Category: Recommended

yep, I recommend this link, article or whatever it is

Announcing: Transformed by Grace

~ fundyreformed ~ 1 Comment

Some reforming fundamentalist friends of mine and I have got together and founded a new online social media site called Transformed by Grace. We are a community of former legalists and reforming fundamentalists, continually allowing God’s grace to bring us closer to Christ.

Using a free social media site provided by Ning.com, we have built a site that allows members, forums, groups, personal blog posts & pages, and lots of interaction. Think of it like a bigger Facebook group or a mini version of something like Sharper Iron. It actually has more capabilities than either Facebook or a typical forums site, and offers a lot of flexibility in how one can use it.

Our goal is to bring together other like minded reforming fundamentalists, particularly those who are familiar with the more conservative wing of Independent Baptist Fundamentalism. We hope to encourage one another, talk through remaining questions and problems, and forge relationships. And we hope to offer some help to those who are beginning their journey within fundamentalism. We want to help them learn and grow in a non-threatening environment. We don’t pressure anyone necessarily to follow a particular path out of fundamentalism, some of our founding members are happy within the IFB tent. We hope to challenge each other and grow in grace.

So, please go over and check out our site: http://reformedfundamentalism.ning.com.

Feel free to join the group or just lurk for a while. Bookmark us and come back in a few months, as I’m sure there will be more activity by then. If you have a blog that’s somewhat devoted to these issues, feel free to let us know and we’ll add it to the blogroll and possibly send some visitors your way. Above all, let us know if there’s something we can help you with. That’s what we are hoping to accomplish.

“Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures” by Dennis Johnson

~ Bob Hayton ~ 3 Comments

himweproclaimAuthor: Dennis E. Johnson
Format: Soft cover
Page Count: 494
Publisher: P & R Publishing
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 9781596380547
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Any book which includes “Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures” in its title instantly grabs my attention. How Christ is revealed in the Old Testament, and how the Old Testament foreshadows New Covenant realities has been a theological interest of mine for some time. So when P & R Publishing agreed to let me review Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures, I was thrilled with the opportunity. I hadn’t known of Dennis Johnson, but I did recognize Westminster Seminary California where he is Academic Dean and Professor of Practical Theology. So with P & R as publishers, and the Westminster connection, I trusted it would be a good book.

I was wrong. It was a phenomenally good book. In every way it exceeded my expectations. 500 pages is quite a bit of ground, and with that space Johnson covers an awful lot of territory. Even still, by the end of the book, I was eager for more.

The book is part hermeneutic manual, homiletic textbook, and preaching guide. It’s a polemic for apostolic preaching (that which recognizes the Christological bent of all of Scripture) even as it is an explanation for how to be exegetically careful in handling Old Testament texts. As I said it covers a lot of ground.

The book is divided into two parts: first Johnson makes the case for apostolic, Christocentric preaching. He then he fleshes out the practice of that preaching. Johnson contends that:

Christians need to be shown how to read each Scripture, first in the context of its original redemptive-historical epoch, and then in terms of the focal point and climactic “horizon” toward which the particulars of God’s plan always pointed, namely Jesus the Messiah, who is the second and last Adam, seed of Abraham, true Israel, royal descendant of David, and obedient and suffering Servant of the Lord.(pg. 49)

Such preaching today is not all that common. Johnson traces the history of how the Church has interpreted, and preached the Scripture. Behind the preaching of today’s “twenty-first century evangelicals”, lies both “the Reformation’s hermeneutic restraint and the Enlightenment’s faith in scientific methodology as part of our almost invisible but virtually inevitable mental framework” (pg. 126-127).

As an antidote, the major portion of the book focuses on a positive treatment of how to preach Christologically. Johnson focuses on Hebrews as an example of an extended Apostolic sermon, and goes on to carefully model his approach to preaching in five or six passages from each testament. The exegesis is very sound, and only with great care does Johnson run from the OT text to Jesus. But he does run to Jesus, and he shows us how to find the Biblical path to Jesus from most any Scriptural text.

It is not only the Scriptural promises of the Messiah that point to Jesus, “What God said in the words of the prophets as they pointed Israel’s faith toward the future in the imagery of the past and present, God had also said through his design of the events of the history of Adam, Noah, Abraham and the patriarchs, Moses, Israel and David.” (pg. 226) Johnson shows how not just from the Old to the New, but often from older revelation to newer revelation in the Old Testament itself, God makes use of foreshadowings and types. The prophets use the imagery of the Exodus and the wilderness wanderings as they pronounce judgment or promise future blessing for Israel. Johnson’s emphasis on how the Old Testament uses the Old Testament is extremely helpful and not something I’ve encountered before in the whole discussion of the NT use of the OT.

