wordandspirit

Here are some miscellaneous sites I’ve come across, and places I’ve been in the last few weeks.

• Jeremy Pierce has posted another in his series of reviews of commentaries on specific biblical books – this time Ephesians
• He also gets a mention in the latest Biblical Studies Bulletin from Ridley Hall, Cambridge, which this month sees the return of the Comments on Commentaries -this month it is an update on Mark.
• Church of Christ the King, Brighton sermons are finally back online. John Hosier is always worth listening to.
• Biblical Training is a promising site offering the chance to listen to some lecture series by various evangelical scholars for free.
• I H Marshall weighs in to the debate on “penal substitution” showing the weight of biblical evidence for the concept, particularly in response to Alan Mann’s writings (along with Steve Chalke) on the atonement. It was the first thing I have read by this highly respected evangelical scholar, (although his Arminian views creep in at one point!) and I was quite impressed. The paper comes from a joint Evangelical Alliance/London School of Theology Symposium on the Atonement.
• I went to hear John Arnott speak in New Life Centre, Emsworth on Monday night. The worship was very contemporary complete with smoke machine and dancers. The talk was on healing, and he made some interesting points, although there were some things I was unsure of (giving the devil a ‘legal right’ to make you sick, getting people to ‘forgive themselves’ for injuries). By the end I was one of the few people still standing, which meant I had to do a lot of catching falling people. A number of the people I went with met with God in a powerful way, and I pray that it will result in lasting fruit in their lives.
• Sonar 5 has been announced

The Bible Speaks Today series is responsible for me getting interested in reading commentaries. The first one I bought was Michael Green’s volume on Matthew, which I then followed with Stott on Romans. Both were excellent and now I have read 50 (just 1 to go!).

The Bible speaks today series has been slowly growing for almost 40 years and is now nearing completion, with just a couple of Old Testament books to go. (There is also a Bible themes series which has about 10 volumes) It is conservative evangelical in outlook, and therefore the books in question are understood in the light of the rest of the canon. The Old Testament in particular is viewed from a Christian perspective. They are in a fairly large paperback format, with a typical length of 200-300 pages.

The series benefits from two highly competent editors – Motyer and Stott (OT and NT respectively). They ensure that, in keeping with the series title, each volume is more about what Christians can learn from the book rather than being simply a ‘commentary’. Their judicious and even-handed editorship is evidenced by the remarkably broad spectrum of British evangelical leaders who have endorsed the series.

The authors are typically British Anglicans, and most are pastors rather than academics, although the writers are not lacking in scholarly expertise, and some have contributed to more technical series. Authors are frequently chosen for having preached a notable sermon series on the book in question to their own congregations. This makes the books often feel like a collection of expository sermons, and full of practical application.

They are designed to be accessible to all Christians who want to study a book in a bit more depth, and to this end the New Testament series has been furnished with a study guide, which offers a few (thankfully not patronising) questions on each chapter.

The books begin with a short introduction and bibliography, in which they will typically outline the main arguments for accepting the book’s historicity and traditional authorship. More important however, is the intention to communicate the biblical author’s main message, to demonstrate the continuing relevance of the book.

The commentary itself can vary dramatically in length. For example, Jeremiah is shorter than Jonah. Only two books (Genesis and Psalms) are covered in two volumes. In particular, some of the commentaries on the shorter NT epistles are quite long, and include treatment of issues covered by more intermediate level commentaries. Volumes on shorter books of the Bible will also typically include the biblical text. Most are based on the NIV, although some of the older ones use the RSV.

The authors are generally given freedom to make points on related issues such as ecology, the ecumenical movement, third world debt, infant baptism and so on. Where evangelicals are broadly agreed, they are forthright, and where evangelicals are divided, they are firm but never belligerent. The commentary is not always sequential either, with some sections being studied out of order, and in the case of Proverbs, approached thematically. You can expect the occasional key Greek or Hebrew word to be discussed, but no specialist vocabulary is presumed and it is always transliterated. They will not normally discuss the opinions of other commentators, but may well tie in current events.

This series is ideal for Christians who want to dig a bit deeper into a particular book of the Bible but find standard commentaries overwhelming and dull. Those looking for help preparing a Bible study on a passage will find it will provide plenty of ideas and insight.

