Category: Recommended

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On My Shelf: Books I’m Reading Now-2

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

The books are stacking up around here. I thought I’d give a brief update on what I’m reading, and what I’m looking forward to reading in the near future.

I’m nearly finished with The Witness of Jesus, Paul and John: An Exploration in Biblical Theology by Larry Helyer (IVP Academic). I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the book. It’s designed as a textbook, and so I could probably have had my review up already. It’s such a good book, however, that I want to read the book in its entirety, not just skim through it and give a good recommendation.

I’m also about half way through Joel Beeke’s Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism (Reformation Trust). Since my copy is a .pdf file (until I post my review), I’m finding it hard to stick with the book. I forget about it, and I really don’t enjoy reading e-Books on my PC. I don’t have a Kindle or something like that, so I’ll keep plugging away at this one.

I’m about done with 101 Portraits of Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures by Bob Beasley (Living Stone Books), and I just need to find time to crank out my review of Philip Comfort’s New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (Tyndale House). On a similar note, I was thrilled to get my review copy of The King James Only Controversy, revised edition by James White (Bethany House) today. It will be hard to keep that book on the bottom of my review pile. I read the first edition about 10 years ago, and much has changed in my position with respect to that issue since then. I look forward to reading it again from a new perspective.

I’m now working my way through Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough by Michael Wittmer (Zondervan). I’ll post about this book in conjunction with Zondervan’s book blog tour on May 12th. It’s an interesting book, especially as Wittmer hails from fundamentalist circles. I’ve found it thus far (1/3 through it) to be a good critique of the Emerging phenomenon, from a careful and charitable perspective.

Recently I was given two more books to add to my growing review pile. I’m thrilled that P & R Publishing has given me the chance to review Keith Mathison’s new book: From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology. This book is massive–750 pages! Despite its length, it seems to be a very approachable work, surveying the entire Bible in a readable way. I’ll post more on this as I start working through it. The other book is my first copy of P & R’s new commentary series: the Reformed Expository Commentary. The commentary on James by Daniel Doriani now sits on my shelf. It looks very good.

I shouldn’t jump too quickly to my new books, however. Beside the one’s I’m working on now, I still have quite a few more on my review list. My review of Ron Rhodes’ Commonly Misunderstood Bible Verses: Clear Explanations for the Difficult Passages (Harvest House) will be ready soon. And we’ll see where we go from there.

If my blogging slows down from time to time, know I probably have my nose in some good books!

The Bible on Hair Care

~ fundyreformed ~ 5 Comments

No, I haven’t yet found a Biblical defense for using Pert’s Plus. I’m talking about what the Bible says about hair length.

This may be a surprise to you, but listen to what Paul says in 1 Cor. 11:14-15.

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

What do we do with this teaching? In my fundamentalist upbringing, we had hair rules, and for us guys: hair check. If our hair was getting anywhere near our shirt collar or ear lobes, we would be in trouble. Demerits and/or detention would come in a hurry!

It’s easy to discount such standards as tomfoolery. Along with the head covering that 1 Cor. 11 refers to, we can easily contextualize this command as appropriate for Corinthians only. But are we doing justice to Paul’s appeal to “nature” here?

This is the question that a bunch of reforming fundamentalists and I have been addressing in one of our forum topics over at our new group site: Transformed by Grace. The discussion has avoided hard and fast extra Biblical rules, and has been quite profitable. Let me share one small quote, out of several I gave in the discussion. This is from Tom Schreiner in the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Crossway):

Paul’s point, then, is that how men and women wear their hair is a significant indication of whether they are abiding by the created order. Of course, what constitutes long hair is often debated–what is appropriately masculine or feminine in hairstyle may vary widely from culture to culture.

I agree. On this point, I concluded with the following:

I do think women’s hair should be generally long, and men’s generally short. There is some room for varying styles and cultural fashions, but I do think today many of the short, short hairstyles worn by women are both non-attractive, and not glorifying to God.

