wordandspirit

This short booklet (29 pages) can be purchased from Grove Books in either printed or PDF format (£2.75 either way). Despite the abundance of material on the New Perspective on Paul (NPP), there is a real shortage of accessible introductory material that presents the issues clearly and fairly. Thompson does this admirably and his task is helped by his moderately neutral stance on the issue.

After a brief introduction, the ‘Old’ Perspective is described, with particular reference to Luther’s understanding of Jewish theology. He summarises the ‘Lutheran’ position in six points and then highlights problems with each that have given rise to the New Perspective. He does not unfortunately attempt to define a non-Lutheran ‘Old Perspective’, and the points end up being something of a straw man that many from the Old Perspective could easily knock down.

Chapter 3 attempts to explain the New Perspective by outlining the theology of three leading proponents – Sanders, Dunn and Wright. Sanders denied that Judaism taught salvation earned by good deeds, but that rather these works helped Jews to stay in the covenant. Dunn built on this by defining “works of the law” as those things that marked the Jews as insiders as opposed to the Gentiles, hence they are not to be thought of in terms of basic moral behaviour. Thompson broadly agrees but is not sure that all references to ‘works of the law’ can be defined in such narrow terms. Wright’s alternative definition of ‘justification’ is explained, along with his distinctive emphasis of the exile theme – that God will sort out evil and deliver his people. Thompson notes that not all have been convinced by this, and especially some evangelicals are concerned about the loss of imputation from the concept of justification.

Chapter 4 provides some of Thompson’s own insights into Paul’s letters. He emphasises the Jewish belief that the law was a good gift, but that for Paul he had come to see that Jesus was the ultimate gift. However many Jews had rejected Jesus and persecuted Paul, and some Christian Jews were effectively rejecting the sufficiency of the cross with their requirements on Gentile converts. Thompson helpfully summarises both Paul’s criticism and respect for the law. He does not however, address to what degree Paul expected Jewish believers to adhere to the law.

Chapter 5 summarises the evangelical criticism of the New Perspective. He argues that the concern that justification by faith is being lost in favour of salvation by works is not justified. But he does believe that the NPP brings a much-needed emphasis on our Christian behaviour in addition to faith. Another concern is whether this signals an end to evangelisation of the Jews, which he is a little unclear on. He does believe it the gospel should be preached to Jews but hints that Jews can be saved by grace without the gospel (I may have misunderstood him here though).

Chapter 6 brings the positives of the New Perspective, which at the very least has caused people to study their Bibles more thoroughly. Thompson does not believe all the texts fit either view perfectly, but the NPP brings much light to the flow of argument in Romans and elsewhere. He also believes that NPP can help bring a corrective against antinomian tendencies.

The booklet concludes with a bibliography, and a web link to what is the premier online resource for New Perspective research – the Paul Page. This booklet is by far the best introductory material to the New Perspective I have read, and shows sensitivity to both sides of the debate as well as evangelical concerns. Its relatively brief size will be welcomed by anyone who just wants to grasp the basics before diving into the much longer books and papers available. There are a few points on which his argumentation is weak, and he doesn’t allow himself to be drawn on the imputation debate, but his conclusions are not overly ambitious and provide food for thought for evangelicals from either perspective. The booklet will also serve as a handy reference to the main texts in the Pauline corpus that are pertinent to the debate.

Thanks to Google Scholar I have found that my third year university project which was published in abridged form as a paper for the “Parallel Computing” journal by my tutor Jeff Reeve, has been cited by three other scholarly papers. You can even read it in HTML although its completely unreadable due to the large number of mathematical symbols used. Also, inexplicably, all occurrences of the string “ffi” have been removed, making efficient into “ecient” and difficult into “dicult”.

The title is supposed to be “An Efficient Parallel Version of the Householder-QL Matrix Diagonalisation Algorithm” (sounds exciting, doesn’t it?)

I have upgraded my blog software (serendipity) to the latest version. It looks like it is still working OK, despite a few hiccups in the upgrade process. Search still needs to be fixed though. There is a new feature where you can download my blog as a PDF – scroll down to the bottom to have a look.

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.