The series is accessible but it’s not lightweight, and will perhaps still prove heavy-going for those who do not read non-fiction often. Slightly more readable series to try might be Tom Wright’s “For Everyone” series, or “Focus on the Bible” from Christian Focus. Alternatively, those looking for a bit more technical depth while retaining the evangelical and practical focus might want to try the Pillar (PNTC), Tyndale (TNTC, TOTC), New American (NAC) or NIV Application (NIVAC) series.

For me the series highlights are Leviticus (Tidball), Chronicles (Wilcock), Song of Songs (Gledhill), Ezekiel (Wright), Hosea (Kidner), Matthew (Green), Romans (Stott), Ephesians (Stott), 2 Timothy (Stott), and John’s Letters (Jackman). They have been most helpful for me in appreciating the main message of those books. I have reviewed a number from the series here on my blog:

• Genesis 1-11 (David Atkinson)
• Genesis 12-50 (Joyce Baldwin)
• Exodus (Alec Motyer)
• Leviticus (Derek Tidball)
• Numbers (Raymond Brown)
• Deuteronomy (Raymond Brown)
• Judges (Michael Wilcock)
• Ruth (David Atkinson)
• 1 & 2 Samuel (Mary Evans)
• 1 & 2 Chronicles (Michael Wilcock)
• Ezra & Haggai (Robert Fyall)
• Nehemiah (Raymond Brown)
• Esther (David Firth)
• Job (David Atkinson)
• Psalms 1-72 (Michael Wilcock)
• Psalms 73-150 (Michael Wilcock)
• Proverbs (David Atkinson)
• Ecclesiastes (Derek Kidner)
• Song of Songs (Tom Gledhill)
• Isaiah (Barry Webb)
• Jeremiah (Derek Kidner)
• Ezekiel (Christopher Wright)
• Daniel (Ronald Wallace)
• Hosea (Derek Kidner)
• Joel, Micah & Habakkuk (David Prior)
• Amos (Alec Motyer)
• Obadiah, Nahum & Zephaniah (Gordon Bridger)
• Jonah (Rosemary Nixon)
• Zechariah (Barry Webb)
• Sermon on the Mount (John Stott)
• Matthew (Michael Green)
• Mark (Donald English)
• Luke (Michael Wilcock)
• John (Bruce Milne)
• Acts (John Stott)
• Romans (John Stott)
• 1 Corinthians (David Prior)
• 2 Corinthians (Paul Barnett)
• Galatians (John Stott)
• Ephesians (John Stott)
• Philippians (Alec Motyer)
• Colossians & Philemon (Dick Lucas)
• 1 & 2 Thessalonians (John Stott)
• 1 Timothy & Titus (John Stott)
• 2 Timothy (John Stott)
• Hebrews (Raymond Brown)
• James (Alec Motyer)
• 1 Peter (Edmund Clowney)
• 2 Peter & Jude (Dick Lucas & Christopher Green)
• John’s Letters (David Jackman)
• Revelation (Michael Wilcock)

Jeremy Pierce has also reviewed James (Alec Motyer) and 1 Peter (Edmund Clowney).

Jeremy Pierce has posted the second installment in his eagerly anticipated commentary reviews series. This is provides brief descriptions of a large number of commentary series. I have been planning myself to write some reviews of the series which I have read a lot of, as a companion to my commentaries page. Expect a review of the Bible Speaks Today shortly.

My blog is under a spam trackback attack at the moment. I have hopefully got rid of most of it now, but please do not click on any trackbacks you see – they might lead to some unpleasant sites. If it persists, I may have to disable comments altogether for a while.

Update: I’ve turned off comments temporarily, as the other methods haven’t seemed to work.

My ISP managed to lose all the data on my webserver a couple of days ago, but thankfully the contents of the blog are still intact as they were stored on a different computer. It serves as a reminder to back things up regularly though.

And here is Ben’s first picture of Steph. The pre-school staff have kindly annotated it with his comments – “Mummy’s hair is very long”

My son Ben drew his first picture of me today at pre-school. Actually he drew two, but this one was the most flattering. (Apparently the second one was a picture of me after I had scratched my eye).

This recent addition of Numbers to the BST series comes almost 10 years after the author’s contribution on Deuteronomy. Brown has obviously spent a lot of time studying the Pentateuch, and the fruit of this is another volume that will help Christians to draw out theological and practical lessons from what can be a daunting book to study. He argues in the introduction for the relevance of this book – though we live in a completely different time and culture, our basic needs are the same as those who we read about in Numbers.

