Tag: application

Meditation on Isaiah 40:1-11 by Alec Motyer

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

Isaiah by the Day: A New Devotional Translation by Alec MotyerI have been making my way through Alec Motyer’s book Isaiah by the Day: A New Devotional Translation. This hardcover, wide margin book presents Motyer’s fresh translation of Isaiah and includes textual notes as well as introductory material and a devotional thought for each of the 71 readings in the book. It is very well done. Written with the heart of a pastor and the care of a scholar, this volume brings the book of Isaiah alive, and the devotions help the reader apply the text personally.

I want to share an excerpt from this book, from the passage covering Isaiah 40:1-11 (day #43 in the book). I trust you will be blessed by reading this passage as I was. You may also want to go out and pick up a copy of this book for your own devotional reading in the future.

Day 43 ~ Isaiah 40:1-11

The consolation of the world (40:1-42:17)

Astonishingly, no sooner has Isaiah pronounced judgement on Hezekiah’s sin than he is directed to organise messengers of comfort. But (maybe because exile to Babylon prompts thoughts of the wider world) the comfort-message covers all the earth, Israel and the Gentiles.

Consolation for the Lord’s people: Voices of consolation

40:1. Console, console my people,1
      your God keeps saying.
2.    Speak lovingly to Jerusalem,2
      and call out to her,
      that her time of duress has been fulfilled,
      that the punishment of her iniquity has been accepted,
      that she has received from Yahweh’s hand
      the exact payment for3 all her sins.

The first voice: Yahweh coming; worldwide revelation
3.    A voice!4 Someone is calling out:
      In the desert,
      clear a road for Yahweh,
      make straight through the open plain
      a highway for our God.
4.    Every valley must be raised,
      and every mountain and hill lowered,
      and the rough ground must become flat,
      and the mountain chain a pass.
5.    And the glory of Yahweh will be revealed,
      and all flesh will see it together:
      for it is Yahweh’s mouth that has spoken.

The second voice: Human transicence and the permanent Word
6.    A Voice! Someone is saying, Call out,
      and someone is saying, What am I to call out?
      All flesh is grass,
      and all its reliability like a flower of the field.
7.    Grass withers, flower wilts,
      for Yahweh’s Spirit has breathed on it.
      Ah, surely, the people are grass!
8.    Grass withers, flower wilts,
      and the word of our God rises up5 for ever.

The third voice: Good news for Zion
9.    To a lofty moutain, up with you,
      Zion, bearer of good news!
      With strength raise your voice,
      Jerusalem, bearer of good news.
      Raise your voice: do not fear.
      Say to the cities of Judah:
      Behold! Your God!
10.   Behold —
      as a strong one,
      the Sovereign Yahweh will come,
      his arm6 ruling for him.
      Behold!
      the wage he has earned7 is with him,
      and his work is in front of him.
11.   Like a sheperd who shepherds his flock,
      in his arm he gathers the lambs,
      and in his bosom carries them;
      those with young he guides along.

 1Plural imperatives. Against the background of the dire prediction of exile and loss, the Lord has such a full message of consolation that not just Isaiah but unnamed others are summoned to bring the consoling word. Far from judgment having the last word (39:6-7) consolation has the first word!

2 Lit., ‘Speak to the heart of’ — as of an ardent lover wooing his beloved, Gen. 34:3.

3 Lit., ‘the double’, referring to one thing exactly matching another. The preposition ‘for’ (The Hebrew prefixed preposition be) expresses ‘price/value/payment’.

4 See 13:4.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5 The literal meaning of qum. Used to express not just the continuance of the Word while all else wilts but its certainty of fulfilment and its capacity for active intervention — ‘so stand up and be counted’.

6 ‘Arm’ symbolises personal strength. cf., 33:2; 52:10. In 51:9-10 (cf. 53:1) the Lord’s arm is personified, and one is therefore tempted to use the upper case here, ‘Arm’.

7 Lit., ‘his wage’, but a pronoun with ‘wage’ always points to the wage-earner. In ways Isaiah has yet to explain the Lord has worked and earned a wage. The ‘work’ he has accomplished lies in front of him, i.e., the people who are his flock.

