Justin Taylor's Blog, page 262

Four Ideas of Where to Start Reading the Puritans

From Josh Etter's interview with Tony Reinke on reading the Puritans:

The Puritans can be tough-sledding. If someone hasn't yet read the Puritans, where would you suggest starting?

Caution is wise here. I would not recommend a first time reader jump headlong in a multi-volume series of collected works, especially any modern reader who appreciates a section break here or there. Edwards and Goodwin would also be rough.

I would suggest four initial options:

(1) Consider reading a book about the Puritans. Packer, The Quest for Godliness and Ryken, Worldly Saints are two great places to begin.

(2) Consider reading a compilation of the best Puritan prayers: The Valley of Vision.

(3) Consider picking up a very, very short "Pocket Puritan" booklet, especially the ones on faith, heaven, heart, speech, and anger.

(4) Finally, consider reading a title from the "Puritan Paperback" series. These books run about 150 pages in length and are modernized and often abridged. My favorites include:

Goodwin, The Heart of Christ;
Owen, The Glory of Christ;
Owen, Communion with God;
Owen, The Mortification of Sin; and
Sibbes, The Bruised Reed.

Immanuel: The Real Meaning of Christmas

A video from the Village Church, featuring Isaac Wimberely, entitled "Advent: God with Us." It's also on the new Folk Angel album. Maybe it'd be worth sending this to a friend today, with a short note that this is a good summary of the real meaning behind Christmas?

The "Center" of John Owen's Life and Theology?

Painting by Zach Franzen (atozach.com)

Historians are often reluctant to identify a "center" to a theologian's thought, for fear of reductionism. For example, Carl Trueman, in his excellent book The Claims of Truth: John Owen's Trinitarian Theology, writes:

. . . the intellectual content of Owen's thought defies simplistic reduction to one or two key themes. His use of the various strands of the Western tradition, the need to develop new ways of expressing and defending Reformed theology in the light of novel heresies and attacks, and the sheer breadth of his own reading all suggest that we are dealing with a thinker whose thought can be reduced to a few simple 'big ideas' only at the cost of losing much of the subtlety of what he has to say, and indeed transforming his theology into a caricature which he himself would not have recognized. (43)

The warning is well taken, but I still find it hard to argue with Richard Daniels, who writes in The Christology of John Owen:

. . . there is one motif so important to John Owen, so often and so broadly cited by him, that the writer would go so far as to call it the focal point of Owen's theology. . . . namely, the doctrine that in the gospel we behold, by the Christ-given Holy Spirit, the glory of God "in the face of Christ" and are thereby changed into his image. . . . (92)

. . . the knowledge of Christ was the all-surpassing object of Owen's desires, the center of his doctrinal system, and the end, means, and indispensable prerequisite for Christian theology. (516)

The answer, ultimately, is connected to Owen's vocation as a pastor-theologian who loved and cared for his flock.

Steve Griffiths, in Redeem the Time:

To date, no one has yet managed to reveal Owen the man. In an attempt to meet this challenge, new questions have had to be asked of Owen and a new premise has had to be sought in approaching his writings, namely: what was of fundamental importance to Owen and what was his primary motivation in ministry?

The answer is blindingly simple. Owen was a pastor. Of fundamental importance to him was the spiritual growth of those amongst whom he ministered. His primary motivation was the growth in holiness of his flock. Everything else stems from that truth. (13)

Sinclair Ferguson, in John Owen on the Christian Life:

My own reading of Owen has convinced me that everything he wrote for his contemporaries had a practical and pastoral aim in view—the promotion of true Christian living. (xi)

And David Clarkson said in his funeral sermon for Owen:

I need not tell you of this who knew him, that it was his great Design to promote Holiness in the Life and Exercise of it among you.