Numbers contains a great diversity of material, but characteristically of the BST series, Brown does not go into detail discussing how the book came to be in its form, or arguing over issues of historicity (e.g. how did the number of Israelites grow so fast?). Rather he views it as a part of Christian scripture, and from a firmly evangelical viewpoint harmonises with the whole message of the Bible. There is rougly one chapter of commentary per chapter of Numbers, obviously with some important sections given more attention, and some of the more repetitive parts moved over more quickly.

The book of Numbers contains quite a few passages that attract criticism – laws that seem sexist, punishments that seem cruel, and even a command to wipe out a nation. Brown does not spend as much time dealing with these issues as he does in his Deuteronomy commentary, but over the course of the book he does provide some balanced guidelines for understanding and applying these passages.

I particularly appreciated the sections on the Aaronic blessing, the principles of giving (Numbers 7 and 18), the Levites as paradigms of modern Christians, and Moses’ strengths and failures as a leader. The story of the Bronze serpent is looked at in the light of John 3 and is used as the basis for a gospel exposition. The difficult chapter 31 is understood in the light of a long section on Balaam earlier in the book.

This book will not answer every question you have about Numbers, but will bring you a long way to appreciating its worth and contribution to Scripture. Rather than there being one key theme running through the book, this commentary on Numbers is a rich source of practical application in the personal, corporate and even political realms. Sin, holiness, worship, community, humility, unity, gospel, marriage, giving, forgiving, leadership – pretty much every aspect of Christian life is addressed in some way by this book.

Today was the final day of our church’s holiday Kidz Klub. One of my contributions was to play the Roman Emperor Nero in a short drama which ran each day (we had a theme of ancient Rome). As usual, the drama was not at all rehearsed, and in fact we only had a script for the first day, ad-libbing the rest. You can imagine then that this was not a theatrical masterpiece.

I quite enjoyed playing the part of Nero as it gave me a chance to throw in a few Roman history jokes (which were lost on the 5-10 year olds, and I suspect most of the helpers too), and I also took the opportunity to develop an N T Wright theme of Jesus as Lord being a direct challenge to Caesar as Lord. So I asked the children to worship me and declare that Caesar is Lord (“kurios caesar”). They were supposed to realise I was the bad guy, but (perhaps due to the sheer strength of my personal charisma?) they obligingly bowed and worshiped. Oops – that’s not supposed to happen in church.

Anyway, today the kids were primed not to worship me, which they did a good job of. I couldn’t shut them up to say my lines because they repeatedly chanted “Jesus”. But I resisted the pressure to have Nero convert to Christianity at the end of the drama – that was just too offensive to my sense of historical integrity, even given the wild amount of artistic license we had already taken.

My friend Dan Bowen has sent me a copy of his (unpublished) book on Ern Baxter, which he has given me permission to make available online. Dan is a nurse, currently working in Bristol, and shares my passion for studying the Bible and theology, as well as a love for Word and Spirit. We both attended the same church (see my story here), where Ern had a lot of input. Ern would come over to the UK once or twice a year and put on a series of meetings at the church or to speak at a Bible week. His teaching left a big impact on everyone, myself included, but Dan especially grew to appreciate Ern through listening to the tapes and videos of the years he was around (we were only in our early teens when Ern died).

Dan spent a lot of time and effort putting this together, and contacted a lot of people as he researched it. He has real skill and patience when it comes to transcribing audio. When he finished it last year, he gave copies to some of the pastors who had known Ern, including Stanley Jebb from Dunstable, and Terry Virgo who heads up New Frontiers. Perhaps it was not coincidence that Terry Virgo’s next editorial in the New Frontiers magazine drew from Ern’s teaching.

Update: A lot of the links in this post are now unfortunately broken. However, if you want access to lots of Ern Baxter MP3s (including Life on Wings), visit Broken Bread Teaching.

Anyway, download it and read it here in Microsoft Word format. I might get round to converting it to HTML format if there is enough interest.

As a free gift of my own to go with the book, here is the famous Life on Wings sermon in MP3 format. Its over 13Mb – the sermon is 1h 17min (that’s actually short for Ern! – many of his sermons are over 90 minutes). I have a good number of other Ern MP3 sermons which I can make available to people on request (its over 250Mb so I’m not putting it online).

ps Dan is also one of the founder members of Full Faith, and can be seen in a number of the photos.