pursuing faithfulness to the Word of God and fullness of the Spirit of God
Archive for February, 2008
Book Review – Body Beautiful (Melvin Tinker & Nathan Buttery)
Feb 8th
Despite what the title might conjure up in your mind, this is actually another book on the church. The subtitle is "Recovering the Biblical View of the Church". It is written by a couple of Anglican Ministers in Hull, and their approach is to simply take 11 short New Testament passages relating to the church, and briefly expound them.
The book is 125 pages long, and fairly accessible. It was perhaps written with small-group study in mind, as it has a section of question for further discussion. The aim of the book is to present the Biblical model of the church and challenge us as to whether we view church in the same way.
The authors are particularly keen to emphasise the importance of the Word of God in the church, being the basis for what we do, and central to the life of the church. The Word of God, or the Gospel, is the ‘rock’ on which the church is built. Expository preaching and Bible ministry are seen as key to a healthy church.
They examine the "marks of a church" from Acts 2:42-47 arguing that success should not simply be measured in terms of numbers attending, but in being a learning, caring, committed and growing church.
There are two chapters looking at passages from Ephesians on the Call of the Church and Unity within the church. In a chapter on worship, they criticise Catholic and charismatic worship as being "BC" (before Christ) worship – as they go through a "mediator" of a priest or worship leader who draws us near to God. Rather they emphasise that the whole of life is to be worship, and worship should be defined as "engaging with God".
There is a helpful section on prayer. A praying church is a God-centred church and the their prayers will be God-centred. Prayer should be our natural reaction. If it is not, we are not a God-centred people.
In a chapter on the influence of the church, they encourage Christians to engage politically, but more importantly, to make a difference by being different where they are. Christians are called to be a people who leave a blessing wherever we go.
… central to all of God’s plans and purposes for his entire universe is his church.
Overall, this is a very helpful short book on the church. In perhaps a few places, as a charismatic, I might disagree with some of their statements, and a couple of the illustrations were a bit dated or Anglican specific. But on the whole, it is well worth a read, particularly if you don’t want to tackle something too long.
Book Review – The Message of Zechariah (Barry Webb)
Feb 4th
Brief Summary
A 186 page commentary / exposition of the book of Zechariah. It is part of the Bible Speaks Today series which generally follows an expositional format – not just explaining the Scriptures but applying it. The subtitle is “Your Kingdom Come” and the whole exposition of the book takes a kingdom perspective.
The Introduction
The introduction is a fairly generous 30 pages, and Webb shows that the structure of the book is eight visions followed by two oracles. He sums up the main theme by saying “it is a book about the future coming of the kingdom of God, and the need to live now in the light of it”. He also points out sub-themes of repentance and cleansing as well as an key theme of the Messiah running through the book. He puts Zechariah’s prophecy into its historical context, but also is very careful to show how his message is directly applicable to us, as we have the same concern to see God’s kingdom come. He highlights how regularly the NT writers draw from the book of Zechariah.
The Commentary
The commentary itself is able to devote a couple of pages to each small section of Zechariah which gives enough space to explain and apply the text adequately. Webb generally avoids detailed discussions of historical context or Hebrew grammar, and is cautious in offering his interpretations of some of the more obscure visions.
He shows how there is a progression in the visions of the first six chapters that culminate in God’s judgment and rule over all the earth. He acknowledges that chapter 7 marks a new beginning, but argues that it is not unrelated to what had gone before. In chapters 10 and 11, he draws out a major theme of leadership – true shepherds are those who trust in God and lead others to do the same.
… it is impossible to be in relationship with God unless we are prepared to be ruled by him.
When he comes to chapter 13, he explains the links to Jesus, and there is also a brief excursus that deals in more detail with the use of Zechariah in the New Testament. He argues that the Old Testament prophecies concerning the kingdom of God are fulfilled in the events of Jesus’ life – his birth, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension and return. Hence there are elements of kingdom prophecy in Zechariah yet to be fulfilled.
Strengths
For me, the great strength of this volume is how he consistently draws us to the Christological and New Covenant implications and interpretation of the book. He takes what can be a perplexing book, and brings out a very challenging and practical message of the kingdom of God.
Weaknesses
Nothing to complain of. It was the right length. It obviously isn’t an academic treatment of Zechariah, and also those looking for detailed and speculative explanations of every last detail of the visions will be disappointed. But it ranks as one of my favourites in the BST series.
Why Buy It?
As with pretty much all the BST volumes, this is ideal if you are personally studying or planning to preach or teach on the book of Zechariah.
Commentaries and NIV for e-Sword
Feb 7th
Posted by Mark Heath in Commentaries
Just a quick update to say that I have finally updated my commentaries page. It is at a new location now as I have rewritten it using .NET in a way that will make it easier for me to keep up to date (and hopefully add some new features to it). The number of commentaries I have on file is slowly growing towards the 1000 mark. I’ve also done a lot of work updating some of the ISBNs to the new ISBN-13 standard and fixing broken publisher links, although there is still a long way to go as the switchover to ISBN13 has made most publishers reorganise their sites. I’ve added links to the new Baker Exegetical Commentaries volumes as well as updated a few other series as well.
The other thing that may be of interest is that finally, the NIV is available for e-Sword. For those of you that don’t already know, e-Sword is a great free Bible study tool that allows you to search and compare multiple Bible versions, including Greek and Hebrew. There is lots of free material available, including the excellent ESV translation of the Bible. You do have to pay for the NIV, but it is made available as part of the NIV Family Bundle from eStudySource which includes NIV, TNIV and the NIRV, all for $30. There seems to be a growing amount of material on estudysource including some commentaries. I’m hoping that IVP will make the Tyndale or Bible Speaks Today series available for e-Sword.