With this background, Johnson can argue,

Because of the occasional character of the New Testament, however, we should not conclude prematurely that Old Testament texts that are not explicitly interpreted typologically by a New Testament writer cannot be read in the context of Christ’s climactic work as Lord and Servant of the covenant, and as prophet, priest and king. Rather, we must seek to relate particular texts to the broader structures and institutions that provide the framework for God’s relation to his people throughout the history of redemption. (pg. 279)

Such an approach, Johnson admits, “requires a more comprehensive hermeneutic perspective.” He proceeds to provide just such a perspective. He argues that Christ’s role as the Mediator, and his threefold offices, Prophet, Priest and King, provide overarching themes by which to find Christ in the Old Testament revelation. He shows how to preach the promises in the Old Testament, and how to then preach the Promise Keeper in how we handle the New Testament. Showing how the NT passages interpret and fill up the OT provides a unified view of God’s redemptive work which truly ministers to the believing soul.

This work doesn’t stop with theory and theology. Johnson provides numerous discussions of texts in the book, working through the passages step by step. After exegetical discussion, he provides simple outline with application points for the passage at hand. He then offers an appendix with two sample sermons that are more filled out. After reading all the sermon outlines, and seeing how the theory comes to life, one will certainly be impatient to try out this method of preaching for himself.

I can’t think of another similar book that rivals Him We Proclaim. If you are looking for a book to help revolutionize your preaching, or something to challenge your perspective of the Old Testament, look no further. For anyone interested in theology or aiming for a better understanding of how all of Scripture fits together, this book will be exceedingly helpful. I’m proud to be able to recommend such a great resource as this.

Disclaimer: this book was provided by the publisher for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Westminster Bookstore, Amazon.com, or direct from P & R Publishing.

Announcing: A New & Improved King James Only Blog

~ fundyreformed ~ 19 Comments

Over the years I’ve toiled alone in trying to create a good KJV Only resource site. There are others out there, and I mainly wanted to publicize them. I also have an interest in the debate and have posted from time to time on the topic here. I’ve had my fair share of blog wars and debates over this too. Other obligations and interests have left that site only partially complete, however.

I’ve finally enlisted a couple likeminded blogging buddies, Phil and Damien, who are going to help me maintain an active KJV Only Blog where we’ll try to compile a bunch of blog posts relating to this debate. Discussions will be saved in the comments and it may prove to be a helpful resource for many.

Our first substantive post went up today, so I encourage you to check out King James Only?, and click on the subscribe links. We’ll be doing some re-posting over there of material the 3 of us have posted at our own blogs, and we will create new content as well. We want it to be a clearing house of good resources on the debate from an informed, rational perspective. One that doesn’t paint all King James Onlyists as total wack0s since all of us posters are former KJV Onlyists ourselves. We feel the debate is important, and that providing patient helpful answers is a good thing for those seeking their way in the debate at large.

Let me know what you think, and if anyone would like to join our effort, contact me.

Contemplating the Cross: Knowing the Power of Christ’s Resurrection

~ Bob Hayton

For the next few days, I’ll be posting excerpts from Nancy Guthrie’s Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter (Crossway). Join me as I aim to contemplate the cross this passion week.

Today’s meditation is by Tim Keller, from chapter 7 “Knowing the Power of His Resurrection” (pg. 135-136 of Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, edited by Nancy Guthrie).

…for me to know the power of [Christ’s] resurrection is to have the same power that came into Jesus and raised him up to come into my dead soul and raise me up. This is not about relationship but about supernatural character growth. When Paul says, “I want to know him,” it means, “I want to be with him,” but when he says, “I want to know the power of his resurrection,” it means, “I want to be just like him.”

Look at the deadness in your life. Look at the anger. How is that going to be turned into forgiveness? Look at the insecurity. How is that going to be turned into confidence? Look at the self-centeredness. How is that going to be turned into compassion and generosity? How? The answer is that the dead stuff gets taken over by the Spirit of God.

Many people believe the propositions. They believe the historical facts about Jesus, but their real agenda is personal success. So they go to Christ when they want to and need to. Paul says that a Christian is someone who has turned that all around so that personal success is defined by knowing him and the power of his resurrection, and everything else becomes second.

The minute you decide to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit comes into your life. It’s the power of the resurrection–the same thing that raised Jesus from the dead.

… The more you know him, the more you grow into the power of the resurrection. The more time you spend with him, seek him, read his Word, the more you pray–the more it stirs up the resurrection power that is within you through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus has risen indeed! That He has points to Jesus as owning the greatest power in the universe–that which can conquer sin & Satan, Death & the grave. That same power is in us who believe! What a wonder indeed. If you know Christ this Easter morning, He is alive inside you. Let Him rule, let His power change you and mold you into the person He wants you to be. May we live for Christ rather than let Him live for us–now, this Easter, and always.