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Paige Patterson and Mike Wittmer on Hamilton’s Revelation Commentary

By on January 13, 2012 in Book Reviews, Theology/Bible

I commended Jim Hamilton’s new commentary on Revelation on Wednesday. You might be interested to see two other commendations—one from Paige Patterson and the other from Mike Wittmer:

“In a day when most preachers appear to be terrified by the prospects of preaching any text beyond the third chapter of the Apocalypse, I find Dr. James Hamilton’s Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches to be an oasis in the wilderness. Though my own interpretation of the book is light years removed from that of Professor Hamilton, the purity of his love for Christ, for his church, and for the Word of God makes every page a delight to read regardless of his eschatological position.” –Paige Patterson, President, Southwestern Seminary Continue Reading →

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Jim Hamilton on His New Revelation Commentary

By on January 11, 2012 in Book Reviews, Theology/Bible

If you haven’t gotten a copy of Jim Hamilton’s new commentary on Revelation, now is the time to do so. This book is an excellent exposition of the text, and I commend it to you. I am grateful that Hamilton took some time to answer some of my questions about the book of revelation and his interpretation of it. My questions and Hamilton’s responses are below.

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What is the main point of Revelation? What is the genre?

I think the main point of Revelation is that God will be glorified in salvation through judgment.

The churches that John addressed were small and seemingly insignificant. The Roman culture in which they lived confronted them with temptation to idolatry and sexual immorality. This book pulls back the veil and shows them the way things really are: those who participate in the Roman Imperial Cult face God’s judgment, through which he will save those who are spiritually pure, the bride of Christ, Christians who are symbolically referred to as virgins, when the King comes riding in on that white horse. Continue Reading →

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Jeremy Pierre Reviews “Real Marriage”

By on January 10, 2012 in Book Reviews, Christianity

Jeremy Pierre has a critical review of Real Marriage in Credo magazine, and like many reviewers he takes issue with chapter 10. Pierre is a pastor and biblical counselor, and he has a section that I think is particularly insightful. He writes,

It is precisely the Driscolls’ apparent desire to stand against a sexualized culture that makes Chapter 10 “Can We ____?” so frustrating to read… Continue Reading →

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My Review of Mark Driscoll’s “Real Marriage”

By on January 3, 2012 in Book Reviews, Christianity, Theology/Bible

Mark and Grace Driscoll. Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship & Life Together. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012. 249pp. $22.99 (hardback).

[Download PDF version of this review.]

I am no connoisseur of marriage manuals, but Mark and Grace Driscoll’s recent contribution to the genre has to be one of the most provocative treatments ever penned for and by evangelicals. In Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship & Life Together, Mark and Grace share candidly about the significant sexual brokenness that afflicted the early years of their own marriage and about how the Lord delivered them from it. They also discuss in graphic detail the questions that couples frequently ask them about the marital bed. The two-hundred plus pages of this book focus on personal testimony and practical teaching so that readers might walk in biblical holiness and avoid the pitfalls experienced by the Driscolls. Real Marriage reads like a marriage seminar that has been put into book form, and there are hints throughout that this is exactly what the book actually is (e.g., p. xiii). Real Marriage has eleven chapters that are divided into three major sections: Part 1, “Marriage”; Part 2, “Sex”; and Part 3, “The Last Day.” Continue Reading →

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The Death-Inducing , Soul-Killing Message of Liberalism

By on December 23, 2011 in Book Reviews, Christianity

Rod Dreher’s 2001 review of The Close is a must-read. He captures as well as anybody the deadness and irrelevancy of theological liberalism. The author of The Close is Chloe Breyer (daughter of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer), and in the book she chronicles her life as a liberal seminary student slouching towards parish ministry. Dreher’s critique is sharp and well-earned. Breyer seems genuinely unquestioning of her own assumptions about life and the things she believes (or disbelieves). In a telling moment in the book, Breyer is stunned that a group of prison inmates were not buying the Protestant liberalism she was selling. Dreher is particularly good here: Continue Reading →

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Junia Is a Woman, and I Am a Complementarian

By on December 8, 2011 in Book Reviews, Theology/Bible

Scot McKnight is one of my favorite egalitarians. We are quite different in our theological perspectives, but he is an all around engaging personality. He is a fantastic New Testament scholar and a prolific writer. His interests are wide-ranging, and he is gifted both at producing serious scholarship and at reaching more popular audiences with his work. In my view, he’s a triple threat: serious scholar, popular blogger, and charismatic speaker. He has a gift for communicating serious ideas to wide audiences.