Thought for the day: Isaiah 40:1-11

The most wonderful thing about these verses is not the beauty of their expression (though that in itself would have been enough), nor the attractiveness of what they reveal (though, again, that would suffice), but the place where they come. Doom has been pronounced on Hezekiah (39:6-7), and with it the death knell seems to have been sounded for all Isaiah’s glittering predictions of a coming king. At this darkest of moments, the call goes out to speak the word of comfort (v. 1), to proclaim hardship finished and sins forgiven (v. 2), to announce that Yahweh himself is on his way with worldwide significance (vv. 3-5), that his word and promises can never fail (vv. 6-8), and that Zion’s people are the flock he has worked for and now holds in his tender care (vv. 9-11). This is the Lord undefeated even by our most grievous sin; the Lord who never calls back the word he has spoken, and who cannot be deflected from its fulfilment! It will all become even more wonderful as Isaiah develops his message in these chapters. We will learn what the Lord’s ‘arm ruling’ means, that it is in truth his ‘arm’ — the Lord Jesus anticipated in his executive might; we will discover what ‘work’ he has done to earn the ‘wages’ he desired — his people, his flock. So much wonder lies ahead, but let us never lose sight of this initial wonder or fail to stand in awe of it. It is what he is towards us as sinners and failures: it is the way his intentions triumph over our frailties. The Sovereign God is never more sovereign than in the work of mercy and salvation, and it is those who know they have most signally erred and strayed from his ways, who, within the blessed arena of salvation, feel most gently the warmth of his shepherding arms around them, and know themselves for sure to be the lambs of his flock.

~ Taken from Isaiah by the Day: A New Devotional Translation, by Alec Motyer, (Christian Focus: 2011), pg. 188-190.

Pick up a copy of this book at any of the following online retailers: Amazon, Westminster Bookstore, ChristianBook.com, or direct from Christian Focus.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Christian Focus. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a positive review.

“Interpreting the Pauline Letters: An Exegetical Handbook” by John D. Harvey

~ Bob Hayton

Interpreting the Pauline Letters: An Exegetical Handbook by John D. HarveyBook Details:
  • Author: John D. Harvey
  • Category: Biblical Studies
  • Book Publisher: Kregel (2012)
  • Format: softcover
  • Page Count: 211
  • ISBN#: 9780825427671
  • List Price: $22.99
  • Rating: Recommended

Review:
The life of a pastor is busy. Hectic may be a better word. And in the 21st Century, the pace of life has quickened for everyone, while the expectations for what a pastor must do have only increased. Fortunately, there are an abundance of books and resources designed to give the pastor or teacher a helping hand. Interpreting the Pauline Letters by John D. Harvey, will prove not only helpful but indispensable in the study of the Pauline Epistles.

The book is an exegetical handbook designed to prepare the pastor, teacher or student for an intensive study through Paul’s letters. But it doesn’t stop there. Harvey’s intent is not merely to educate about the historical background of these treasured NT epistles. He aims to facilitate a pastoral application of the Word for today’s hearers. To that end, the book includes a section on how to craft an expositional sermon as well as two examples where Harvey walks through all the steps in preparing a sermon on a text from one of Paul’s letters.

The book begins with a study of the genre of Paul’s letters, comparing Paul’s writing with formal and informal letter styles from the ancient world. Harvey draws careful, balanced conclusions from a comparison of the structure of all of Paul’s letters and explains the function of various sub-units of Paul’s letters. In this chapter, I was introduced to the terms “apostolic parousia” and “apostolic apologia” which play an important role in Paul’s letters and have commonalities with other ancient letters. He also looks at the role rhetoric plays in Paul’s letters. I found his thoughts on the genre to be instructive and not overblown: a helpful survey to keep in mind as one approaches Paul’s letters.

Next Harvey surveys the historical background of Paul’s writings. This section was perhaps the most fascinating. The conservative pastor will be appreciative that the arguments for and against Paul’s authorship of all the traditional Pauline epistles are briefly surveyed and a defense of Pauline authorship – even of the pastoral epistles, is presented. He defends Pauline authorship well but in a cursory manner. He then argues for the integrity of the epistles as we find them in Scripture – 2 Corinthians and Philippians in particular are discussed. He then attempts to build a chronology of the historical background for Paul’s letters from a study of just the letters themselves. He compares this with what we find in Acts and finds complementarity not disharmony. He presents an interesting argument for Philippians being the last of Paul’s letters, but presents the traditional view as well. He is careful not to base too much on historical reconstructions where the evidence is slim. Harvey shines in this section as he navigates the reader through the ins and outs of Pauline scholarship.

The handbook continues with a section on Paul’s theology, which emphasizes “the great transfer” from darkness to light, from being in the world to being in Christ, from Satan’s dominion to the power of God. He traces a theology of each of the letters as well. He only briefly discusses “covenantal nomism” and the New Pauline Perspective, arguing for a traditional view. This in my view is the book’s biggest weakness. By only briefly surveying that issue, and by brief I mean about a half page, the handbook is perhaps more acceptable by a wider audience, but it is less helpful for the busy pastor who wants to know more about this important Pauline question.