What a legacy to leave: after 24 volumes of writings, 300-400 years later, people still summarize his life and theology by saying it was to promote living life for the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The New "Gospel Story Bible": 67% Off

Last year I wrote the following about Marty Machowski's Long Story Short: Ten-Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God:

This is the best material for family devotions I've ever seen. If you're looking for something careful, creative, and Christ-centered—without being corny, confusing, or condescending—look no further. Pastors would be wise to buy this book by the boxful and get a copy into the hands of each family in their church."

So I was excited to see that he now has a companion story Bible: The Gospel Story Bible: Discovering Jesus in the Old and New Testaments, which WTS Books is selling at a special rate of $9.99 (regular price is $29.99) for this hardback. The sales lasts for 72 hours. I am glad to recommend it.

You can preview the entire book online for free here.

How does this story Bible compare to the other good and similar books available?

Several thoughts and observations:

(1) It should not go unsaid that we are living in a time of unprecedented gospel-centered resources. We have more available to us than any other generation in the history of the church. To whom much is given, much is required. Praise God for raising up some many gifted teachers to help us equip the next generations! May he keep us faithful.

(2) The last few years have seen a number of especially good story Bibles. If one's family budget allows it, I think it's helpful to have more than one. Here's a brief run-down (in my opinion) of the best of the best:

(a) David Helm's The Big Picture Story Bible (now also in a read-aloud eBook) is the best in terms of quickly seeing the developing storyline of Scripture, showing how Christ fulfills the pattern of God's people in God's place under God's rule. This is written simply, and it builds anticipation as the kingdom theme unfolds (instead of giving the "Jesus payoff" right away).

(b) Starr Meade's Mighty Acts of God: A Family Bible Story Book (with a sequel forthcoming) is especially helpful in seeing that God is the main character and the hero of every story. (The Desiring God curriculum does an especially good job at this too.) Sometimes in our desire to be Christocentric we can neglect the theocentric reality of the Word. Discussion questions help to make this a good interactive resource.

(c) This year our family has used The Action Bible more than any other book. It's a graphic novel of Genesis to Revelation, and this does the best job of telling and showing the details of the biblical stories. The plethora of artwork is realistic and very helpful—especially for short attention spans!

(d) The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name by Sally Lloyd-Jones has been the most popular story Bible on the market in the past few years. It is one of the best for seeing some of the ways that Old Testament characters and events point to Jesus and the need for the gospel. The art is whimsical and Lloyd-Jones writes with literary excellence and a storyteller's touch. My one qualm is that it so emphasizing the (legitimate) biblical theme of God's yearning/wooing love that  the theme of judgment and wrath in the OT stories tends to be muted; when the story comes to the cross, the readers have not really been "set up" very well to understand the need for propitiation. Despite this, it's been enormously popular, and deservedly so.

(3) Which brings us back to Machowski's The Gospel Story Bible: Discovering Jesus in the Old and New Testaments. Here are some things that I like about it:

(a) It contains 156 stories—78 from the OT and 78 the NT.

(b) The retelling is clear and to the point. What it lacks in Lloyd-Jones's artistry it makes up in accuracy and details.

(c) It includes Bible text in the retellings, and it uses the ESV (which is what our kids memorize from at their school and we use as a family).

(d) The gospel anticipation-application is thoughtful and faithful. As Machowski says in the introduction, "The goal is to thread each of the 156 Bible stories like beads on the silk thread of the gospel, creating one picture with them all."

(e) The artwork is interesting and well done. They intentionally left the faces uncolored so that children can imagine their own ethnicity as characters in the drama (uncolored in this case means white, though, so I'm not sure kids will pick up on that). I suspect some kids will be drawn more than others to the creative, more abstractish type of art.

(e) There are discussion questions at the end of each story.

(f) This is not a stand-alone project, but goes along with Long Story Short: Ten-Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God, and the forthcoming Gospel Story Curriculum (a three-year program being used by over 200 churches).

