Justin Taylor's Blog, page 60

Christ-Centered Lyrics for Auld Lang Syne

Should nothing of our efforts stand

No legacy survive

Unless the Lord does raise the house

In vain its builders strive

To you who boast tomorrow’s gain

Tell me what is your life

A mist that vanishes at dawn

All glory be to Christ!

All glory be to Christ our king!

All glory be to Christ!

His rule and reign will ever sing,

All glory be to Christ!

His will be done

His kingdom come

On earth as is above

Who is Himself our daily bread

Praise Him the Lord of love

Let living water satisfy

The thirsty without price

We’ll take a cup of kindness yet

All glory be to Christ!

All glory be to Christ our king!

All glory be to Christ!

His rule and reign will ever sing,

All glory be to Christ!

When on the day the great I Am

The faithful and the true

The Lamb who was for sinners slain

Is making all things new.

Behold our God shall live with us

And be our steadfast light

And we shall ere his people be

All glory be to Christ!

All glory be to Christ our king!

All glory be to Christ!

His rule and reign will ever sing,

All glory be to Christ!

From the new EP “LIVE IN SEASON” available for free at kingskaleidoscope.com.

A Recording of Charles Spurgeon’s Son Reading from His Final Sermon

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) and his wife Susannah were married on January 8, 1856. He was 21, she was 23. Susannah became pregnant right away with fraternal twins. Charles Jr. and Thomas Spurgeon (1856-1917) were born later that year in September, just a month prior to the tragedy at the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall while Charles was preaching.

After Charles Spurgeon died in 1892, his son Thomas returned to England from New Zealand and served for 15 years as pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.

The comparisons between father and son were inevitable, as W.Y. Fullerton recorded in his 1909 biography:

Seen from the midst of the congregation he is not very dissimilar in appearance from his father. There is the frock coat, the little black tie, the quiet self-possessed demeanour, the clear, studied articulation; a voice, not quite that of Charles Spurgeon, not quite so strong and not quite so musical, so marvellously expressive and flexible, as his father’s, but clear and pleasant and melodious, and with many of the late pastor’s modulations and inflexions.

When presently, after the manner of the great preacher, he breaks off from the chapter he is reading and begins to comment upon it, it immediately becomes apparent that he has the same ready fluency of speech, the same easy, familiar style of address, and when he announces his text and plunges into his sermon, he soon shows himself not altogether lacking in the racy way of putting things, the terse and vigorous English, and the strong sense of humour that were so characteristic of the Tabernacle pulpit for many a long year.

Many of the gifts of his father—though no doubt in smaller measure—he certainly possesses, and every here and there one might have shut one’s eyes and fancied that it was the old pastor back again.

During Thomas Spurgeon’s pastorate—August 2, 1905, to be precise—he spoke into a Edison-Bell phonograph, recording the closing paragraph of his father’s final printed sermon. Since no audio exists of the Prince of Preachers himself, the following is the closest we have. (Many thanks to Barry Jordan, who took the original recording and cleaned it up for us.)

Click here to hear the audio recording.

 

Transcript:

C. H. Spurgeon’s last words, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, June 7, 1891, recited by his son and successor, Thomas Spurgeon, Edison-Bell Records.

It is cause for real regret that none of my late, dear father’s words were preserved by means of the phonograph. Perhaps the next best thing is for me, his son and successor, to repeat what proved to be his passing message. It should not be less forceful now, fourteen years after its delivery, for the truth of God is unchanging.

If you wear the livery of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest unto your souls.

He is the most magnanimous of captains.

There never was his like the choicest of princes.

He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle.

When the wind blows cold he always takes the bleak side of the hill.

The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on his shoulders.

If he bids us carry a burden, he carries it also.

If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and tender, yea lavish and superabundant in love, you always find it in him.

His service is life, peace, and joy.

Oh, that you would enter on it at once!

God help you to enlist under the banner of JESUS CHRIST!

Reading the Whole Bible in 2016: An FAQ

How long does it take to read through the entire Bible in a year?

Less than 10 minutes a day.

(There are about 775,000 words in the Bible. Divided by 365, that’s 2,123 words a day. The average person reads 200 to 250 words per minute. So 2,123 words/day divided by 225 words/minute equals 9.4 minutes a day.]

If you want to listen to a narrator read the Bible (which you can do so for free at ESVBible.org), they are usually about 75 hours long total, which means at 12 minutes a day you can listen to the whole Bible in a year.

(For those who like details, here’s a webpage devoted to how long it takes to read each book of the Bible. And if you want a simple but beautiful handout, where every Bible chapter has a box, go here.)

Does the Bible ever command us to read the whole Bible in a year?

No. What is commends is knowing the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) and meditating or storing or ruminating upon God’s self-disclosure to us in written form (Deut. 6:7; 32:46; Ps. 119:11, 15, 23, 93, 99; 143:5). It is compared to bread and water—not nice things to have when there is time but that which is essential for survival.

The point is not to check off a list or punch in your time but rather to meditate on the Word in such a way that your mind, heart, and actions are transformed in a godly, gospel-drawn way.

As Joel Beeke writes:

As oil lubricates an engine, so meditation facilitates the diligent use of means of grace (reading of Scripture, hearing sermons, prayer, and all other ordinances of Christ), deepens the marks of grace (repentance, faith, humility), and strengthens one’s relationships to others (love to God, to fellow Christians, to one’s neighbors at large).

Thomas Watson put it like this:

A Christian without meditation is like a solider without arms, or a workman without tools. Without meditation the truths of God will not stay with us; the heart is hard, and the memory is slippery, and without meditation all is lost.

