John A. Broadus on the Duty of Teaching Baptist Distinctives

The most recent issue of the Towers publication from SBTS reproduces a condensation of a pamphlet John Broadus wrote on “The Duty of Teaching Baptist Distinctives.” If the link doesn’t go straight to the article on the PDF, it’s on the lower third of page 5 (Towers, January 3, 2011). I’ve copied and pasted it below:

The Duty of Teaching Baptist Distinctives

by John A. Broadus

EDITOR’S NOTE: John A. Broadus (1827- 1895), founder and former professor at Southern Seminary, first published this material as a 35-page pamphlet with the American Baptist Publication Society. This article is a condensed version of excerpts from an issue of “The Baptist Vision.”

A duty we owe to ourselves
We must teach [Baptist] views in order to be consistent in holding them. Because of these we stand apart from other Christians. We have no right thus to stand apart unless the matters of difference have real importance; and if they are really important, we certainly ought to teach them.

This teaching is the only way of correct- ing excesses among ourselves. Do some of our Baptist brethren seem to you ultra in their denominationalism, violent, bitter? And do you expect to correct such a tendency by going to the opposite extreme? You are so pained, shocked, disgusted at what you consider an unlovely treatment of controverted matters that you shrink from treating them at all. Well, the persons you have in view would defend them-selves by pointing at you. Thus one extreme fosters another.

A duty we owe to our fellow Christians
It is urged that we ought to push all our differences into the background and stand shoulder to shoulder against Popery. It seems to us that the best way to meet and withstand Romanism is to take Baptist ground. Our brethren of the Protestant persuasions are all holding some “developed” form of Christian- ity, not so far developed as Popery, and some of them much less developed than others, but all having added something, in faith or govern- ment or ordinances, to the primitive simplicity. The Roman Catholics know this, and some- times say that the Baptists alone are consistent in opposing the [Roman Catholic] Church.

We may say that there are but two sorts of Christianity: church Christianity and Bible Christianity. If well-meaning Roman Catholics become dissatisfied with resting everything on the authority of the church and begin to look toward the Bible as authority, they are not likely to stop at any halfway house, but to go forward to the position of those who really build on the Bible alone.

It is not necessarily an arrogant and pre- sumptuous thing in us if we strive to bring our Protestant brethren to views that we honestly believe to be more scriptural, and therefore more wholesome.

A duty we owe to the unbelieving world
We want unbelievers to accept Christianity; and it seems to us they are more likely to accept it when presented in its primitive simplicity, as the apostles themselves offered it to the men of their time.

For meeting the assaults of infidels, we think our position is best. We can say to the skeptical inquirer, “Come and bring all the light that has been derived from studying the material world, the history of man or the highest philosophy, and we will gladly use it in helping to interpret this which we believe to be God’s Word.” There is in this freedom no small advantage for the truly rational inquirer.

But, while thus free to search the Scriptures, Baptists are eminently conservative in their whole tone and spirit; and for a reason. Their recognition of the Scriptures alone as author- ity, and the stress they lay on exact conformity to the requirements of the Scriptures foster an instinctive feeling that they must stand or fall with the real truth and the real authority of the Bible. The union of freedom and conservatism is something most healthy and hopeful.

A duty we owe to Christ
It is a matter of simple loyalty to Him. He met the eleven disciples by appointment on a mountain in Galilee; probably the more than 500 of whom Paul speaks were present also: “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

The things of which we have been speak- ing are but a part of all the things which Jesus commanded; what shall hinder us, what could excuse us, from observing them ourselves and teaching them to others? Shall we neglect to teach as He required, and then claim the prom- ise of His presence and help and blessing?

It Was His Dog

Moving post from Greg Sykes. An excerpt:

I’m reminded of one of the greatest scenes of such frustrated captivity in modern literature. In Eugene Sledge’s phenomenal memoir of WWII, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, Sledge has spent over two months in brutal, subhuman combat on the filthy, stench-ridden island of Okinawa. He has seen atrocities that would destroy the most hardened soldier — and it did in many cases.

He had watched the Japanese strap dynamite to civilian babies and children, sending them into close proximity to the Marines so they could be exploded by gunfire. He had fallen into a hole with a decaying corpse and had the grubs and rotting flesh slide within his own shirt and dungarees. He had killed innumerable enemy soldiers in their suicidal Banzai charges, and he had watched many of his closest friends die.

