In my first post on DeYoung and Gilbert’s book What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission, I came out of the corner swinging admittedly. At least one friend encouraged me to take a more irenic tone so that these issues can in fact be discussed. Otherwise, as he wisely said, the two sides will be simply “playing to” our respective crowds. And I affirm the hope that one commenter on... Read more

Over at Rachel Evan’s blog, she has an interview and questions to Frederica Matthews-Green, one of many converts to the Orthodox Church. It is an interesting exchange on topics like praying to the saints and women’s ordination. Matthews-Green is the author of Facing East: A Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy. I know a few folks who have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in recent years. The NT scholar, Edith Humphrey comes immediately to mind. See an article on the phenomena... Read more

Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert published a new book on the mission of the church What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission. I want to be generous in this discussion and I certainly think these guys have the best of intentions. However, this book is extremely frustrating to me and I’m only on page 67. While DeYoung and Gilbert set out to provide what they think is a more biblical... Read more

Over at the TGC Blog, D.A. Carson has a good post on confessionalism in light of some controversy in America about the Trinity and an Elephant (????). However, Carson makes a good contrast between two types of evangelical unity: boundary-bounded and center-bounded.  He writes: From the beginning TGC has distinguished between a boundary-bounded set and a center-bounded set. In the former, you establish boundaries to determine who is “in” and who is “outside” the set—whether the set of true believers,... Read more

Over at the CSCO blog, there is is audio from a day in honour of Prof. Larry Hurtado that was held at Edinburgh University. Speakers include Richard Bauckham, Helen Bond, Tommy Wasserman, Thomas Kraus, and Larry Hurtado. Read more

Tom Wright Revelation for Everyone London: SPCK, 2011 Available at Amazon.com The next, and I think final, installment in Tom Wright’s NT4E series is “Revelation”. Here Wright offers an idealist/preterist take on Revelation. Here are some quotes to give you a taste: (more…) Read more

Over at Learning in the Grip of Grace, Hans Kristensen has a post on Why I’m Not an Anglican. He is an ex-Anglican who clearly favors a baptist independent church set up. He raises three arguments against the Anglican way. I have somecomments to make in reply. 1. Evangelical Anglicans are compromised because of their affiliations I thought that was an odd criticism. For a start, 80% of the World Anglican Communion is pretty much orthodox and evangelical. It is... Read more

I’m teaching through the book of Ephesians in College Ministry at our church. In preparing for the talks I decided to read my friend Tim Gombis’ book The Drama of Ephesians: Participating in the Triumph of God. Tim, you’ve written a really good book! After getting home in the mid-to-late evening tonight I found myself not tired enough to go to bed. Karla is out on a flight this evening so, I’m not anxious to go to bed. I decided... Read more

If and when you read the new Counterpoints book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology), and I really recommend you do, Which view will you read first? And why? The book presents four views on Evangelicalism: Fundamentalism (presented by Kevin Bauder of Central Baptist Theological Seminary) Confessional evangelicalism (presented by Albert Mohler of Southern Seminary) Generic evangelicalism (presented by John Stackhouse of Regent College [Vancouver BC]) Postconservative evangelicalism (presented by Roger Olson Truett Theological Seminary)... Read more

Can you guess who made this statement: The biblical truth that I want us to understand, believe, and live by today is this: a time is coming when every responsible person, on the basis of his or her actions and attitudes, will meet the final judgment of God either as eternal life or as wrath and fury. Read more