So reading the Bible cover to cover is a great way to facilitate meditation upon the whole counsel of God.

Despite our good intentions, why don’t more Christians read the Bible in a year?

Simple resolutions are often well-intentioned but insufficient. Most of us need a more proactive plan. As John Piper has written, “Nothing but the simplest impulses gets accomplished without some forethought which we call a plan.”

What are some helps for reading the Bible in a year?

A Specially Designed Bible

Some Bibles are designed to facilitate daily Bible reading. There are several options to choose from.

For example, Crossway offers the ESV Daily Reading Bible. The readings are laid out for each day of the year—January 1 through December 31—using the popular M’Cheyne reading plan, such that you read through the OT once and the NT and Psalms twice. You can download an excerpt or watch a quick video below to get a feel for how this works:

For multiple bindings of the ESV Daily Reading Bible, go here.]

There is also the One-Year Bible in the ESV. Again, the whole Bible is divided up for you into 365 daily readings. In this Bible, you would read from the Old Testament, New Testament, a Psalm, and a Proverb each day.

The nice thing about Bibles like this is that you don’t need to have a plan alongside you, and you don’t need to flip around to your next reading—all the work is done for you.

On the other hand, this is not the sort of Bible that you could bring to a Bible study or to church, because it’d be difficult to locate a passage quickly.

Also be aware that because there is a reading for every single day, it can be easy to fall behind. In other words, unlike some of the plans below, there is no “grace period” built in for catch-up days.

Bible Reading Plans that Can Be Used with Any Bible

1. Let’s start with the most doable of the plans: Stephen Witmer’s two-year-Bible reading plan. Stephen writes: ”In my opinion, it is better to read the whole Bible through carefully one time in two years than hastily in one year.” His plan has you read through one book of the Bible at a time (along with a daily reading from the Psalms or Proverbs. At the end of two years you will have read through the Psalms and Proverbs four times and the rest of the Bible once.

2. Already mentioned above, the Robert Murray M’Cheyne reading plan, developed by the 19th century Scottish pastor, has been widely used for Bible reading. The Gospel Coalition’s For the Love of God Blog (which you can subscribe to via email) takes you through the M’Cheyne reading plan, with a daily meditation each day by D. A. Carson related to one of the readings. M’Cheyne’s plan has you read shorter selections from four different places in the Bible each day. (For a print version of Carson’s books, see volume 1 and volume 2.)

3. Jason DeRouchie offers his KINGDOM Bible Reading Plan, which has the following distinctives:

Proportionate weight is given to the Old and New Testaments in view of their relative length, the Old receiving three readings per day and the New getting one reading per day.
The Old Testament readings follow the arrangement of Jesus’ Bible (Luke 24:44—Law, Prophets, Writings), with one reading coming from each portion per day.
In a single year, one reads through Psalms twice and all other biblical books once; the second reading of Psalms (highlighted in gray) supplements the readings through the Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy).
Only twenty-five readings are slated per month in order to provide more flexibility in daily devotions.
The plan can be started at any time of the year, and if four readings per day are too much, the plan can simply be stretched to two or more years (reading from one, two, or three columns per day).

4. Trent Hunter’s The Bible-Eater Plan is an innovative approach that has you reading whole chapters, along with quarterly attention to specific books. The plan especially highlights OT chapters that are crucial to the storyline of Scripture and redemptive fulfillment in Christ.

5. For those who would benefit from a realistic “discipline + grace” approach, consider Andy Perry’s Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers. It takes away the pressure (and guilt) of “keeping up” with the entire Bible in one year. You get variety within the week by alternating genres by day, but also continuity by sticking with one genre each day. Here’s the basic idea:

Sundays: Poetry

Mondays: Penteteuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy)

Tuesdays: Old Testament history

Wednesdays: Old Testament history

Thursdays: Old Testament prophets

Fridays: New Testament history

Saturdays: New Testament epistles (letters)

6. Finally, there is the Legacy Reading Plan. Here is a description:

The overarching objective of the Legacy Reading Plan is to read through the Bible once a year, every year for the rest of your life. The reading calendar is naturally segmented into seasons and the seasons into months. At the beginning of each year you know that during the winter your focus will be on the Pentateuch and Poetry (249 chapters); in spring, the Historical books (249 chapters); in summer the Prophets (250 chapters); and during the fall, the New Testament (260 chapter). Each season is further broken down into months. Thus every January your goal is to read through Genesis and Exodus and every December the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. There are times when you will naturally read ten chapters at a time and others when you will read one or two. More importantly you will read the Bible just as you read other literature.

If you use this plan, it may be helpful also to have something like this on hand.

What are some online Bible reading plans?

There are a number of Reading Plans for ESV Editions. Crossway has made them accessible in multiple formats:

web (a new reading each day appears online at the same link)
RSS (subscribe to receive by RSS)
podcast (subscribe to get your daily reading in audio)
iCal (download an iCalendar file)
mobile (view a new reading each day on your mobile device)
print (download a PDF of the whole plan)

Chronological

Through the Bible chronologically (from Back to the Bible)

RSS | iCal | Mobile | Print | Email

Daily Office Lectionary

Daily Psalms, Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospels

RSS | iCal | Mobile | Print | Email

Daily Reading Bible

Daily Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms

RSS | iCal | Mobile | Print | Email

ESV Study Bible

Daily Psalms or Wisdom Literature; Pentateuch or the History of Israel; Chronicles or Prophets; and Gospels or Epistles

RSS | iCal | Mobile | Print | Email

Literary Study Bible

Daily Psalms or Wisdom Literature; Pentateuch or the History of Israel; Chronicles or Prophets; and Gospels or Epistles

RSS | iCal | Mobile | Print | Email

M’Cheyne One-Year Reading Plan

Daily Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms or Gospels

RSS | iCal | Mobile | Print | Email

Try this to access each of these Reading Plans as podcasts:

Right-click (Ctrl-click on a Mac) the “RSS” link of the feed you want from the above list.
Choose “Copy Link Location” or “Copy Shortcut.”
Start iTunes.
Under File, choose “Subscribe to Podcast.”
Paste the URL into the box.
Click OK.