But he endured the misery and soldiered on . . . until he received a letter from home (Mobile, Alabama). As he read the letter, he finally crossed his breaking point — tears racked him and he lost control. The days and months of being forced to do things that no man should be forced to endure finally caught up to him and the captivity of his role as a Marine in the Pacific overwhelmed him.

And what was in the letter, you ask? Sledge’s mother had written him to tell him that his dog had died.

Reasonable or not, that information shook Sledge to his core. Yes, he had seen atrocities — on a daily basis — that made the death of his dog seem insignificant. But, as he kept telling his companions, that was his dog. He had raised it from a pup. And he should have been there to see it die. It was his dog, he kept saying, as if that explained it.

Read the whole thing for Sykes’s reflections on what we can learn from this.

 

Josephus on Alexander the Great and the Book of Daniel

A good deal of biblical scholarship on the book of Daniel assumes that Daniel 7–12 was written after 165 B.C. This date is very difficult to reconcile with the actual historical evidence. For instance, the book of Daniel was embraced by all sects of Judaism, whereas other literature produced after the schisms took place was only embraced by particular groups within Judaism.

As noted in an earlier post, the covenanters at Qumran appear to have gone to the shores of the Dead Sea soon after 200 B.C., and there are at least 8 manuscripts of Daniel at Qumran. Is it plausible that a book produced at that time would be accepted by all groups within Judaism, so that even those who separated themselves from the corrupt temple and retreated to Qumran would take this newly produced book with them to the desert? Amid such fierce controversies, would such a book also have been held sacred back in Jerusalem?

The point of this post is to highlight another piece of historical evidence from the Jewish Antiquities by Josephus. Flavius Josephus describes an event that he presents as having taken place in 332 BC (for the date, cf. the Loeb Classical Library ed. of Ant. XI 317, p. 467 notes c and e):

“. . . he [Alexander the Great] gave his hand to the high priest and, with the Jews running beside him, entered the city. Then he went up to the temple, where he sacrificed to God under the direction of the high priest, and showed due honour to the priests and to the high priest himself. And, when the book of Daniel was shown to him, in which he had declared that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, he believed himself to be the one indicated; and in his joy he dismissed the multitude for the time being, but on the following day he summoned them again and told them to ask for any gifts which they might desire. . .”

Two things to note here: first, Josephus clearly regarded Daniel to be the author of the book of Daniel, “the book of Daniel . . ., in which he had declared . . .” Second, Josephus placed this event in 332 BC, so Josephus believed that the book of Daniel had been written by then.

Crossway ESV Bible Atlas

If you don’t have a Bible Atlas, this is the one to get. If you already have an older one, the updated graphics and information in this one are, in my opinion, compelling reasons to update. This thing is beautiful, and what a blessing to have such resources! Enjoy.

Crossway ESV Bible Atlas, John D. Currid and David P. Barrett

Fred Zaspel on The Theology of Warfield

I’m really excited to see this new book from Fred Zaspel, The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary. It gives me another nudge to read Warfield himself, which I’m eager to do. So many books . . .

Justin Taylor interviewed Zaspell on the book here.

And the Crossway blog has a link to an audio interview with him here.

A New Fragment of Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter

David Brakke has published a signifcant essay with a fresh translation of Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter:

“A New Fragment of Athanasius’s 39th Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon.”  Harvard Theological Review 103 (2010): 47-66.

He points to some of the implications of a “new fragment of the Coptic text” of Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter:

“When I read the letter in the mid 1990s, I argued that Athanasius’s promotion of a biblical canon supported a parish-based, episcopally-centered spirituality in opposition to other forms of Christian authority, namely, the teacher and the martyr. I still think that is the case, but the new fragment does suggest that I underestimated the specifically anti-heretical intent of the letter and of Athanasius’s canon. That is, Athanasius promoted a biblical canon not only—as I argued earlier—to support one form of Christian piety, social formation, and authority in opposition to others, but also to refute the specific teachings of persons and groups that he deemed ‘impious’ and ‘heretics.’”[1]

As for what’s new in the new fragment:

“ . . . . These other passages do not, however, include brief descriptions of each heresy’s distinct false teaching as the new fragment does.”[2]

“While the beginning and end of the fragment merely extend or supplement what we already knew of Athanasius’s argument, the brief catalogue of heresies with the biblical passages that refute them in its central section is genuinely new . . .”[3]

Brakke makes an observation that supports the notion that the early church rejected pseudepigraphy/pseudonymity, writing of Athanasius:

“. . . he devotes considerable attention to two particular themes. . . . The second theme is that no ‘apocryphal’ books really come from Isaiah, Moses, Enoch, or any other authoritative figure. They all published their teaching openly, and any ‘apocryphal’ books attributed to them must be recent inventions of heretics.”[4]

This comment adds to a lot of other evidence that when early figures in the church wrongly cited extra-canonical books as Scripture, they did so thinking that the attribution to some ancient inspired prophet was genuine. In other words, had they known the document was pseudepigraphical or pseudonymous, they would have rejected it. To my thinking this adds to the evidence that there were clear notions of authorship in the ancient world, that Jesus accepted the traditional claims about who wrote the books of the OT (e.g., Moses wrote the Pentateuch, Isaiah wrote Isaiah, Daniel wrote Daniel, etc.), and that the early church followed Jesus on this point.

Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter is not saying something new about the canon. Rather, Athanasius sees himself re-stating ancient tradition. Brakke writes:

“As Athanasius and others like him present the matter, when legitimate officeholders of the church (bishops) teach, they are faithfully passing on what Christ told the disciples, who subsequently informed their Episcopal successors, and so they are not really teaching at all. Athanasius claims this about himself in our letter: ‘I have not written these things as if I were teaching, for I have not attained such a rank. . . . I thus have informed you of everything that I heard from my father,’ that is, Bishop Alexander of Alexandria.”[5]

Athanasius was a shepherd seeking to protect the flock from wolves:

“Although most scholars remain focused on the lists of books, the greater importance of the letter is that it reveals the role of canon formation in supporting one form of Christian piety and authority and undermining others. . . . The new fragment . . . makes clear that in establishing a defined canon Athanasius sought to undermine not only a general spirituality of free intellectual inquiry and its academic mode of authority, but also the specific false doctrines to which he believed such a spirituality gave rise.”[6]

A fresh translation of the entire letter, with a revised version of the new Coptic Fragment, follows on pages 57–66.

---

[1] David Brakke, “A New Fragment of Athanasius‘s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon,” Harvard Theological Review 103 (2010): 48.

[2] Ibid., 50.

[3] Ibid., 51.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 53.

[6] Ibid., 56.

Mullin Reviews MacLeod’s Biography of Woods

From the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals:

Book Review:  A. Donald MacLeod.  C. Stacey Woods and the Evangelical Rediscovery of the University.  Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007.  pp. 283.  $25.00

by Miles Mullin

Donald MacLeod, Research Professor of Church History at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, has produced a much-needed biography of the indefatigable C. Stacy Woods (1909-83).  Although less well-known than other evangelical luminaries, Woods’ contributions to evangelicalism are immeasurable, having influenced countless university students towards Christ.

Read the whole thing.

From the Makers of Modern Parables: Visual Latin

Looking for help learning Latin or teaching it to your kids? Here’s a great deal for a limited time:

Visual Latin | Lessons 1 to 10 Complete [Single/Family]

Go to the Site.

Price: $25.00 (excluding tax)

Ok, this is a really special, very low, tell-all-your friends intro price.  It is extremelyinexpensive for this product.  We are not sure how long we will offer it for this price, so if you have any interest in Visual Latin, we would encourage you to buy it today.  Really.

These 10 lessons are the first half of the first semester of Visual Latin.  Go to VisualLatin.comfor free previews and further information.

Each lesson includes 3 videos: Grammar, Sentences, & Reading and 3 PDFs: Instructions,Worksheets, and Answers.

Four free introductory lessons here.

HT: JT

Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls by Craig Evans

You’ll want to avail yourself of this valuable, attractive new Holman QuickSource Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls by recognized expert, Craig A. Evans.

Have you ever thought to yourself: I know there is a pile of scholarly information on the Dead Sea Scrolls that I could wade through, but I’d love to be able to sit down with a trusted, balanced, thoroughly informed expert on the scrolls and have him give me the lay of the land.