All of this to say: you cannot go wrong with any of the story Bibles mentioned above; ideally, it's helpful to use more than one; and I hope many families consider The Gospel Story Bible in particular.

Boyz II Men: Have You Had "The Talk"?

Steve Zollos's new book, Time for the Talk: Leading Your Son into True Manhood (Shepherd's Press), looks like a very helpful resource.

From the preface to dads of young boys:

In daily conversation, "The Talk" is usually polite shorthand for "telling children where babies come from." Here, however, I give the phrase a big promotion and a much more significant job description. Let me explain.

This book is written to you, the father of a young son. It is built on the conviction that raising your son is really no big deal . . . unless you plan on him becoming humble, courageous, morally pure, faithful, selfless, and self-controlled: in other words, a godly young man. To get there your son will need a lot of help, and you, as his father, are certainly the best man for the job.

Through "The Talk," as I define it in this book, you will help your son learn to trust in the Lord, and not his own understanding. You will open a channel of communication based on truth and love that will endure for life. You will talk directly to him—and with him—about difficult subjects you two have probably never ventured to discuss before. If done in the encouraging way I suggest, you will become a trusted confidant—his lifelong friend.

If this doesn't sound easy, you're right. In fact, if you haven't tried it, it's probably harder than you think. That's why I wrote this book. Within these pages I have made every attempt to integrate the truth of Scripture into the process and the topics associated with "The Talk." Having "The Talk" with your son will require prayer, patience, and your own willingness to change.

Think about that for a moment. Unless you are a very rare breed of father, this book is going to suggest that you need to alter certain ways of thinking and living. To serve your son the way you need to, to help him become the man God wants him to be, you are going to have to change. That's what you're signing up for here. Your son is getting older every day and, as I suggest throughout this book, it's best if you can begin The Talk when he is about ten or eleven, or as soon thereafter as possible. Are you ready to help him? Are you ready to change?

You can download a PDF of the table of contents, the preface for dads, the preface for moms, and a couple of chapters.

Why 1 John Ends with a Command

Image Credit: Apostles Church, NYC

David Powlison:

The relevance of massive chunks of Scripture hangs on our understanding of idolatry. But let me focus the question through a particular verse in the New Testament which long troubled me. The last line of 1 John woos, then commands us: "Beloved children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).

In a 105-verse treatise on living in vital fellowship with Jesus, the Son of God, how on earth does that unexpected command merit being the final word?

Is it perhaps a scribal emendation?

Is it an awkward faux pas by a writer who typically weaves dense and orderly tapestries of meaning with simple, repetitive language?

Is it a culture-bound, practical application tacked onto the end of one of the most timeless and heaven-dwelling epistles?

Each of these alternatives misses the integrity and power of John's final words.

Instead, John's last line properly leaves us with that most basic question which God continually poses to each human heart.

Has something or someone besides Jesus the Christ taken title to your heart's trust, preoccupation, loyalty, service, fear and delight?

It is a question bearing on the immediate motivation for one's behavior, thoughts, and feelings. In the Bible's conceptualization, the motivation question is the lordship question.

Who or what "rules" my behavior, the Lord or a substitute?

The undesirable answers to this question—answers which inform our understanding of the "idolatry" we are to avoid—are most graphically presented in 1 John 2:15-17, 3:7-10, 4:1-6, and 5:19. It is striking how these verses portray a confluence of the "sociological," the "psychological," and the "demonological" perspectives on idolatrous motivation.

The inwardness of motivation is captured by the inordinate and proud "desires of the flesh" (1 John 2:16), our inertial self-centeredness, the wants, hopes, fears, expectations, "needs" that crowd our hearts.

The externality of motivation is captured by "the world" (1 John 2:15-17,4:1-6), all that invites, models, reinforces, and conditions us into such inertia, teaching us lies.



The "demonological" dimension of motivation is the Devil's behavior-determining lordship (1 John 3:7-10,5:19), standing as a ruler over his kingdom of flesh and world.