What are the best options for listening to the Bible?

If you go to the ESV Bible site, there’s an audio button at the top (“Listen”) that allows you to listen to the whole Bible free of charge.

You can also purchase various audio Bibles, but I would recommend the dramatized NKJV Word of Promise Audio Bible. (If you’re an Audible subscriber, it’s much less expensive here than getting the CDs.) With various actors voicing the part, and with appropriate music and some sound effects, I think it’s a great experience in bringing various parts of the Word alive in a fresh way.

What are some resources to help me understand the storyline of Scripture and how to read Scripture well?

Here are some good, short books books on the big picture of the Bible:

Chris Bruno,  The Whole Story of the Bible in 16 Verses
D. A. Carson, The God Who Is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story
Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible
Vaughn Roberts, God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible

Here are some on reading the Bible responsibly:

George Guthrie, Read the Bible for Life: Your Guide to Understanding and Living God’s Word
Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guide
Grudem, Collins, Schreiner, eds., Understanding the Big Picture of the Bible: A Guide to Reading the Bible Well

For a focus on the Old Testament, see (in increasing order of level):

Jason DeRouchie, ed.,  What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible
Paul House, Old Testament Theology
Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology

For a focus on the New Testament, see:

D. A. Carson, Douglas Moo, and Andy Naselli,  Introducing the New Testament: A Short Guide to Its History and Message
Andreas Köstenberger, Scott Kellum, Charles Quarles,  The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament
Frank Thielman,  New Testament Theology

For a whole-Bible theology books, see:

Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum,  God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology
Thomas Schreiner,  The King in His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments

For special attention to seeing Christ in the Old Testament, note in particular:

Nancy Guthrie, Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament (Bible studies)
Michael Williams, How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens: A Guide to Christ-Focused Reading of Scripture
David Murray,  Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament
ESV Gospel Transformation Bible , ed. Bryan Chapell

Any books to help children catch the biblical storyline?

For helping children trace the storyline of Scripture, see:

Sally Lloyd-Jones,  The Jesus Storybook Bible
David Helm,  The Big Picture Story Bible
Kevin DeYoung’s The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden 

Note that with the Helm book, Crossway has now released a whole set of corresponding materials in the series: including an innovative Scripture memory/catechism of redemptive history, a free audio book, and a family devotional.

Without having to go buy a book, can you give me a quick flyby course on putting together the biblical storyline?

As you read through the Bible, here’s a chart you may want to to print out and have on hand. It’s from Goldsworthy’s book According to Plan. It simplified, of course, but it can be helpful in locating where you’re at in the biblical storyline and seeing the history of Israel “at a glance.”

Goldsworthy’s outline is below. You can also download this as a PDF (posted with permission).

Taken from According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible by Graeme Goldsworthy. Copyright(c) Graeme Goldsworthy 1991. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515 (www.ivpress.com) and Inter-Varsity Press, Norton Street, Nottingham NG7 3HR England (www.ivbooks.com)

Creation by Word
Genesis 1 and 2


The Fall
Genesis 3


First Revelation of Redemption
Genesis 4-11


Abraham Our Father
Genesis 12-50


Exodus: Our Pattern of Redemption
Exodus 1-15


New Life: Gift and Task
Exodus 16-40; Leviticus


The Temptation in the Wilderness
Numbers; Deuteronomy


Into the Good Land
Joshua; Judges; Ruth


God’s Rule in God’s Land
1 and 2 Samuel; 1 Kings 1-10; 1 Chronicles; 2 Chronicles 1-9


The Fading Shadow
1 Kings 11-22; 2 Kings


There Is a New Creation
Jeremiah; Ezekiel; Daniel; Esther


The Second Exodus
Ezra; Nehemiah; Haggai


The New Creation for Us
Matthew; Mark; Luke; John


The New Creation in Us Initiated
Acts


The New Creation in Us Now
New Testament Epistles


The New Creation Consummated
The New Testament

Below are Goldsworthy’s summaries of each section.

Creation by Word

Genesis 1 and 2

In the beginning God created everything that exists. He made Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden of Eden. God spoke to them and gave them certain tasks in the world. For food he allowed them the fruit of all the trees in the garden except one. He warned them that they would die if they ate of that one tree.

The Fall

Genesis 3

The snake persuaded Eve to disobey God and to eat the forbidden fruit. She gave some to Adam and he ate also. Then God spoke to them in judgment, and sent them out of the garden into a world that came under the same judgment.

First Revelation of Redemption

Genesis 4-11

Outside Eden, Cain and Abel were born to Adam and eve. Cain murdered Abel and Eve bore another son, Seth. Eventually the human race became so wicked that God determined to destroy every living thing with a flood. Noah and his family were saved by building a great boat at God’s command. The human race began again with Noah and his three sons with their families. Sometime after the flood a still unified human race attempted a godless act to assert its power in the building of a high tower. God thwarted these plans by scattering the people and confusing their language.