If you’ve had that thought, this is the book for you. It may not be as good as sitting down in person with Craig Evans, but in this book you’ll find matter-of-fact cut-to-the-chase discussions of all things related to the scrolls.

This is a handsomely produced, well illustrated volume of bite-sized chapters, and every morsel is tasty.

I recommend you buy one for yourself, and this would make a great gift for that student in your family, for your pastor, or for your Sunday School teacher.

Stephen J. Wellum on Theological Interpretation of Scripture

Stephen J. Wellum’s editorial in the most recent issue of SBJT contains some of the most insightful statements I’ve read on Theological Interpretation of Scripture:

“First, what is it and why has it arisen? . . . . Probably at this point, it is best to characterize TIS [Theological Interpretation of Scripture] as a broad and diverse movement comprised of biblical scholars and theologians who are mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, and evangelicals and who are attempting to recover the authority of the Bible and to return it to the church. Obviously this raises the question as to what TIS is recovering the Bible from and the answer to this question helps us describe why it has arisen. In a nutshell, TIS is attempting to recover the authority of the Bible for the church from the debilitating effects of the ‘assured results of biblical scholarship’ identified with the Enlightenment and modern eras which sought to squeeze the Bible within the alien world-view assumptions of methodological naturalism (e.g., Deism, naturalism, process theism) associated with the historical-critical method. That is why, a majority of those in the TIS movement arise out of non-evangelical circles since, like Karl Barth before them (who is often viewed as the ‘founder’ of the movement), they are attempting to recover the Bible’s voice by rejecting the liberalism they were taught and raised in.”

Note: If you’re a student at SBTS, the journal will not be available for you to pick up until early September (sorry . . . but please don’t pester the nice man who works in the Journal office).

40-50% Off Hendrickson Titles for the Next 10 Days

Great deal here from Eisenbrauns. The text of the notice that just landed in my inbox is below. Note that at the bottom there’s an opportunity to subscribe, which I recommend you take.

If you don’t own the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha by Charlesworth, this is your chance to get it at half price:

BookNews from Eisenbrauns

For the next 10 days, you have the opportunity to save from
40-50% off on selected Hendrickson titles. Don’t miss this
opportunity to get Sasson’s Civilizations of the Ancient
Near East at 50% off (plus shipping).

As always, all sales on this web sale are final; no returns
will be permitted. Offer is good only on orders placed at
www.eisenbrauns.com through July 29, 2010.

To go directly to the weekly sale, click on this link:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/NEWSLIST
============================================================
“The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon with an
appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic: Coded with the numbering
system from “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible””
by Francis Brown, et al.
Hendrickson Publishers, 1995. Cloth. English and Hebrew.
ISBN: 9781565632066
List Price: $34.95 Your Price: $17.48

“The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha:
Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments”
Edited by James H. Charlesworth
Hendrickson Publishers, 2010. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781598564891
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“The Elements of Biblical Exegesis, Revised and Expanded Edition:
A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers”
by Michael J. Gorman
Hendrickson Publishers, 2009. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781598563115
List Price: $19.95 Your Price: $9.98

“A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew: with CD”
by Jo Ann Hackett
Hendrickson Publishers, 2010. Cloth. English and Hebrew.
ISBN: 9781598560282
List Price: $39.95 Your Price: $23.97

“Christianity in the Greco-Roman World:: A Narrative Introduction”
by Moyer Hubbard
Hendrickson Publishers, 2010. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781565636637
List Price: $24.95 Your Price: $13.72

“Analytical Lexicon to the Septuagint: Expanded Edition with
Word Definitions from Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint”
by Bernard Taylor, et al.
Hendrickson Publishers, 2009. Cloth. English and Greek.
ISBN: 9781565635166
List Price: $44.95 Your Price: $24.72

“The Jewish Targums and John’s Logos Theology”
by John Ronning
Hendrickson Publishers, 2010. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781598563061
List Price: $29.95 Your Price: $16.47

“Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from
the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam”
by Leo Dupree Sandgren
Hendrickson Publishers, 2010. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781598560831
List Price: $34.95 Your Price: $19.22

“Civilizations of the Ancient Near East”
Edited by Jack M. Sasson
Hendrickson Publishers, 2000. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781565636071
List Price: $179.95 Your Price: $89.98

“Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible:
A Guide to the Background Literature”
by Kenton L. Sparks
Hendrickson Publishers, 2005. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781565634077
List Price: $39.95 Your Price: $21.97

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What Did the Temple Look Like?

