Author: J.K.

Reading the Minor Prophets

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“What makes them less important?”

This was the first question I was asked as we started discussing the Minor Prophets. In the spring of 2015, I was searching for a topic or book of the Bible to study with my group. For some reason, I felt compelled to dig into the Minor Prophets. One reason being that I knew almost nothing about them. I’ve seen verses used in other context that are pulled from Micah (6:8) and maybe something from Hosea or Joel. I once had a pastor spend a few weeks in Hosea, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a sermon from any of the others. I had certainly never read in books, commentaries or Bible studies on them.

Ignoring these books is crazy when you think about it. There are 66 books in the Bible, and we are excluding 12; that’s almost 20% of the books (granted, by volume, it is considerably less). Honestly, I can see ignoring Deuteronomy or something like Chronicles. They are long and have lists of names, dates, laws and histories. The Prophets aren’t like that. They are a mix of short stories and sermons (not dissimilar to Christ’s parables or the Sermon on the Mount). Instead, they receive considerable less attention than the Epistles.

Imagine if you had never read or heard a sermon preached on 1, 2, or 3 John; Timothy, Titus or Jude; 1 or 2 Peter; 1 or 2 Corinthians; or Galatians or Ephesians. Think of the treasure of scripture you would be missing out on.

So, that brings us back to the question, “What makes them not as important as the other prophets”? The short answer is, nothing, they aren’t less important and should not (and never have been) viewed that way. Minor is really a bit of a misnomer. Continue reading →

Updated Reading Challenge

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My 2016 Reading Challenge

Through a quarter of the year, I’m on pace to reach my goal. So far, I’ve read 11 books, which would put me on track to read about 44 this year, easily meeting my challenge of 31. I doubt I’ll actually keep this pace, but it’s a nice thought. I’m geeking out a bit with the Goodreads tracking function, because it allows you to order the books by page numbers (as in below, with the exception of Tyndale) and also tells you the number of pages you’ve read (0f books you’ve finished). I’m at 2,163 in case anyone was interested. Actually, it looks like they are only counting eight books in that number, not sure why.

Books so far:

  1. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
  2. Pirate Latitudes
  3. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
  4. A History of the World in 6 Glasses
  5. Four Views on the Historical Adam
  6. The Church: The Gospel Made Visible
  7. How to Read Genesis (How to Read Series How to Read)
  8. Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will
  9. Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity
  10. Meditations (Dover Thrift Editions)
  11. 1 Peter (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)

 

I’m currently reading Bavinck, Crime and Punishment, Thinking Fast and Slow, The American President, and The Last Girl, as well as Morning by Morning.

A few more on my list (whether I get to them this year or not):

  • Novels – Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Hyperion, Girl on the Train, and probably some free kindle stuff.
  • Christiany books – Don’t Waste Your Life, Disciplines of a Godly Man, Radically Normal, Lost World of Genesis 1
  • Bible Study – pretty much all the Minor Prophets, using the New American, Tyndale and Word Biblical Commentaries.
  • Non-fiction – Misbehaving, Jimmy Carter’s Reflections at 90, Sapiens

Blogging Bavinck 5 – Reformed Dogma

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“Reformed Theology begins with Zwingli…in the radical dependence of humanity on a sovereign and gracious God…”

Chapter 6 (175-206) necessarily begins with the Lutherans in Germany and how the differed with the Swiss Reformation and Zwingli. The largest difference being the view of the Lord’s Supper. However, it grows to Reformed theology being focused on thinking theologically, while Lutherans think anthropologically. For the Reformed, election is the main doctrine, for Lutheran, it is justification.

Lutheran Theology takes hold in Germany, but the history of Reformed dogma is harder to pin down. It starts in Switzerland, but spreads to many other countries, France, German, Spain and finds strongholds in Britain and the Netherlands. He briefly notes the impact of scholastics and then the challenges of Rationalism and mysticism. I went dive too much into these because they were cover so much elsewhere.

He points to the importance of the Westminster Assembly and that the development of theology in the reformed churches in all countries were more or less constant. However, Presbyterians shrink of Westminster and there is a rise in Non-conformists, especially with John Owen, and Baptists, culminating in the London Baptist Confession of Faith, which really was only different from Westminster in church government and baptism. He makes an interesting point that Baptist grew and multiplied especially in America, but not necessarily though theologians, but rather great preachers. I don’t want to digress, but this is a very significant development in American Christianity that I will write on later.

