Eerdmans today announced that Joel Green, professor at Fuller and editor par excellence, will be the successor to Gordon Fee as editor of the leading commentary series, the New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans has made, in my mind, a perfect decision in Joel Green. More on this below. First … a little context, and I have to say that when I saw this announcement today it led me into a reverie of how important this series has been to me.

When I was a college student in Grand Rapids (at Cornerstone University) I visited The Bookstore at Eerdmans — get this — 3-4x a week on my way to school. And I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with the good folks at Eerdmans, but for a poor student on a miniscule book budget, Eerdmans was the place for me. Why? They sold damaged books at 90% discount and I literally prayed for damaged goods when it came to three kinds of books: Kittel’s TDNT, major new theological books (I paid $2.50 for Ladd the day it arrived), and my favorite — the NICNT.

At the time the NICNT was edited by FF Bruce, and I remember when Gordon Fee’s 1 Corinthians came out with a spine that had the author of the previous 1 Corinthians (Geldenhuys), and all I could think of was “damaged goods.” Sure enough, I got Fee at a big discount. My original copy had a black marker through the name.

Over my career the NICNT has played a significant role and is my favorite series. In fact, it was a highlight of my career when I got a letter from FF Bruce inviting me to write the Matthew commentary, and it was a downer when I finally wrote the editor (then Gordon Fee) and confessed that I would never finish the thing … and then they gave it to Dick France and it was finally completed. So I was incredibly relieved when Gordon asked me to do James, and I managed to get the thing done. After finishing James Gordon asked me to do Colossians and Philemon, to which I agreed. So, I’m slated now to work for the third editor: Joel Green. [Read more...]

This post is by my friend Josh Graves is about folks leaving the church, and not just 20somethings but 40somethings too:

2. The real issue is being skirted. I think the real cause of disillusionment with church is self-disappointment. Pain birthed anger, now solidified in cynicism and apathy (funny how those two always go together). Frustration with “the church” is first about frustration with self. We tend to, in the wisdom of Donald Miller, judge others based on actions while judging ourselves based upon our intent. We are harder on “the church” so we can be “easier” on ourselves. This is why some Christians literally demand more from their church than they do from their own family, their own personal lives (money, time, etc.).

3. A heavy dose of entitlement and self-deception is present in many of these conversations. Boomers, much to the admittance of all generations, are perhaps the first truly consumer generation in American history. Their kids (of which I’m guilty) are even starker consumers precisely because we were raised in the milieu of “gaining, acquiring, achieving, and consuming” to our heart’s content. I now look back and see the simple practices my parents instilled (hospitality, simplicity, generosity with money) to challenge these larger temptations. Honestly, it’s something I’m trying to reevaluate as we are watching our two boys grow and emerge. [Read more...]

By Frederick Schmidt:

As sociologist Robert Wuthnow observes, the early ’60s continued the emphasis of the ’50s on a spirituality of dwelling and, therefore, church building. But the trends at work in the larger society also gave birth to a spirituality of seeking that had little use for the church at all. Like others, Wuthnow chronicles the factors that undermined the authority of religious leaders and the communities that they represented, including the Vietnam War, the resistance to the Civil Rights Movement, and the Watergate Scandal.

Wuthnow and others have less to say about the kind of church that was left after the “rock and roll” of the ’60s had come and gone. One way of characterizing the result is to describe it as the decade that gave birth to The Issue-Driven Church: the church that sees itself as the vanguard of social change and transformation—a church that lives from agenda to agenda, legislating policy, and issuing position papers.

It is not the model for doing church that necessarily dominates the local parish in mainline churches. In many ways The Issue-Driven Church thrives at the denominational level, among judicatories, within church agencies, and Conventions, Conferences, and Synods. But local parishes are often drawn into the orbit of The Issue-Driven Church. And even when they aren’t, local congregations are forced to do their work in an environment that is often shaped by The Issue-Driven approach to doing church.

And here is his commentary: [Read more...]

This post is by one of my students, Kellie Carstensen. She and some of her friends routinely meet with me to discuss a variety of ideas, and this review grew from one of our discussions.

Upon first glance at the book The END of Sexual Identity by Jenell Williams Paris (professor at Messiah College) the cover image evaded my understanding. Shopping bags? What does that have to do with anything? After reading it however I was amazed that such an obvious comparison had eluded me: in our world today sex sells, and the reason sex sells is because it has become intrinsic to who we are, except not in a good way.

Paris describes the root of this problem when she says “Whether it’s in the area of shopping, sports, jobs or sex, Western values encourage people to discover what they really want and then go for it; the happy person is one who can freely do what he or she wants to do. Desire and action are closely linked, so harmony between wanting and doing is believed to bring fulfillment” (pg 126). This understanding may be the norm for us living in the Western world, but it shouldn’t be the norm for those of us who want to live in the kingdom. Everything about Christianity involves giving up what we want and doing the will of God instead – sexuality is included here. Human desires are fleeting, but God’s intentions remain firm.

Originally, I began reading this with an interest in sexuality and how it has grown to define who we are. I was unaware that a decent portion was focused on homosexuality, yet I found that the overall theme is more on sexuality as a whole; so for those who aren’t as interested in the topic of LGBT issues Paris still has a lot to say beyond that.

Here’s two questions for today: How much does sexual identity shape who we think we are? How does our sexuality shape our own sense of identity? Where do you see heterosexuals shaping their identity by their sexuality? (Men, women.) How does this distort our true (beloved) identity?

[Read more...]