Abraham Our Father

Genesis 12-50

Sometime in the early second millennium BC God called Abraham out of Mesopotamia to Canaan. He promised to give this land to Abraham’s descendants and to bless them as his people. Abraham went, and many years later he had a son, Isaac. Isaac in rum had two sons, Esau and Jacob. The promises of God were established with Jacob and his descendants. He had twelve sons, and in time they all went to live in Egypt because of famine in Canaan.

Exodus: Our Pattern of Redemption

Exodus 1-15

In time the descendants of Jacob living in Egypt multiplied to become a very large number of people. The Egyptians no longer regarded them with friendliness and made them slaves. God appointed Moses to be the one who would lead Israel out of Egypt to the promised land of Canaan. When the moment came for Moses to demand the freedom of his people, the Pharaoh refused to let them go. Though Moses worked ten miracle-plagues which brought hardship, destruction, and death to the Egyptians. Finally, Pharaoh let Israel go, but then pursued them and trapped them at the Red Sea (or Sea of Reeds). The God opened a way in the sea for Israel to cross on dry land, but closed the water over the Egyptian army, destroying it.

New Life: Gift and Task

Exodus 16-40; Leviticus

After their release from Egypt, Moses led the Israelites to Mount Sinai. There God gave them his law which they were commanded to keep. At one point Moses held a covenant renewal ceremony in which the covenant arrangement was sealed in blood. However, while Moses was away on the mountain, the people persuaded Aaron to fashion a golden calf. Thus they showed their inclination to forsake the covenant and to engage in idolatry. God also commanded the building of the tabernacle and gave all the rules of sacrificial worship by which Israel might approach him.

The Temptation in the Wilderness

Numbers; Deuteronomy

After giving the law to the Israelites at Sinai, God directed them to go in and take possession of the promised land. Fearing the inhabitants of Canaan, they refused to do so, thus showing lack of confidence in the promises of God. The whole adult generation that had come out of Egypt, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, was condemned to wander and die in the desert. Israel was forbidden to dispossess its kinsfolk, the nation of Edom, Moab, and Ammon, but was given victory over other nations that opposed it. Finally, forty years after leaving Egypt, Israel arrived in the Moabite territory on the east side of the Jordan. Here Moses prepared the people for their possession of Canaan, and commissioned Joshua as their new leader.

Into the Good Land

Joshua; Judges; Ruth

Under Joshua’s leadership the Israelites crossed the Jordan and began the task of driving out the inhabitants of Canaan. After the conquest the land was divided between the tribes, each being allotted its own region. Only the tribe of Levi was without an inheritance of land because of its special priestly relationship to God. There remained pockets of Canaanites in the land and, from time to time, these threatened Israel’s hold on their new possession. From the one-man leaderships of Moses and Joshua, the nation moved into a period of relative instability during which judges exercised some measure of control over the affairs of the people.

God’s Rule in God’s Land

1 and 2 Samuel; 1 Kings 1-10; 1 Chronicles; 2 Chronicles 1-9

Samuel became judge and prophet in all Israel at a time when the Philistines threatened the freedom of the nation. An earlier movement for kingship was received and the demand put to a reluctant Samuel. The first king, Saul, had a promising start to his reign but eventually showed himself unsuitable as the ruler of the covenant people. While Saul still reigned, David was anointed to succeed him. Because of Saul’s jealousy David became an outcast, but when Saul died in battle David returned and became king (about 1000 BC). Due to his success Israel became a powerful and stable nation. He established a central sanctuary at Jerusalem, and created a professional bureaucracy and permanent army. David’s son Solomon succeeded him (about 961 BC) and the prosperity of Israel continued. The building of the temple at Jerusalem was one of Solomon’s most notable achievements.

The Fading Shadow

1 Kings 11-22; 2 Kings

Solomon allowed political considerations and personal ambitions to sour his relationship with God, and this in turn had a bad effect on the life of Israel. Solomon’s son began an oppressive rule which led to the rebellion of the northern tribes and the division of the kingdom. Although there were some political and religious high points, both kingdoms went into decline, A new breed of prophets warned against the direction of national life, but matters went from bad to worse. In 722 BC the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the power of the Assyrian empire. Then, in 586 BC the southern kingdom of Judah was devastated by the Babylonians. Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, and a large part of the population was deported to Babylon.

There Is a New Creation

Jeremiah; Ezekiel; Daniel; Esther

The prophets of Israel warned of the doom that would befall the nation. When the first exiles were taken to Babylon in 597 BC, Ezekiel was among them. Both prophets ministered to the exiles. Life for the Jews (the people of Judah) in Babylon was not all bad, and in time many prospered. The books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel indicate a certain normality to the experience, while Daniel and Esther highlight some of the difficulties and suffering experienced in an alien and oppressive culture.

The Second Exodus

Ezra; Nehemiah; Haggai

In 539 BC Babylon fell to the Medo-Persian empire. The following year, Cyrus the king allowed the Jews to return home and to set up a Jewish state within the Persian empire. Great difficulty was experienced in re-establishing the nation. There was local opposition to the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. Many of the Jews did not return but stayed on in the land of their exile. In the latter part of the fourth century BC, Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire. The Jews entered a long and difficult period in which Greek culture and religion challenged their trust in God’s covenant promises. In 63 BC Pompey conquered Palestine and the Jews found themselves a province of the Roman empire.