The book then moves away from a laser focus on Paul’s epistles to a more generic approach to studying Scripture. Textual criticism and translation are discussed, with several approaches for busy teachers – from comparing translations to doing you own translation from the Greek text (advocated as the best approach). In this section I was pleased to see the Majority Text view of Byzantine priority given equal treatment with the prevailing preference for Alexandrian manuscripts. Most works of this scholarly nature hardly give the Byzantine perspective any mention at all. It is almost a certainty that for conservative pastors, the question of Byzantine priority will come up. Harvey attempts to be even-handed even while ultimately siding with the majority scholarly opinion. After focusing on translation and defining the text to be studied, he gives a general study of how to interpret passages synthetically. He focuses on historical, lexical/linguistic, and theological analyses in a brief but helpful way. The historical analyses were redundant for this book and a bit distracting in my perspective, but everything else was quite useful.

In the next section, Harvey focused on homiletics and how to build a sermon using deductive or inductive patterns. Like the previous sections on translation and interpretation, the examples were from Paul’s epistles but the content was broad and applicable to all of the New Testament. It is here that he also focuses on applying the text to the 21st Century.

In the final section he provides two case-studies applying all the tools, starting with textual criticism and translation of the text, to historical study, literary/linguistic analysis, syntactical study, theological analysis, appropriation, and homiletical packaging. Walking the reader through his method helps bring the whole book together.

I was impressed with how useful and accessible this handbook was for the average reader. It will benefit lay teachers and pastors alike. While it doesn’t cover everything I would like, it is a fine resource which stays faithful to a conservative approach to Scripture. This book is one of a series produced by Kregel Publications: the “Handbooks for New Testament Exegesis.” There is also an OT set of handbooks as well. I’ll be wanting to collect the entire set after my time spent reading through this example. I encourage you to check out this helpful series as well.

Author Info:
John D. Harvey is Professor of New Testament and Dean of the Seminary and School of Ministry at Columbia International University in Columbia, SC. He earned his Doctor of Theology degree from Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto. His previous books include Listening to the Text: Oral Patterning in Paul’s Letters, Greek is Good Grief: Laying the Foundation for Exegesis and Exposition, and Anointed with the Spirit and Power: A Biblical Theology of Holy Spirit Empowerment. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and is actively involved in pulpit supply. He has served cross-culturally in Europe and Africa.

Where to Buy:
  • Amazon.com
  • Christianbook.com
  • Direct from Kregel

Disclaimer:
This book was provided by Kregel Publishers. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a positive review.

Tim Keller on a Gospel View of Work

~ Bob Hayton

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Tim KellerLiving out the Christian life on Monday morning is just about the hardest thing there is to do. Everything can seem so great on Sunday. The worship music is great, the time spent in the Bible so precious, and the pastor’s message equal parts (hopefully) convicting and inspiring. But when the alarm goes off on Monday morning, many of us have a problem bringing Sunday with us throughout the week.

Tim Keller’s new book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (Dutton, 2012), goes a long way toward helping out those of us who find ourselves immersed in the work-a-day world. I can’t launch off into a full review of this excellent work at the moment, but I wanted to excerpt some of Keller’s thoughts on how a gospel worldview can help us look at our work in a different way.

To be a Christian in business, then, means much more than just being honest or not sleeping with your coworkers. It even means more than personal evangelism or holding a Bible study at the office. Rather, it means thinking out the implications of the gospel worldview and God’s purposes for your whole work life — and for the whole of the organization under your influence. (168-169)

So when we say that Christians work from a gospel worldview, it does not mean that they are constantly speaking about Christian teaching in their work. Some people think of the gospel as something we are principally to “look at” in our work. This would mean that Christian musicians should play Christian music, Christian writers should write stories about conversion, and Christian businessmen and -women should work for companies that make Christian-themed products and services for Christian customers. Yes, some Christians in those fields would sometimes do well to do those things, but it is a mistake to think that the Christian worldview is operating only when we are doing such overtly Christian activities. Instead, think of the gospel as a set of glasses through which you “look” at everything else in the world. Christian artists, when they do this faithfully, will not be completely beholden either to profit or to naked self-expression; and they will tell the widest variety of stories. Christians in business will see profit as only one of several bottom lines; and they will work passionately for any kind of enterprise that serves the common good. The Christian writer can constantly be showing the destructiveness of making something besides God into the central thing, even without mentioning God directly. (179-180)

Of all the ways the Christian faith affects work, the realm of the worldview is the most searching and yet also the hardest to put into practice. All Christians live in cultures and work in vocational fields that operate by powerful master narratives that are sharply different from the gospel’s account of things. But these narratives work at such a deep level that their effects on us are hard to discern. An American who first moves to a foreign country is shocked to discover how many of her institutions and practices that she considered common sense and universal are actually particularly American ones — and are ridiculous to many other people. By living in another culture she gets a new vantage point from which she can be critical of herself, and as a result she will slowly change, dropping some attitudes and adopting others.