What do you think? Does the Bible deal with our hair care? What about hairstyles today, is everything neutral or a-moral? Should a Christian look to the Bible before they run to a hairdresser? Please join the discussion in the comments here, or visit the Transformed by Grace forum on the question.

One last point: the Biblical view of a distinction between the genders being reinforced by our dress is also taught in Deut. 22:5. I dealt with that passage (often misused to condemn all women who wear pants) in an earlier post.

Tweeting the Gospel

~ fundyreformed ~ 1 Comment

Twitter is becoming more and more popular these days. One of the things it does is force us to be succinct, which is good. Nine Marks Ministries‘ blog, Church Matters, is challenging all Christian twitterers to share the gospel in 1 tweet. It’s a novel idea, and causes us to focus on the true heart of the gospel. Crafting such a tweet is a good exercise, but it also challenges us to use Twitter for good ends, by challenging those with whom we interact on Twitter, with the gospel.

I enjoyed crafting my tweet, but I would have loved more than 140 characters! Here’s my tweet, and then a better one.

G=S+J<M / Gospel=Sin [spurning God & His law] + Judgment [eternal punishment] < Mercy [Jesus died in our place offering peace with God] #9M

The #9M enters me in the contest, and can be searched easily via Twitter. Take some time to read through the results of that search, and you’ll encounter many other ways to simply declare the heart of the gospel.

My tweet stopped short of calling people to believe this message. But I think the Gospel, when understood, carries the weight of a response within the message itself. When one understands G=S+J<M, he may then value the truth in this message and cherish it. In short, he will come to believe it.

A much better attempt at distilling the beauty of the gospel in a few words was accomplished by songwriter Drew Jones:

Holy God, in love, became / Perfect Man to bear my blame / On the cross He took my sin / By His death I live again

These words form the entire length of The Gospel Song (music by Bob Kauflin). It is one of my favorite songs; learn more about it here.

So what’s your gospel tweet? Post it on twitter, or add it to the comments at the Church Matters’ blog (contest runs through Wednesday night). But please share your gospel tweet in the comments here. 140 comments or less. Let’s rejoice in the clarity of the gospel together.

Abortion… As Unthinkable as Racism

~ fundyreformed ~ 7 Comments
John Piper has some great remarks on the connection between racism and abortion. The link between the two gives hope that as the one used to be accepted and now is unthinkable, so the other will fade away as well.
clipped from www.desiringgod.org
We should seek to stigmatize abortion by associating it with racism as closely as the truth warrants.
People today don’t oppose the enslavement of blacks merely because they think it’s wrong.
It’s easy to oppose it because to do so is fashionable.

That’s a good thing. It always helps when the right thing happens to be P.C.

So let’s be wise in showing the way abortion is closer to racism and slavery than people see.
The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case of 1857 held that black slaves were property without rights as persons, yet today we view that as unthinkable. So the Supreme Court in the case of Roe v. Wade (1973) held that the unborn did not have rights as persons, yet we should hope and work that the day may come when that too is viewed as unthinkable.
Between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 black people were lynched in America. Today more black babies are killed by white abortionists every three days than all who were lynched in those years (L.E.A.R.N.).
blog it

Free ESV Study Bible, with Subscription to World Magazine

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

I thought this was a pretty good deal. Subscribe to World magazine for 1 year ($49.95) and get a free hardcover copy of the new ESV Study Bible (retail price $49.95 / $31.49 on Amazon).

I subscribed to World for a couple years or more, and really enjoyed their magazine. It’s a Christian news magazine similar to Time. It isn’t just Christianized, fluff reporting– World is a serious, professional read. Very well done, indeed.

I’ve trumpeted the ESV Study Bible in the past on my blog: here, and here. It didn’t win Bible of the Year and Book of the Year honors from the ECPA for nothing. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my copy, and I have no qualms in claiming it is the best single study Bible available hands down.

So go ahead and take advantage of this doubly good deal, and introduce yourself to World magazine as you enjoy a new ESV Study Bible.