The New Creation for Us

Matthew; Mark; Luke; John

The province of Judea, the homeland of the Jews, came under Roman rule in 63 BC. During the reign of Caesar Augustus, Jesus was born at Bethlehem, probably about the year 4 BC. John, known as the Baptist, prepared the way for the ministry of Jesus. This ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing began with Jesus’ baptism and lasted about three years. Growing conflict with the Jews and their religious leaders led eventually to Jesus being sentenced to death by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. He was executed by the Romans just outside Jerusalem, but rose from death two days afterward and appealed to his followers on a number of occasions. After a period with them, Jesus was taken up to heaven.

The New Creation in Us Initiated

Acts

After Jesus had ascended, his disciples waited in Jerusalem. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon them and they began the task of proclaiming Jesus. As the missionary implications of the gospel became clearer to the first Christians, the local proclamation was extended to world evangelization. The apostle Paul took the gospel to Asia Minor and Greece, establishing many churches as he went. Eventually a church flourished at the heart of the empire of Rome.

The New Creation in Us Now

New Testament Epistles

As the gospel made inroads into pagan societies it encountered many philosophies and non-Christian ideas which challenged the apostolic message. The New Testament epistles shows that the kind of pressures to adopt pagan ideas that had existed for the people of God in Old Testament times were also a constant threat to the churches. The real danger to Christian teaching was not so much in direct attacks upon it, but rather in the subtle distortion of Christian ideas. Among the troublemakers were the Judaizers who added Jewish law-keeping to the gospel. The Gnostics also undermined the gospel with elements of Greek philosophy and religion.

The New Creation Consummated

The New Testament

God is Lord over history and therefore, when he so desires, he can cause the events of the future to be recorded. All section of the New Testament contain references to things which have not yet happened, the most significant being the return of Christ and the consummation of the kingdom of God. No clues to the actual chronology are given, but it is certain that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. The old creation will be undone and the new creation will take its place.

Another helpful guide comes from David Talley’s The Story of the Old Testament.

He points out that the majority of the OT story or narrative is found in the following 11 books:

Genesis
Exodus
Numbers
Joshua
Judges
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
Ezra
Nehemiah

He writes:

If you were to read these eleven books, beginning with Genesis and reading them in succession to Nehemiah, you would read through almost the entire story of the Old Testament. The reason it must be stated that it is “almost the entire story” is because there are some additional stories isolated in parts of other books.

This is a really helpful pedagogical move, as it allows readers to distinguish between the main ongoing narrative and then to examine the way the other 28 books of the OT interpret, reinforce, and supplement this storyline.

Below is his summary of the story through these 11 books.

Genesis

Genesis begins THE STORY by providing the narrative of the beginning of the world in the first eleven chapters. In these chapters, the story progresses through 20+ generations of people. The goal is to get the story to Abram (Abraham).  So these chapters cover a very long time period . . .  and, as a result, can obviously focus on very few details.   The remaining chapters of the book provide the narrative for the early beginnings of the nation of Israel through the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and concluding with the family of Jacob in Egypt. Then THE STORY slows down, focusing on only four generations of people. The purpose is to provide a “skeleton” of information about the background of everything that leads up to Israel being in Egypt, awaiting the redemption of the Lord.

Exodus

Exodus picks up THE STORY from Genesis as evidenced by an overlapping connection with Joseph going to down to Egypt, being used by God to preserve Jacob’s family. After Joseph dies, Exodus continues the narrative by 1) recounting the nation’s hardships in Egypt, 2) demonstrating God’s miraculous work of judgment against Egypt and redemption of Israel in the exodus from Egypt to Mt Sinai, 3) providing the establishment of his covenant with Israel, and 4) explaining the building of the Tabernacle so that God can dwell in their midst. Whereas Genesis covers 24-plus generations, Exodus concerns only the life of Moses (his life actually continues to the end of Deuteronomy, the remainder of the Pentateuch). The family of Jacob grows into a nation with whom God makes a covenant. All of this is preparation for taking the nation to the Promised Land.

Numbers

Numbers continues THE STORY for us, narrating the developments taking place as Israel prepares to take the land. All of the contents occur in Moses’ generation. After the completion of the Tabernacle, this book conveys the story of the organization of the nation, their departure from Mt. Sinai, and the subsequent disobedience of this first generation when they refuse to take the land. The resulting judgment is 40 years of wilderness wanderings, which is also found in this book though not in much detail. We do not have a lot of information about this 40-year time period because the focus of the book is to get us to the border of the Promised Land. The book closes with the preparation of the second generation (after the exodus) in taking the land of Canaan.

Joshua

The book of Joshua connects to the previous books by beginning with a reference to Moses’ death. (Recall, Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land because of his sin when he struck the rock rather than spoke to it.) The leadership of the people for the task of entering the Promised Land is transferred and entrusted to Joshua. The narrative in this book continues THE STORY by providing the events of Israel entering the land by focusing on the conquest, division, and initial settling of the land of Canaan during the life of Joshua.

Judges

Judges continues THE STORY by overlapping with the end of the book of Joshua with its focus on the details of Joshua’s death. Since the land has already been settled, this book provides a glimpse of the early years in the land when Israel was led by judges. This period marked by the rule of the judges is summarized by utilizing a similar cycle evidenced by each generation. The cycle is simple, yet disturbing. Each generation is characterized by eventual rebellion, followed by God’s judgment, their crying out to the Lord, the Lord raising up of a deliverer, the actual deliverance, and a subsequent return to obedience for a period of time until the cycle repeats itself. Consequently, many generations are covered as the author seeks to make it clear what this time period was like for Israel. When they are disobedient, there are consequences, but, when they walk in faithfulness, the Lord in his mercy restores them to a place of blessing.

