the PDF free online, and it comes with BibleWorks, but there is great value in having a print copy you can mark up as you go through it): 

“It is gratifying to know that ministers are using it in their studies as one of the regular tools in the shop. In the classroom only selected portions can be covered, but the preacher can use it every day (as many do) in his reading and study of the Greek New Testament. There are many ministers who read the Greek New Testament through once a year, some of it every day, besides the solid, critical study of a Gospel or Epistle with commentary, lexicon and grammar. This is the work that pays one a hundredfold in his preaching” (xvii). 

Amen! And may many so give themselves to the assiduous study of the Greek New Testament that they find themselves making daily recourse to Robertson’s grammar. If you do that, my friend, A. T. Robertson will indeed be your homeboy.

Robertson’s prefaces to this grammar are rich with his humility, his love for the Lord, and his recognition of the immensity of the task he attempted. 

Thanks to Rod Decker, you can now access Robertson’s inaugural address here at Southern Seminary. JT has some choice quotes from it.

Schreiner’s Review of McKnight’s Blue Parakeet

All this week the folks at the CBMW blog will be posting installments of Thomas R. Schreiner’s review of Scot McKnight’s book, The Blue Parakeet. 

Part 1 is up.

Part 2 is up.

Part 3 is up.

Part 4 is up.

Part 5 is up.

How Sweet the Sound–Hymns from Covenant Life Church

Here’s a great deal from Covenant Life Church. Tell 5 friends and get some great hymns done well, done traditionally, for free!

Enjoy!

John Piper on the Election

Over at the Desiring God blog John Piper has posted this video. He’s not telling anyone how to vote, but he is saying what he thinks about the issues of gender, race, abortion, and how Christians must be advocates for the gospel. This is worth your time:

The Isaiah Scroll Online

I found this page as I clicked around in Bible Works this morning. There are photographs of the Great Isaiah Scroll, along with comments on where and how it differs from the Masoretic Text of Isaiah here.

What can be found on the internet is absolutely amazing!

New Book from T. Desmond Alexander

Over at the Biblical Theology blog I’ve just posted on T. Desmond Alexander’s book, From Eden to the New Jerusalem: Exploring God’s Plan for Life on Earth.

Having just read the preface, I was compelled to post on it here, just in case there are some who check this blog but not the other.

This is an important new book from which every Christian minister, student, and scholar is sure to profit. It has the virtue of being under 200 pages, and from Alexander’s previous writings I am confident that treasures old and new will be found herein.

Enjoy!