Justin Taylor provides a nice article with great visuals from the ESV Study Bible.

And If We Refuse We’re Rebels

Eric Auerback (Mimesis, 14-15) writes that the intent of biblical stories:

“is not to bewitch the senses, and if nevertheless they produce lively sensory effects, it is only because the moral, religious, and psychological phenomena which are their sole concern are made concrete in the sensible matter of life. But their religious intent involves an absolute claim to historical truth. . . . Without believing in Abraham’s sacrifice, it is impossible to put the narrative of it to the use for which it was written. . . . The world of the Scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to be a historically true reality—it insists that it is the only real world, is destined for autocracy . . . The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us—they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”

HT: A. Philip Brown II, Hope Amidst Ruin, 28 n. 23.

Brief History of SBTS

Here’s a short video on the history of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

Christian History Project, Volume 1

I recently learned of The Christian History Project. These books would be a great addition to the library of any pastor or home-school family.

Here’s the Foreword to the first volume:

The most dangerous people, said the twentieth-century Christian essayist G.K. Chesterton, are those who have been cut

off from their cultural roots. Had he lived long enough, he would have seen his observation hideously fulfilled. At the time of his death in 1936, Germany, one of the greatest of the Christian nations, had been amputated from its Christian origins and was embracing instead wild doctrines founded on sheer nonsense. Thus deluded, they set off the world’s worst-ever war. People who don’t believe in something, Chesterton also said, can be persuaded to believe in anything. How right he was.

Today, we are just such a people. That America, indeed the whole western world, is being wrenched away from its cultural origins has become a self-evident fact. For half a century, our literature, our popular music and drama, the visual arts, Hollywood and much of the film industry have been disseminating a genre of nihilism which debases almost every form of human virtue and exalts sensual gratification beyond anything the senses could possibly fulfill. Meanwhile, the liberal arts faculties of our universities work zealously to cut off the branch they are sitting on, diligently destroying the very foundations upon which the whole concept of higher education rests. The result of all this is a culturally dispossessed people, the very situation in which Chesterton saw such mortal danger.

What are our foundations? Though it has of late become intellectually unfashionable to even think it, let alone say it, the fact is that our cultural origins are almost wholly Christian. Our founding educational institutions, our medical system, our commitment to the care of the aged and infirm, our concept of individual rights and responsibilities all came to us through Christianity. Our best literature, our most enduring music, our finest sculptural masterpieces and many of the greatest paintings in every age are those of professed and dedicated Christians. Finally our concept of democracy came to us from the Greeks through Christianity. Is it by mere coincidence that all those nations that have best instituted and preserved democratic government emerged from Christian origins? I don’t think so.

The purpose of this series is to describe these foundations, to say who we are and how we got here. That is, to establish our real roots. It has been a long journey, two thousand years, and neither it nor we have been uniformly benevolent. But this is our past, this our family, and knowing who it is and what it has done is the first step in finding our way home.

Ted Byfield

These handsome volumes are well done–from the website:

Each volume is hardbound, measures 9 x 12 inches, and is lavishly illustrated with original, commissioned artwork, photos, and maps throughout its 288 pages (click here for Art Examples). Researched, written and edited by academics and journalists from diverse Christian backgrounds, The Christians is a multi-denominational history of the faith. This diversity ensures a fair and well-rounded approach to the subject. Click here to see sample page spreads.

Right now volume one, The Veil Is Torn, is very affordable at Amazon Marketplace.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

The Gods of the Copybook Headings is a poem by Rudyard Kipling. Denny Burk has put it to music and sings it beautifully. Dear Denny, please consider this post a formal request to get a recording of your musical setting of the poem online so I can link it up!

Here’s the text of Kipling’s poem:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “ Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “ The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “ If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The poem was brought back to mind by this video, touting a new book by Glenn Beck:

HT: Townhall blog

Andy Naselli’s Let Go and Let God Now Available

The published version of Andy Naselli’s first dissertation is now available for pre-order from Logos.