1-2 Samuel

The era of the judges continues into the books of Samuel. Samuel is a judge, but he moves THE STORY from the period of the judges into the period of the kingdom. These two books include the transition from the leadership of the last judge (Samuel) to the beginning of (under King Saul’s leadership) and establishment of (under King David’s leadership) the kingdom. It is also the necessary foundation to the books that follow.

1-2 Kings

The books of Kings naturally flow out of the books that introduce the kingdom, especially with the overlap of the end of King David’s life. Connecting to the end of the books of Samuel, the books of Kings begin with the latter years of King David’s life, culminating in the transfer of leadership to Solomon as the new king and the story of King David’s death. King Solomon is the focus immediately after King David’s death, and, after his unfaithfulness and the subsequent division of the kingdom, the remaining pages summarize the lives of the kings of the divided (northern kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah) and the solitary kingdom (southern kingdom of Judah alone). THE STORY points to the “glory” of the kingdom (under King Solomon’s leadership) and the division of the kingdom into the northern kingdom, until this kingdom goes into exile, and southern kingdom, until this kingdom goes into exile, which is the seeming end of the nation as a whole.

{Exile}

At this point we have the exile. The nation is taken out of the land. There are many events that happen during this time, which are part of the growth and formation of the nation. The land is the focus in the Old Testament, so in many ways, and for our purposes, THE STORY takes a 70-year hiatus. But God is not done. His story continues.

Ezra and Nehemiah

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah continue THE STORY by reversing the removal of the people from the land. They now return. After the 70 years of exile are over, these books record the three returns to the land under the leadership of Zerrubabel (to rebuild the Temple), Ezra, and Nehemiah (to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem). The purpose of these returns is ultimately concerned with preparing for the coming Messiah and the restoration of the kingdom. However, each return also includes the many reforms that the people must make along the way. God is continuing his work.

So note very clearly that THE STORY of the Old Testament ends with the book of Nehemiah. Yes, Nehemiah. It is not that God is done with his people. It is just that God will resume his story with the coming of the Messiah, which occurs in the gospels in the New Testament. The end of the Old Testament is one of anticipation, the anticipation of the good news of the gospel in the coming Messiah.

The prophets add to this anticipation as these books begin to fill in certain details about what God is up to, what he is going to do, and when it is going to happen.

The Old Testament is actually the “first testament” or the prelude to the New Testament. Both testaments contain God’s story.

Finally, The Bible Project is producing some great, free resources: sophisticated animation that provides an overview of each book of the Bible.

They’ve set up a new Bible reading plan, and if you sign up with them you can get a short animated video about the book’s design and message as you come to it in your plan.

Here are the videos they have produced so far:

The First Five Books

The most recent additions are on the books of Ruth, Job, and the Psalms:

 

Biblical Themes through the Entire Narrative of the Bible

They have done several of these so far:

 

Book Overviews (Literary Structure and Flow of Thought for Each Bible Book)
They have covered four books so far:

How Can the Child Who Is Born and the Son Who Is Given Be the “Everlasting Father”?

Each Christmas we hear the words from Isaiah 9:6:

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace.

Wait—“Everlasting Father”? Isn’t he the “child . . . born,” the “son . . . given”? Isn’t he the Son of Man and the Son of God? Isn’t it God the Father who is, well, God the Father?

My pastor at New Covenant Bible Church, David Sunday, on this a couple of weeks ago, and TGC has published an article-version at their site.

Here’s how he begins:

Few words in any language evoke the kind of feelings we have when we hear the word father. Some of us will feel a sense of loss this Christmas season, either because we had fathers who were wonderful but are no longer with us, or because we have unfulfilled longings for the kind of father we’ve never had.

How comforting, then, to read of the birth of a child whose name shall be called “Everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6). Under his care, his protection, and his provision, we are safe and will be satisfied for all eternity.

Of all the names attributed to Jesus in Isaiah 9:6, Everlasting Father intrigues me the most because it’s the one I understand the least. How can Jesus the Messiah, the second person of the Godhead, be called Everlasting Father?

And here are three of his key points:

Isaiah is not confusing Jesus the Messiah with the first person of the Trinity.
Isaiah is highlighting the divine nature of the Messiah.
Jesus the Messiah is the only one who can reveal God’s fatherly character to us, for he is one in nature and essence with the Father.

The whole meditation is very much worth reading. I commend it to you as you seek to have a merry Christmas in Christ.

5 Errors to Drop From Your Christmas Sermon

Last year Andreas J. Köstenberger and I wrote an article for Christianity Today suggesting “5 Errors to Drop from Your Easter Sermon“:

Don’t say Jesus died when he was 33 years old.
Don’t explain the apparent absence of a lamb at the Last Supper by only saying Jesus is the ultimate Passover Lamb.
Don’t say the same crowds worshiped Jesus on Palm Sunday and then cried out for his crucifixion on Good Friday.
Don’t bypass the role of the women as witnesses of the resurrected Christ.
Don’t focus on the suffering of Jesus to the extent that you neglect the glory of the Cross in and through the Resurrection.

You can read the whole thing here, which receives further explanation in our book, The Final Days of Jesus.