Becoming a Christian is a lot like moving to a new country; only it is more profound, because it gives us a new perspective on every culture, every worldview, and every field of work. In the long run, the gospel helps us see everything in a new light, but it takes time to grasp and incorporate this new information into how we live and pursue our vocations. And we can be sure that this ultimate learning experience will never truly end; we are told the angels themselves never tire of looking into the gospel to see new wonders (1 Peter 1:10-12). (181-182)

You can pick up a copy of this book at any of the following online retailers: Westminster Bookstore, Christianbook.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or direct from Dutton (Penguin).

Tyndale Bible App Sale

~ Bob Hayton

There are a variety of digital Bible reading apps to stimulate Bible reading. And the New Year is a great time to begin again with a fresh resolve to make your way through the Bible. Tyndale’s One Year Bible is one of the best selling Bibles designed in such a way as to encourage reading the Bible in a year.

For a limited time (through Jan. 8th), Tyndale is offering the One Year Bible app for only $1.99. They also are offering the Life Application Bible App for only $14.99 (a 50% discount). Both apps appear to be for Apple devices only. More details on the sale are available here.

This year, I was happy to find a discounted copy of The Orthodox Study Bible, and am now making my way through the Bible at a slower pace, reading the study notes along the way. I hope you have some plan to make the Most Important Book a key part of your reading in 2013!

In the Box: Books from Kregel, Brazos, Eerdmans and IVP

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

In the Box posts highlight new books I’ve received in the mail.

Over the last couple years, I’ve really enjoyed staying up to date with many of the new books being published by the major Christian publishers. This year, I plan to share news and thoughts on publishing and books more often here at Fundamentally Reformed. One of the recurring posts I plan to showcase is my “In the Box” series. In these posts, I’ll showcase new books received or purchased in the last week or so.

Today’s post will cover the last 3 weeks or thereabouts — and it won’t cover all the books I’ve received, otherwise this will get too long. I won’t mention (or I guess I am mentioning!) that I just love the NIV Application Commentary series and am slowly adding to my collection. Or that I picked up the IVP Bible Background Commentary on the OT to match my NT volume. Well, enough about that, now on to the new titles of note I’ve received in the last 2-3 weeks or so.

Invitation to Biblical Interpretation by Andreas Kostenberger and Richard Patterson (Kregel)

Never before have I encountered a book with this many endorsements! I counted 39 endorsements on 13 pages! The book is quite impressive, so I guess it earned all the glowing remarks. With that many positive remarks from so many different respected Christian leaders, I am all the more excited to read and review this book! It looks to be an accessible and comprehensive manual on interpreting Scripture.

UPDATE: Read my review of this book here.

To learn more about the book, visit the book detail page at Kregel, or check out the sample pages at Westminster Bookstore.

Reformation Commentary on Scripture – Volume 12: Ezekiel, Daniel (IVP)

This is the second volume in the Reformation Commentary on Scripture series from IVP. They are doing for the Reformation era writers what they did with the Church Fathers in the Ancient Christian Commentary series. Many of the comments included in this book have never before been available in English. It promises to open up a window into the thought of the Reformers like nothing else. This is also a beautiful volume, that will earn a prominent spot on anyone’s bookshelf.

To learn more about the book, visit the book detail page at InterVarsity Press, or check out the preview available at Amazon.com.

The Best of The Reformed Journal edited by James Bratt and Ronald Wells (Eerdmans)

This book brings the best articles from The Refromed Journal, which was a top-notch journal from 1951 to 1990. The selections range from comments on humor and literature to politics and theology. Reflections on Billy Graham and JFK, baseball and Watergate, the Vietnam war and conservatism. This anthology promises to be an enjoyable look at some of the best evangelical writing of years gone by. Authors of the excerpted articles include Richard Mouw, George Marsden, Mark Noll, Cornelius Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Stanley Hauerwas and many others.

UPDATE: Read my review of this book here.

To learn more about the book, visit the book detail page at Eerdmans, or check out the preview available at Amazon.com.

The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins by Peter Enns (Brazos Press)

I will have much more to say about this book in the near future. I jumped into this work with both feet as soon as it arrived at my door. I was intrigued by the subject matter and impressed with Enns’ writing abilities. But ultimately, I was disappointed and alarmed by how far he took things.

The topic is controversial so there will be a variety of opinions on this, I’m sure. Enns seeks to show how we should best think of Adam in light of evolution. His contention is that Scripture is often misunderstood when it comes to the Adam story. It remains to be seen whether he succeeds in his quest.

To learn more about the book, visit the book detail page at Brazos Press, or check out the excerpt available at Christianbook.com.