Next come the decline of Reformed theology in the 18th century and the influence of the Enlightenment in the 19th century, particularly with Kant and Schleiermacher. Their influence in Germany so destructive he writes that at the time of writing there is in Germany, ‘not a single university…on the basis of the Reformed confession.’ Continue reading →

Book Review: Pirate Latitudes

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Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

My Rating –If You are Looking for Something

Level – Easy & quick, medium length

Summary

It’s about pirates. If you are like me, what more do you need? Actually, it’s technically not about pirates, it’s about privateers and they are very particular to make it clear that they are not pirates. Anyway, if follows an English privateer in Port Royal (like, from Pirates of the Caribbean) who has a chance to attack a Spanish fort, that is considered impenetrable, to get to a Spanish Galleon that he hopes is carrying lots of gold.

He assembles his core team, which is of course a color, ragtag bunch, as well as a few dozen other unnamed crew members and sets sail. With storms, other ships, and of course, a kraken, the mission takes on almost an “Odyssey” feel. There are number of interesting twist and turns as the adventure takes much longer than expected. Read it and decide if it has a happy ending or not.

My Thoughts

I’m a fan of anything pirates or Michael Crichton, so I wasn’t disappointed. The book is a little long, and meanders a bit at the end, before finally concluding. I’m also a big fan of the ‘round-up.’ The part where the protagonist sets off to assemble is crew. Crichton does a great and entertaining job of this, early on in the book. If anyone cares, I’ve read that this book is incredibly accurate in regards to maritime history, but, obviously, I can’t confirm that.

There are parts that are predictable and cliché, and an anti-climactic dual that was disappointing, but overall, if you are heading to the beach and want a fun book to read, this is a great option.

Blogging Bavinck 4 – Catholic and Lutheran Dogmatics

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After hitting the early history, chapters four and five (pgs. 143-174) run briefly through Catholic and Lutheran dogmatics, respectively.

My pretend theologian credentials do not extend to knowledge of Catholic Dogmas, so it was a very informative chapter for me. The starting point for Catholic dogma is the era of scholasticism. He sees three main issues with this. First, original sources were not studied, this is partly because Hebrew and Greek were unknown for the most part, but also the theologians at the time accepted Scripture and tradition uncritically; ‘Faith was the starting point.’

Second, the methodology was dependent on Aristotle’s logic, though only two of his books were translated into Latin; only part of Plato’s Timaus and a few quotes from Augustine were known. With Aristotle taking the place of John the Baptist as precursor to Christ, dogmatics became more a system of philosophy than doctrine of faith.

Finally, the whole presentation of the system became, basically, too tedious. I remember hearing that scholastic theologians argued over the number of angles that could dance on the head of a pin. Bavinck notes that complication took the place of serious study, the ‘form became more rigid…and dogmatics degenerated into endless argumentation.’

Later in the Jesuits, with their methodology and scholastic theology, ushered in the Count-Reformation. They brought study and seriousness back to dogma with their polemics against the Protestants, generally following the work of Thomas (I just realized I didn’t write anything about Thomas, that would be St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval and scholastic theologians, with his monumental work Summa), though the differed on sin, free will, and grace. He finishes this chapter with issues of Modernity, which I won’t go much into. He points to the philosophy of Europe becoming that of Bacon and Descartes, and leaving Aristotle. This, and the impact of Romanticism, are the greatest issues in 19th century Catholicism. Continue reading →

No Metal Friday

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No Metal Friday today. This site will be quiet in honor of Mrs. MMT’s Granddad, who passed away this morning; after a roughly five year battle with lung cancer.

He was one of my favorite people. They had retired to Florida, and when I went to FSU for grad school, I really got to know them well. They quickly accepted me into the family and were always nice to me. I will miss him.

Commentaries on 1 Peter

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That would be ‘first’ Peter, not ‘one’, for those unfamiliar with the Bible.

So, I’m not going to review 1 Peter here, at least not in the usual book review sense. I may put a few notes out there later, but for now I want to leave a few thoughts on the commentaries I used.

First and foremost, you should be using a commentary.

We just wrapped up our study on 1 Peter this morning. It has been a great eight week study that had us deep in the text and introduced me to a few guys at our new church. I used a few different commentaries in my study – Tyndale was my main one, which I read word for word. I consulted Baker Exegetical , New International,  as well as a little bit in the New Bible and the abridged Expositors.