Now Köstenberger and Alexander Stewart, who co-authored the prequel/sequel The First Days of Jesus (see my foreword), have a new article in CT on “5 Errors to Drop from Your Christmas Sermon.” Here they are in outline form:

Don’t add details that aren’t in the text.
Don’t supply spiritual explanations for cultural practices to make them sound biblical.
Don’t be embarrassed by the Jewishness of passages related to Jesus’ coming.
Don’t be swayed by dubious challenges to the biblical witness to Jesus’ birth.
Don’t get bogged down in trivia and miss the true significance of Jesus’ birth.

I’ll reprint their explanation of #1 below:

This might seem obvious but bears repeating because it happens so often. The massive annual proliferation of Christmas cards, nativity scenes, and TV specials perpetuates these added details and gives the impression that they are facts.

The infancy narratives in the Gospels lack many of the details that have been fabricated in subsequent centuries. For example, they don’t tell us about the nature of the stable (cave, open-air, wood, etc.); whether there even was a stable; whether or not there were animals nearby; or the number of wise men. These magoi (not kings and not necessarily three in number) almost certainly didn’t arrive on the night of the birth as most manger scenes depict. And a star wouldn’t have been suspended right above the roofline. With no mention of a stable, the manger could have been in the open air, in an animal pen near the house, in a small cave, or in the area of a house used for animals.

The texts don’t mention Mary and/or Joseph riding on a donkey. It is equally plausible—if not more so—that they walked the entire way from Nazareth to Bethlehem (70-80 miles; at least 3 days of steady walking). The idea of Mary riding a donkey stems from a second-century apocryphal work (Protoevangelium of James, chap. 17). Actually, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for a pregnant teenager in antiquity with an active lifestyle to walk such a journey.

Despite what we see in some Christmas pageants, there is no mention of an innkeeper (whether mean and coldhearted or regretful for the lack of space available); Luke simply mentions that there was no room in the kataluma (Luke 2:7). The kataluma was not a formal professional inn with an innkeeper but could point to either a public covered shelter (as in the Greek translation of Ex. 4:24) or to the guest room in a personal home (as in Luke 22:11).

It is important for us to stick with established facts when preaching and teaching. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the use of historical imagination. But it is important to maintain a clear distinction between what we actually know happened and imaginative reconstructions of how events might have taken place. Christianity is rooted in historical fact. This is as true for Jesus’ birth as it is true for the crucifixion and resurrection.

You can read the whole piece here.

Alvin Plantinga’s Introduction to “Augustinian Christian Philosophy”

What does Christianity have to say to philosophy?

What role does philosophy have in theology?

In short, how should Christianity and philosophy relate?

Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932) is one of the most influential analytical philosophers of the twentieth century. He sees the proper way to do Christian philosophy today as broadly Augustinian—that is, it grows out of Augustinian roots. “What is at issue,” he says, “is not just a way of thinking about Christianity and philosophy, but about Christianity and scholarship more generally.”

He first explored these ideas in print nearly 25 years ago, in a paper entitled “Augustinian Christian Philosophy,” The Monist 75 (1992): 291-320.

More recently, he presented a version of the paper orally at the Society of Christian Philosophers (Midwest Region) and Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology joint conference at Trinity Christian College (Palos Heights, IL).

You can watch it below:

Plantinga identifies four elements in an Augustinian Christian philosophy:

philosophical theology
apologetics
Christian philosophical criticism
positive Christian philosophy

The first two are widely recognized and relatively uncontroversial, so his comments about them are brief. Philosophical theology is “a matter of thinking about the central doctrines of the Christian faith from a philosophical perspective and employing the resources of philosophy.” Apologetics comes in two varieties: negative apologetics defends Christianity against its detractors; positive apologetics provides positive arguments for the existence of God.

The second two require Plantinga to give more explanation, illustration, and defense.

Here Plantinga argues that there are “three main competitors vying for spiritual supremacy in the West: three fundamental perspectives or ways of thinking about what the world is like, what we ourselves are like, what is most important about the world, what our place in it is, and what we must do to live the good life.” They are (1) Christian theism, (2) perennial naturalism, and (3) creative antirealism—with its progeny of (a) relativism and (2) anti-commitment. In Plantinga’s view, “The spiritual and intellectual health of the Christian community depends upon our knowing how to think about these ideas and claims; and to know how to think about them, we need the sort of cultural criticism—both inside and outside of philosophy—of which I speak.”

Finally, Plantinga looks at positive Christian philosophy, arguing that “Christian philosophers should address these questions and topics starting from the Christian faith, using all that they know, including Christian teachings.”

If you are interested in philosophy, and especially the relationship between Christianity and philosophy, this is an opportunity to hear from one of the great philosophers of our day.

The Voice 2015 Winner Jordan Smith Sings, “Mary, Did You Know?”

Jordan Smith, the 2015 winner of the popular song-contest show “The Voice,” sang for the finale Michael English’s 1991 song, “Mary Did You Know?

Smith is a 22-year-old Kentuckian who attends Lee University, where he participates in the campus choir. (Lee University is located on the original campus of Bob Jones College in Cleveland, Tennessee, and is operated by the Church of God denomination, which combines evangelical, Pentecostal, and Wesleyan influences.)

Earlier in the season Smith also performed “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”

Slate calls “The Voice” “in its own weird way the most religious show in prime time.”

Two Ways to Watch a Film Version of the Entire Gospel of John, Word-for-Word

The Visual Bible

In 2003, Scottish-Peruvian actor Henry Ian Cusick starred as Jesus in the three-hour film, The Gospel of John. The script was an unabridged word-for-word use of the Gospel of John, using the Good News Translation.

