Author Archives: Mark Heath

Some Links

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I’ve not had time to write much over recent weeks, but I have been doing plenty of reading. Here’s some of the things that have caught my attention:

  • The charismatic debate rumbles on, but this time its the cessationists who are continuing, just when the continuationists wanted to stop. Check out some insights from Mark Barnes too, who has sold me three commentaries this week (bang goes my New Years resolution not to buy commentaries faster than I can read them)
  • N T Wright continues to attract discussion, with many reformed evangelicals still trying to decide whether he is a goodie or a baddie. Seems like he’s keeping the wrong company. He’s got at least three dubious friends…
  • First is Steve Chalke, who caused a furore with his hostile dismissal of “penal substitution”. Sven agrees with him, and has posted three articles this week on the subject. Its also worth checking further back on his site for articles on the “Christus Victor” theory of the atonement. Tom Wright actually responds to some concerns in a Q & A on his site, where he doesn’t reject penal substitution outright, but sees it as one aspect in a richer theology of the atonement. As for myself, I need to do some more research on this subject, but I remember being very impressed after reading John Stott’s “The Cross of Christ” with what a wide variety of ways the Bible uses to talk about the meaning of the cross (redemption, atonement, reconcilliation, ransom etc …).
  • Second is Brian McLaren, author of the most controversial book on LibraryThing. Justin Taylor asks why emergent folks such as Brian like Wright so much.. Kevin Cawley, Philip Ryken and Rick Philips offer interesting responses (summary: he’s a baddie).
  • Finally, his egalitarian position has attracted the attention of Doug Wilson. Doug’s blog makes for great reading although I doubt many will agree with him on every view he has. He has written a lot about Brian McLaren as well, including a multi-part review of a Generous Orthodoxy, indexed here and here
  • On a lighter note, there are two new episodes in the hilarious “Drowning Melville” series on the Save the Wheel website. This is an initiative that Sovereign Grace seem to be behind, with a rather way out sense of humour. Anyway, the “Drowning Melville” series is comedy genius. Check it out.

Some Links

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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

Commentary Series Review – Bible Speaks Today

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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:

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

Trackback Attack

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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.

Book Review – The Message of Numbers (Raymond Brown)

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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.

Blasphemy in church

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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.