I took my first preaching class thirteen years ago: Sermon Preparation and Delivery with Dr. Michael Boys. Hundreds of sermons, lectures, and lessons later, the two pillars he established still stand tallest in my mind. Pastor Boys taught us that accuracy and clarity are the most essential elements of biblical preaching. Accuracy is like air, … More True and Clear: A Call to Biblical Preaching
A Commentary on the Psalms: Volume 2 (42-89) (Kregel Academic, 2013) is the second installment in Allen Ross‘s multi-volume commentary on the Psalter in the Kregel Exegetical Library series. Ross currently serves as Professor of Divinity in Old Testament at Beeson Divinity School. This second volume covers Books II-III of the Psalter (42-89). Ross introduces each psalm with … More A Commentary on the Psalms: Volume 2 (42-89) by Allen Ross (Review)
The man who regularly speaks without a burden should stop speaking until he finds one. Or one finds him. Until our lives have weight, our words will have none. And until we bear a burden, our lives will be weightless. Burdenless lives produce weightless words. A man’s burden tells us who he is. It tells us … More The Burdened Life and the Weighty Word
When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible by Timothy Michael Law (Oxford University Press, 2013) is a narrative retelling of the rise and fall of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. I have chosen to limit my review to general impressions since (1) I am a … More When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible by Timothy Michael Law (Review)
When evangelicalism turns to books, our functional motto is: “The newer, the truer.” We stir our hearts with fresh devotionals, hone our skills with modern ministry manuals, deepen our discernment with cultural exposés, and study our Bibles with contemporary commentaries. When it comes to the freshly published word, we have an embarrassment of riches. But our … More The Apostolic Fathers: Holmes’ Text and Wallace’s Lexicon (Review)
Teaching our children the Bible is the highest responsibility we have as Christian parents. This teaching involves love, shepherding, discipleship, and modeling, but it never involves less than reading the Scriptures. Nothing can replace the reading and memorization of the normative English Bible. However, children’s story Bibles can be a helpful supplement for smaller children. The … More The Story Bible (Review)
I have four kids, ages 6, 6, 7, and 8. They’re at the prime of kidness, and I love it. They’re also growing, though, and while I’m thrilled with their growth, I simultaneously bemoan it. My wife often reminds me that each stage of their lives will bring us joy. It’s a good reminder, and … More It’s Not Complicated: Kids Are Great
In 2014, get weird. You know how you sometimes wonder if you’ll die having given your threescore and ten years to the status quo, having worried too much about being normal and accepted, having spent days and weeks and months looking laterally instead of vertically, having trusted your fears too much and your dreams too … More Get Weird
The tree of the New Testament rises from the roots of the Old; the roots of the Old Testament break out in the tree of the New. The New Testament is nonsensical without the Old; and the Old Testament is unfulfilled and ultimately uninterpreted without the New. Therefore, I’m grateful to Jason DeRouchie of Bethlehem … More What the OT Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible (Review)
If you want to be a scholar, you have to know your field. The seminal works, the major contributions, the game-changing periods, the ebb and flow of dialogue throughout the decades or centuries or millennia. You have to join the conversation. There’s one potential problem with this (well, more than one, but only one I’m … More Give Me the Scenic Route: Intellectual Curiosity vs. Intellectual Cul-de-Sacs
Bret Lott is a writer, he’s a creative writer, and he’s a creative Christian writer. I don’t think he would write a normal review — summary, strengths, and interaction. That would be the easy route. That would, in terms of its category, “borrow from the vast steaming pile of clichés we always have ready at … More Letters and Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian by Bret Lott (Review)
How are you shaped ethically? What experiences nuance your beliefs and behaviors? What factors determine your rights and wrongs, creating your categories of good, bad, and ugly? I am convinced that everything we experience shapes us. What we see, what we hear, what we feel — everything. Human beings are a startling blend of two … More Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically (Review)
The Psalms are the pulse of the saints. The Psalter expresses the peaks and valleys of God’s people throughout the centuries, mapping the landscape of our lives and echoing the rhythm of our hearts. What would Christians do without the Psalms? The Psalter is the only God-breathed hymnbook, and it’s as magisterial as we might … More The Case for the Psalms by N. T. Wright (Review)
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It’s been said that the intellectual life, or the thinking life, is nothing more than a mind awake. And who in their right mind could bear to live as a mind asleep? To think is one of the highest privileges humanity possesses. Made in God’s image to … More A Mind Awake
The Hebrew Scriptures are adorned and haunted by their crown jewel — the Psalter. The Psalms fathom the depths of evil, suffering, and betrayal, and scale the heights of devotion, deliverance, and steadfast love. Through the centuries, Jews and Christians have turned to the Psalter both as individuals and communities to lament, repent, question, declare, and … More Singing in the Reign: The Psalms and the Liturgy of God’s Kingdom by Michael Barber (Review)
With four children ages 5-7, I care deeply about children’s Bibles. If the Bible is the sacred book we believe it is, then the selection of stories, their emphases and implications, the language and tone, the artwork — everything matters. The tagline of the popular Jesus Storybook Bible (ZonderKidz, 2009) reads: “Every story whispers his name.” In the introduction … More The Jesus Storybook Bible Deluxe Edition (Review)
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