The Visual Bible produced similar projects for Matthew (1993) and Acts (1994), which included Italian-American actor Bruce Marchiano—who seeks to bring out the gentleness and approachability of Jesus (at one point he tousles a disciple’s hair!) but fails to convey the depth and gravitas of an actor like Cusick.

The Lumo Project

Now comes the Lumo Project, which seeks to do something similar with all four Gospels.

The Gospel of John is already available, with Luke planned for Easter 2016 and Matthew and Mark planned for Christmas 2016.

Here’s one aspect of Jesus films I’d never considered before—though in retrospect it’s obvious. Some people complain about Jesus being depicted as Anglo with an Anglo cast of characters. But if the film is in English, then it may be difficult to get a cast of actors who speak fluent, undistracting English and yet look like the part of a Mediterranean Jews.

In December 2002 Popular Mechanics reported on scientists and archaeologists using forensic anthropology to reconstruct what a first-century Galilean Semite might have looked like, with the following result:

The way that the Lumo Project solved this issue was by having Selva Rasalingam play Jesus. Rasalingam, whose ethnicity is partly Tamil, looks more like the picture above than the typical Anglo-Jesus version. Furthermore, the actors in the film speak Aramaic (and I assume Latin for certain parts?). But you can’t really hear their dialogue clearly. Rather, you hear the voice of the narrator, British actor David Harewood (whereas the Visaul Bible contains a combination of narration plus the actors saying the relevant dialogue). Harewood is essentially reading the Gospel of John word-for-word (you can choose whether to hear it as NIV, KJV, or in the Spanish Reina-Valera translation) as the actors depict the scenes while speaking in Arabic.

It may not work for some viewers, but I think the approach is intriguing and surprisingly effective.

One exciting aspect of this approach is that the film can be translated with relative ease into multiple languages, since it only requires one voice-over narrator to read the biblical text. The Lumo Project is currently translating the Gospel of John film into  Brazilian-Portuguese, French, Danish, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Finnish.

The film is shot on location in Morocco, and the cinematography is at times beautiful. There is also an appropriate use of CGI to reconstruct the city of Jerusalem from a difference. As a whole, the entire project is a step up from the Visual Bible version.

For readers who are interested, I’ve copied below two scenes from each movie, on the raising of Lazarus from the dead and the last supper of the Christ with his disciples. It’s interesting to take two identical scripts and to see the various acting and directing choices that can be made with the same source material.

And here is the Lord’s Supper in both versions:

By the way, if you have a Netflix subscription, the Lumo Project Gospel of John is currently streaming for free. I don’t know how long that will last.

Christianity Today’s 2016 Book Awards

Christianity Today has announced its 2016 Book Awards, which you can read here.

They award a book of the year in each of the following 12 categories, along with an award of merit for each:

Apologetics/Evangelism
Biblical Studies
Christian Living/Discipleship (tie)
The Church/Pastoral Leadership
Culture and the Arts
Fiction
History/Biography
Missions/The Global Church
Politics and Public Life
Spiritual Formation
Theology/Ethics
Her.meneutics

This year they have also started a new category, the book of the year for Beautiful Orthodoxy.

I’d be remiss not to highlight the two Crossway authors whose books were CT’s books of the year in their respective categories.

 

Christian Living/Discipleship (tied with Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age [Brazos]

Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts (Crossway)

“Too often, we treat delight in the beauties of nature and culture as distractions from the divine, or else consider our spiritual lives cordoned off from the rest of life—our leisure, food, clothes, relationships. Rigney invites us to enter into a more spiritually mature understanding of God’s good gifts, in order to bless God for all he gives, to mirror his generosity, and to model grace and gratitude, whether we have little or much.” —Rachel Marie Stone, blogger, author of Eat with Joy

The Church/Pastoral Leadership

Zack Eswine, The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus (Crossway)

“Here is a book so gritty, liberating, godly, and honest that it was hard to put down. Drawing from Scripture, theology, and close observation of life, Eswine describes the life of ministry in a way that unshackles the minister from impossible demands—and all the dread, depression, and burnout that accompanies them. For the minister, this book is full of mercy and encouragement. For everyone else, it reminds us of a glad irony: God chooses to do imperfect ministry through imperfect persons rather than personally doing it perfectly.” —Cornelius Plantinga Jr., senior research fellow at Calvin Institute of Christian Worship

Again, you can read the whole list of winners with blurbs here.

Isaac Wardell: Love, Joy, Light, and Peace—From Christmas to Easter

In 2009, Isaac Wardell wrote the following lyrics:

Under the babyʼs head she held

Love, love, sing Emmanuel

Lending at His birth, peace on all the earth

See His mother Mary weeping Love, love, love.

Over the shepherds, angels tell

Joy, Joy, called Emmanuel

Born in Bethlehem, good will unto men

Bend before His cradle singing Joy, joy, joy.

Down from the throne of Heavʼn He fell

Light, light became Emmanuel

Covered in our flesh, swaddled in our dress

Wise men see His coming chasing light, light, light

Onto the ground His blood He spilled

Peace! Peace! Cried Emmanuel

Sinners dark and vile, God to reconcile

Spilling love and joy and light and peace, peace, peace.

© 2009 New Jerusalem Music

With an arrangement by Mason Neely and Isaac Wardell, based loosely on the 17th century French tune, “Entre Le Boeuf Et Lane Gris,” Bifrost Arts produced “Joy Joy!!” (feat. Devon Sproul and Paul Curreri) for the album Salvation Is Created:

You can sample and buy the whole album through Bandcamp.