In contrast, to "keep yourself from idols" is to live with a whole heart of faith in Jesus. It is to be controlled by all that lies behind the address "Beloved children" (see especially 1 John 3:1-3,4:7-5:12). The alternative to Jesus, the swarm of alternatives, whether approached through the lens of flesh, world, or the Evil One, is idolatry.

What Is Truth?

Greg Koukl:

The Curious Case of Two Charles Hodge Biographies in the Same Year

From Mark Noll's foreword to Andrew Hoffecker's new book Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton, published in P&R's American Reformed Biographies series:

It remains to comment on a curiosity. In 1880 Charles Hodge's son, Archibald Alexander Hodge, published a substantial biography of his father, shortly after the latter's death. Subsequently, there have appeared a great number of articles, dissertations, anthologies, and essays on various aspects of Charles Hodge's theology. But no full-scale biographies appeared until this year, 2011.

And now there are two of them.

In early 2011, Oxford University Press brought out Paul Gutjahr's Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy.

Like Hoffecker, Gutjahr, who is professor of English at Indiana University, did the requisite digging in Hodge papers and comprehensive reading in the vast Hodge corpus.

Also like Hoffecker, Gutjahr is sympathetic to the main concerns of Hodge's life.

The main difference in the two books is that Hoffecker aims his story at those who already have heard about Hodge and who may already be interested to some degree in the Reformed and Presbyterian themes of his life, while Gutjahr is writing more for the general student of American history who may know nothing at all about Hodge.

The result is two fine studies, complementary to each other, rather than competitive.

In fact, as someone who has been privileged to read both volumes, I can wholeheartedly recommend them both as together providing, really for the very first time, the kind of full-scale attention that Charles Hodge has long deserved but, as a faithful Calvinist himself, never sought.

Professor Hoffecker introduces the man and his ministry in this 10-minute video:

The Gospel, Thanksgiving, and Family Grace

This painting by Norman Rockwell represents how many of us want Thanksgiving Day to look. And sometimes it does look this way—from the outside.

But often there are underlying tensions and unbelief that make the holidays more painful than joyful.

David Mathis offers some wise counsel, inspired by Randy Newman's book Bringing the Gospel Home: Witnessing to Family Members, Close Friends, and Others Who Know You Well. Here's an outline:

Pray ahead.
Listen and ask questions.
Raise the gospel flag early.
Take the long view and cultivate patience.
Beware the self-righteous older brother in you.
Tell it slant.
Be real about the gospel.
Consider the conversational context.
Know your particular family situation.
Be hopeful.

A complementary post to read is Russell Moore's "Family Tensions and the Holidays." He organizes his counsel around five things to remember, especially for difficult extended family situations:

Peace
Honor
Humility
Maturity
Perspective

On Cultural Criticism

From a post last year at the First Things blog, Matthew Milliner writes:

Criticism, to be sure, has its place.  Frankly, it's also more fun.  But why not fast, for a season, from strictly negative cultural critique?  Western civilization may be in rapid decline, but most of us have gotten the message, and grumbling about it does little to slow the rate of deterioration.  The appetite for gloom need not always be fed.   A different strategy is called for:  Seek and celebrate the good (and if you haven't found good, you haven't looked hard enough).  Call it the cultural version of Jim Neuchterlein's inspiriting reflections this month On the Square, entitled Apocalyspe No.  "Conservatives need no instruction in the dangers of inordinate optimism, but they might need some help with its opposite."

Today he returns to the same theme, applying it to contemporary art:

But even the most basic effort at understanding will quickly discern that complaints about contemporary art being absurd have long been sounded, quite convincingly, from within the world of contemporary art itself – making Christian "pronouncements" on that score redundant.  Did I mention this makes Christian pronouncements redundant?   At the very least we should follow the rule that every paragraph of complaint about contemporary art should be backed up with an hour of walking the galleries.