Here’s my endorsement for the book:

The history presented in this book is fascinating, and Andy Naselli is a gentle but firm guide away from pitfalls and precipices to straight and narrow exegetical and theological paths.

You can see many more endorsements and other front matter, including the full table of contents, here. Kevin DeYoung interviews Andy on the book here.

You’ll want to get this book, subscribe to his blog (if you’re one of the two people who haven’t already), and join me in eagerly awaiting the publication of his second dissertation on Romans 11:33-36.

Jay Nordlinger on Political and Religious Ironies in America

Jay Nordlinger is always entertaining, and he has a great ear for the English language.

He recently posted some toothy observations on how left of center politicians can say anything they want about religion, whereas if anyone right of center says something similar the talking heads go crazy: When the Left Talks Religious.

Here’s a snippet:

I was reminded of something that Jen Rubin, the champion blogger of Commentary’s Contentions, said some time ago (here). She quoted Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) on the origins of his name: “It comes from the word shomer, which means guardian. My ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall in Chortkov, and I believe Hashem [e.g., God], actually, gave me the name as one of my roles that is very important in the United States Senate: to be a shomer — to be a shomer for Israel.”

Then Rubin wrote, “Suffice it to say that if Sarah Palin ever said that God had given a name to her with a mission in mind, the chattering class would go bonkers.”

Oh, man: bonkers, nutso.

Read the whole thing for more. Great stuff about Bill Clinton waving his Bible.

Dr. Mohler Describes Them Well

Realistically, I won’t have time to read any of the books on Dr. Mohler’s list this summer, but his description of them is fascinating in itself. Maybe someday I’ll get to them. . . perhaps on audio. It’s a great list! Check it out.

Interview with Tom Nettles on His Biography of James P. Boyce

Professor Thomas J. Nettles is one of my favorite historians. It was a joy to audit a course he taught on Baptist history, and I profit much from his writings. Last summer he published a biography of James Petigru Boyce, founder of Southern Seminary, where it is our privilege to teach.

If you haven’t already read it, I would encourage you to get this book, which is one of three finalists for the 2010 John Pollock Award for Christian biography.

Dr. Nettles graciously agreed to answer a few questions on the book (see if you can guess which of his answers made me laugh out loud).

As you did the research for this book, what surprised you most about James Petigru Boyce?

I expected to find in Boyce a soul-mate in theological commitment. What surprised me was the degree to which he was committed to the entire spectrum of orthodoxy as well as those distinctive issues that make one a Baptist—philosophical foundations for belief in God and the unity of truth, Trinitarian construction, Christology, soteriology, Baptist ecclesiology. He was relentlessly theological in his vision of what SBTS should be and how preachers should preach to the end of his life. Also the importance of the incarnation and a vigorous application of the doctrine of Christ’s humanity to each segment of theological discussion as well as to Christian ethics stands out in Boyce’s work.

What do you find most compelling about Boyce’s life and legacy?

Consequent to all that I admire about his theology and his consistency and power in applying it, the idea of legacy points to his thoroughgoing confessional commitment. This was a constant theme of his from his earliest reflections on theological education and was perhaps the most important part of his pivotal address before the Trustees at Furman, Three Changes in Theological Institutions. This confessional commitment, reiterated frequently, built into the founding documents of SBTS, gave historical, and legal, rationale for the Renaissance of doctrine in this institution. The vision of the “Resurgence” trustees and the prodigious labors of Dr. Mohler in theological reformation would simply mark the triumph of the personal opinion of a dominant thinker rather than a testimony to the immutable character of the faith once delivered to the saints, had it not progressed along the lines of return to a commonly-shared confession. Boyce’s vision made that work.

What should people in ministry today learn from Boyce?

