Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Feeding on Christ and The Reformed Forum have decided to do a John Owen Giveaway. There will be two books to win and two chances to win them. The first book we have decided to give away is a 1810 edition of John Owen’s Pneumatologia: or a Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit. This book was published in Philadelphia, printed by and for William W. Woodward. It is a slightly abridged edition by George Burder. It is the first American, from the Second London Edition. The second book is Carl Trueman’s John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man published by Ashgate Publishing Co.

The rules are simple. Just add the Feeding on Christ feed and/or the Reformed Forum feed to your blogroll, RSS reader, iTunes or any other way you keep track of your regularly read blogs and listen to podcasts. After you subscribe, email us at giveaway@reformedforum.org and let us know which feed(s) you have subscribed to.  In addition, let us know what state and/or country in which you currently reside. You will receive one entry for each feed you subscribed to up to two per person.

The drawing will be on December 10th so enter soon.

We’ve installed new forum software over at forums.reformedforum.org in order to allow for discussions regarding Christ the Center and reformed theology in general.  Register now and start a discussion.

Tim Keller’s new book The Prodigal God.  Keller uses the parable of the prodigal son as a backdrop for explaining the gospel message.  The first thing readers might notice is the slightly offbeat title.  Shouldn’t it be the prodigal son?  Keller is quick to define the word prodigal as “recklessly extravagant” or “having spent everything.”  This certainly adds a welcome twist to our typical understanding of the parable.

From the outset, Keller points out that this parable is just as much a story about the older brother and the father as it is about the younger son who squanders his inheritance.  The book includes chapters on redefining sin, lostness and hope as well as expanding on the older brother and the feast of the father.  These chapters each contribute to a fresh look at this familiar story.  Keller’s writing wakes us up to parts of the parable we fail to see since many of us have heard the parable so many times and think we get it.

In his chapter on the elder brother, Keller draws out the explicit connection with the context in which Jesus told this parable.  He was answering the Pharisees (Luke 15:1-2) and seems to be likening the Pharisees to the older brother.  In doing so, he demonstrates their hypocrisy and makes a very important point.

This is a wonderful little book that is a useful tool for reminding us of our God’s grace and generosity.  This book is a quick read and I would encourage people to take a look at it and pass it around to friends and family - both to those of the household of faith and to those who by God’s grace may one day be in it.

As one in the throws of the new media revolution, I was naturally drawn to The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ edited by John Mark Reynolds and Roger Overton and published by Crossway.  This book addresses the changing landscape of media from a Christian perspective.  In his essay of first thoughts Reynolds defines new media as

any material presented to a person in a digital format that can be cheaply and easily accessed, distributed, stored in a variety of ways, manipulated, and consumed by an average person.

I would make a slight perfection to make it clear that the media need not necessarily be inexpensive to the consumer, though still being “cheap” to access in terms of transmission costs.  New media does not require a large budget to produce when compared to traditional media such as television.  New media is something anyone using an Internet-connected computer cannot escape.  It’s everywhere and it’s impacting the media world and shifting the business models of traditional media companies. (more…)

A new book by Steve Nichols has just been released called Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation. As an avid fan [and player] of blues music, I am very interested in reading this book.  From the publisher:

In Getting the Blues, Stephen Nichols examines this dissonance in the Bible—what he calls “theology in a minor key”—and leads the reader in a vivid exploration of how blues music offers powerful insight into the biblical narrative and the life of Jesus.

Subtly weaving Bible stories together with intriguing details of the lives of blues musicians such as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, Nichols reveals what blues music teaches about sin, suffering, alienation, and worship. He delves into how the blues can intensify our understanding of bondage to sin and redemption and how the blues encourage us to strive for justice and righteousness.

Getting the Blues will resonate with anyone interested in Christianity and culture. In the end, readers will emerge with a deeper understanding of the value of a theology that lingers on the dark side and embraces Good Friday as well as Easter, suffering as well as joy.

• John Mark Reynolds and Roger Overton, eds. The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ
• John Carrick The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards and the Imperative of Preaching
• Andreas Kostenberger and Scott R. Swain Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel
• Gary L. W. Johnson, ed. Reforming or Conforming?  Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church
• Cornelius Van Til and K. Scott Oliphint, ed. The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed.
• D. A. Carson Christ and Culture Revisited
• Rick Phillips What’s So Great About the Doctrines of Grace?

Presbyterian & Reformed Publishers has just released The Certainty of the Faith by Richard Ramsay.  Ramsay is a presuppositionalist, but proposes what he calls an “integrated” approach to apologetics.  While maintaining his pre-commitment to God’s revelation in Scripture, he seeks to find a place for evidences and rational arguments provided they do not undermine the self-attesting Word.  Although I consider myself a Van Tillian, given Ramsay’s definition I perhaps might better be called an “integrationist.”  I find the term helpful in a clarifying sense, but true Van Tillians do not shy away from evidences provided they are put in their correct place and never used as an appeal to autonomous reason. (more…)

The following is a paper I wrote some years ago for an independent reading course as part of my PhD program at Westminster Theological Seminary. It is an evaluation of one aspect of the theology of Thomas F. Torrance. I claim no expertise in Torrancean theology. But I offer this as an exercise in theological analysis.

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Prolegomena

This paper is about one particular aspect of the thought of theologian Thomas F. Torrance.[1] Torrance, is, of course, known for two major contributions he has made to theology. Torrance has made a tremendous contribution to an understanding of the interrelations of science and theology and, especially since his “retirement” from active teaching, for his production of erudite works on Trinitarian theology. Regarding Torrance’s work on the relationship of theology to the natural sciences, Elmer Colyer tells us, Thomas F. Torrance is considered by many to be the most outstanding, living Reformed theologian in the Anglo-Saxon world. One of the leading theologians in the dialogue between theology and philosophy of science, he was awarded the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion in 1978.[2]

(more…)

The year nineteen hundred and ninety-eight saw the 100th anniversary of the Dutch theologian-statesman Abraham Kuyper’s presentation of his justly famous Stone Lectures on Calvinism at Princeton Theological Seminary.  In that series of six lectures, Kuyper strove to demonstrate that Calvinism was not simply a religious dogma that some might argue was relevant for confessional purposes only, but was a thoroughgoing “life-system.”  Kuyper himself described the life-system of Calvinism as “all embracing,” “comprehensive,” and “far-reaching.”

(more…)