I was surprised to find how readable Baker’s was. I have to say it was probably my first choice overall, the one I found the most insightful. I would definitely recommend Baker’s if you are going for a highly technical one.

Tyndale’s commentary was, as usual, highly readable and approachable, but 1 Peter was written by Wayne Grudem, so it is certainly technical enough. As he has written one of the most of the most popular and readable systematics, it’s not surprise this one pack so much in. If you are watching your budget, take Tyndale over Bakers, but if you can, do both.

I don’t think one is enough (ever really), but especially when you some tricky topics, such as Jesus proclaiming to the spirits in prison.  Baker’s Jobe as posits a somewhat different view of the audience than you’ll likely read in other commentaries. I found it very compelling and would say it’s very much worth the read. The New Bible Commentary entry was a bit short, but I will probably find that more and more as I use other, larger commentaries. Probably still a worthwhile read as an into to a book.

The abridged Expositor’s I found somewhat lacking. I’ll admit I didn’t jump into the unabridged, so, I may be more a byproduct of the editing than of the overall content itself. And of course, I used one of my study Bibles, in this instance, it was the Reformation one and it was also great as an overview.

It was overall a great study, sad to see it over. However, Mrs. MMT and I are now jumping into the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Her and I have never done a study, just us two, so I’m excited and interested to see how that works out. As always, I’ll have thoughts on the commentaries used and hopefully a few mediocre study notes posted.

If you are interested, you can buy the commentaries I mentioned:

1 Peter (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)
1 Peter (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)
The First Epistle of Peter (The New International Commentary on the New Testament)
Hebrews – Revelation (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary)

Blogging Bavinck 3 – History of Dogma

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Dogmatics, therefore, is not a dull and arid science. It is a theodicy, a doxology to all God’s virtues and perfections, a hymn of adoration and thanksgiving…

I’m a big Ol’ History nerd, so I really enjoyed Chapter 3 – The Formation of Dogma: East and West (pgs. 115-142). Scripture is not a work of dogmatics or systematics, it is the inspired word of God and “the immediate expression of life.” He says that Scripture had not yet become the something that early believers reflected upon with a ‘thinking conscience.’

For this reason, the early church merely articulated dogmatics in epistolary writings and basic creeds. Outside of the canonical epistles, we have those that came later, i.e. Clement, Shepherd of Hermes, etc. As the church grew, we entered the era of apologetics. No longer writing just answers to questions of actions, we were forced to reflect more deeply on scripture in order to defend our beliefs in the face of persecution or our community being ostracized.

Educated converts such as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus defended the faith against Gnosticism and created a ‘Christian vocabulary and worldview.’ Later through Tertullian and Origen, the foundations of Theology were set and Christianity increasingly became to be ‘understood primarily as a set of idea.’

The fourth century led to great developments in dogmatics as, after becoming the official religion, questions of theology moved from external attacks to internal struggles. The most compelling issues where those of the Christological nature, especially that of homoousia, that is the dual nature of Christ. Athanasius strongly asserted that the deity of Christ was the essence of Christianity; that is Christ had to be God to bring salvation. He along with others (Basil, the Gregorys, etc.) wrote polemic on this, the Trinity and the incarnation, all over and against the Arians and Macedonians. Orthodoxy was settled in 381 A.D. at the Synod of Constantinople.

The next four centuries were ones of turmoil for doctrine. For the eastern church the focus was that of humanity being subject to sin and corruption, and through Christ, we do not die but partake in life. The west focused on our relationship with God. We are guilty of violating the commandments, but through the work of Christ, we have grace. He notes that John resonates with the East and Paul with the West. I have no idea if this is still true of the Orthodox church today, but it always seemed to me there is a further division in the West, that the protestants resonate with Paul, while Catholics focus on Peter. Continue reading →

Easter Sunday

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Special edition of Metal Friday, Sunday version.

I’ve always found this song a powerful victory song. That’s what today is. He conquered death and the gates of hell will not prevail against Him. We worship a living God, we served the one that overcame the grave, that we may never die, but have eternal life.

Death – where is your sting, where is your victory?

They thought that You were bound by nature’s laws
He is risen! He is risen!
For the veil that was torn in two and the darkness that would ensue
A symbol alas that the debt was finally paid
When the stone it was rolled away, He was no longer where He lay
Surely our King had risen from the dead

From their CD Captors