We should learn that truth, or lack of it, commitment to the clear statement of truth, or lack of confidence in the ability and legitimacy of giving clear statements determines the character of one’s ministry. To the degree that we embrace, know, and state the truth of divine revelation, so will our ministries glorify God. God has placed the declaration of his glory in this age in the clear and faithful handling of his word by his ministers. The truths of Scripture  were embodied ontologically in Christ as God and Man, two distinct natures in one person, and pragmatically (the only true pragmatism, the only thing in all of history that truly works) in the redemptive operation of the triune God in the incarnation, atoning death, and resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ. To glorify Christ in his person and work and thus glorify God we must know and preach the revealed word of God as contained in Holy Scripture. Lack of clarity in this stewardship means a veiling of the divine glory in our ministries. This was Boyce’s conviction, this is what he wanted The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to teach and to model.

How would you respond to someone who said he would never read your book for the simple fact that James P. Boyce was from the South and owned slaves?

I would try to resist the production of a long list of insults to the intelligence of one so bigoted, narrow-minded, unthinking and hypocritical as even to think such a thing. Employment of such a principle would shut one off from the study of the Old Testament, virtually all of the ancient cultures, Greek dominance of the intertestamental period, the Roman Empire, the history of England until the first half of the nineteenth century, the history of colonial America, the lives of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, the entire ante-bellum South and so forth. If one believes that the union of church and state has brought untold suffering and evil to both church and state as well as society in general (which I do), and feels that avoiding the documents produced in that context is a moral necessity for a Christian and that awareness of their viewpoints on theology, politics, philosophy, and society are reprehensible and unworthy of the intellectual and spiritual life of a Christian (which I don’t), then avoid the study of the German Reformation, the English Reformation and all western medieval culture. Bring to void any benefit from the study of Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas. Know nothing of the City of God, the Proslogion, and the Summa. If one studies history and gains interest in persons and nations simply on the basis of personal moral approval of the subject or the era in which he lived, he probably can find justification for the study of nothing and spend his life congratulating himself that he is ignorant of everything. But if one wants to see the operations of the mind of a highly gifted, intellectually and morally driven person, whose flaws are obvious and will not hurt us and whose strengths are massive and will inspire and help us, then go for Boyce. If one wants to see the way in which theological and biblical commitments transcend the ability of any individual to facilitate the moral, intellectual, and spiritual loftiness engendered in the study of divine revelation, study Boyce. If one want to see how that same commitment, nevertheless, raises a common sinner such as we all are to uncommon heights of self-sacrifice inspired by a vision of the divine glory, study Boyce. If one wants to see how Christian character constantly nourished by increased knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ can interrupt the natural tendency to bitterness and resentment and seething hostility fostered by the crushing destruction and snarling ridicule of deeply-held conviction and unfettered commitment to a cause and transform the soul to the sweetness of a reconciled and reconciling posture of mind, study Boyce.

Does reading a biography such as the one you have written on Boyce aid those who preach and teach the Bible? If so, how?

I believe knowledge of the life, works, and work of a man like Boyce holds great promise for positive instruction for preachers of the word. First, one can sense the intensity of Boyce’s commitment to theological education as foundational to and in service of gospel preaching. Two, one can trace in his theology the transparent assumption of the utter truthfulness, sufficiency, and clarity of Scripture. Three, one can interlace his sermons with his Systematic Theology and see that they are all of a piece and learn something about the power resident in the application of theology to ongoing Christian discipleship. Evangelism is doctrinal proclamation; the sanctifying influences of the word come through doctrinal proclamation; comfort for struggling souls comes by knowledge of the surety of the redemptive covenant, and thus through doctrinal proclamation; hope for a sinless God-saturated future invades the soul through doctrinal proclamation. Exegetical and expository preaching always must treat the chosen text as part of a larger doctrinal context. For Boyce, systematic theology was an aid to preacher in preaching as truly and clearly as each text demands. Boyce did that and a knowledge of the passion of his life and work engenders like passions in one that would spend some time being a student of his life.

What are your next projects?

Presently, I am working on a biography of Charles Spurgeon. The title will be something like “Living by Revealed Truth: the Life and Ministry of Charles Surgeon.” Spurgeon and Boyce were contemporaries. Boyce met Spurgeon a few weeks before Boyce died and felt overwhelmed at the unwasted intensity of Spurgeon’s multifaceted ministry, all built on clear obedience to biblical truth. I also have a desire accompanied by the production of a few chapters to write an analysis and advocacy of doctrinal preaching.
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Hearty thanks for answering these questions, Dr. Nettles!

May your books be widely read, and may the Lord prosper his word as you minister it.