His new little e-book Junia Is Not Alone (Patheos Press, 2011) is no exception. In this little pamphlet, McKnight argues at the popular level in favor of an egalitarian reading of scripture (though he prefers to call his view “mutuality”). Taking Junia as his point of departure (Romans 16:7), he argues that women have been routinely overlooked in the life and ministry of the Christian church. Thus Junia is not alone in being slighted by a patriarchal vision of gender roles in the church and the home. Continue Reading →

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The Dragon’s Tooth on “All Things Considered”

By on November 14, 2011 in Book Reviews, Christianity

N. D. Wilson is a great writer, and he has a new novel out titled The Dragon’s Tooth. He was interviewed recently on the NPR program “All Things Considered,” and you can listen to the audio below or download it here.

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The book is fantasy-fiction on the order of C. S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia.” According to the report, here is what the book is about: Continue Reading →

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Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind

By on November 9, 2011 in Book Reviews, Christianity

Matt Hall had many positive things to say about Mark Noll’s book Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind. He also has some critiques, and this one stood out to me. He writes,

Noll’s book at times rings of the most strident and elitist forms of evangelical condescension. I’ll admit that as a Southern Baptist I easily grow weary of constant screeds against my denomination’s supposed pervasive intellectual backwardness and disinterest in developing anything even close to a respectable life of the mind. With all the respect to Noll I can muster, these caricatures are not only unhelpful but also tired and inaccurate. The last 20 years have seen the recovery of a number of Baptist institutions in the South for traditional evangelicalism, including the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Union University, and Houston Baptist University. These institutions evidence vital signs of life and suggest that Southern Baptists may indeed be better prepared to invest in serious and sustained Christian intellectual engagement than Noll is willing to concede.

Read the rest of Hall’s excellent review here.

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Tim Challies on John Eldredge’s New Book

By on October 15, 2011 in Book Reviews, Christianity

Tim Challies is sharing excerpts from John Eldredge’s strange new book Beautiful Outlaw. What’s strange about it? It’s the stories Eldredge tells about the various ways God communicates with him through signs and visions. But these aren’t your run-of-the-mill charismatic expressions; they’re pretty weird. In one vision, Eldredge claims that Jesus was wearing a pirate hat. In one sign, Eldredge claims that God gave him a heart-shaped piece of manure to show how much He loved him. I’m not making this up.

You can go follow all of this at Tim Challies’ blog. I’ll print the first to excerpts below. Continue Reading →

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Steve Jobs’ Biography on Sale Now

By on October 7, 2011 in Book Reviews, News

The publisher Simon & Schuster announced yesterday that they have moved-up the publication date of Steve Jobs’ authorized biography from November 21 to October 24 (see cover at right). It hits the shelves this month. You can pre-order a copy right now from Amazon.com.

One of the last people to see Jobs before his death was his biographer, Walter Isaacson. In that meeting, Jobs explains why he authorized his biography. Here is an account of Jobs’ final meeting with Isaacson:

Steve Jobs, in pain and too weak to climb stairs a few weeks before his death, wanted his children to understand why he wasn’t always there for them, according to the author of his highly anticipated biography.

“I wanted my kids to know me,” Jobs was quoted as saying by Pulitzer Prize nominee Walter Isaacson, when he asked the Apple Inc. co-founder why he authorized a tell-all biography after living a private, almost ascetic life.

“I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did,” Jobs told Isaacson in their final interview at Jobs’ home in Palo Alto, Calif.

Isaacson said he visited Jobs for the last time a few weeks ago and found him curled up in some pain in a downstairs bedroom. Jobs had moved there because he was too weak to go up and down stairs, “but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant,” Isaacson wrote in an essay on Time.com that will be published in the magazine’s Oct. 17 edition…

Isaacson’s book includes extensive interviews with the Apple co-founder, who rarely discussed his private life. Isaacson has written best-selling biographies of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.

His comments about his time away from his children has to be one of the saddest things I’ve read since hearing about his death. It has certainly tempered my enthusiasm about the legacy of the man. But that won’t keep me from buying the book. In fact, I’ve already ordered a copy.

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