Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

ENTERING MEANINGFULLY INTO HOLY WEEK

Holy Week is upon us, and  tomorrow is Palm Sunday.  In conversing with some others in casual conversation this morning, we lamented that our church doesn't make as much of Holy Week as the more liturgical churches, be they Lutheran, Anglican, Orthodox or Catholic.  We miss it.  Focusing on the last week of our Lord's life feeds the soul with the truth of what our salvation cost, and draws us into deeper fellowship with Him.

I was doing some bush whacking behind our home this afternoon and came upon a really prickly vine.  I cut a sizeable portion of it, and gave it to my sister, who is making it into a "crown of thorns" to remind us of the mockery and scorn our Lord suffered just before the Cross.  I'm not sure how well this homemade "crown" will turn out, but it seems to be coming along well even as I write.

Meanwhile I decided to go to the internet to see what others have done.  I found one lady who began at the beginnning of Lent making a crown of thorns which she used as an object lesson for her children and a means by which to encourage them to perform thoughtful deeds.  She writes:

Lent begins today, or, in the case of the Eastern Catholic churches, it has already begun on Monday. Here are a couple of simple practices that have in past years helped our children get into the spirit of Lent and prepare for the joy and new life of Easter.

The "crown of thorns" has been a big hit at our house. I've seen directions for making salt-dough crowns, but ours is simpler. I simply purchased at the craft store an 8" wreath made of woven twigs. On Ash Wednesday, we stick toothpicks into it to represent thorns, and place the wreath in the center of our dining table. The children get to remove one thorn for each sacrifice or act of kindness (you can make it as specific or general as you like) and their goal is to remove them all before Easter. Some years, we have cleared them all in plenty of time. In this case, we add little flowers to the wreath instead of removing thorns. The flowery wreath makes a good Easter centerpiece.

Me: I find her practice quite creative.   May Holy Week this year find us all more reflective, grateful, and worshipful than ever before. 

WHERE SHOULD A CHRISTIAN DWELL MOST, IN THE GOSPELS OR THE EPISTLES?

I learned (via Justin Taylor) that J. I. Packer recommends spending proportionally greater study time in the gospels. 

J. I. Packer:

[We can] correct woolliness of view as to what Christian commitment involves, by stressing the need for constant meditation on the four gospels, over and above the rest of our Bible reading: for gospel study enables us both to keep our Lord in clear view and to hold before our minds the relational frame of discipleship to him.

The doctrines on which our discipleship rests are clearest in the epistles, but the nature of discipleship itself is most vividly portrayed in the gospels.

Some Christians seem to prefer the epistles as if this were a mark of growing up spiritually; but really this attitude is a very bad sign, suggesting that we are more interested in theological notions than in fellowship with the Lord Jesus in person.

We should think, rather, of the theology of the epistles as preparing us to understand better the disciple relationship with Christ that is set forth in the gospels, and we should never let ourselves forget that the four gospels are, as has often and rightly been said, the most wonderful books on earth.

—J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005), p. 70, 71.

VIDEO FROM GOSPEL COALITION CONFERENCE: PANEL ON "WHAT I'VE LEARNED FROM YEARS OF PREACHING CHRIST FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT"

At The Gospel Coalition national conference held recently at McCormick Place in Chicago, a helpful panel discussion took place on the topic, “What I’ve Learned from Years of Preaching Christ from the Old Testament.”  Owen Strachan quizzed veteran preachers Alistair Begg, Mark Dever, and Philip Ryken (President of Wheaton college and former senior pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pa).   I found this a really interesting discussion.  From the BibleMesh website:

The discussion began with how each person came to be convinced of a Christ-centered preaching model of the Old Testament. There we discussed how each pastor came to the personal conviction that Christ should preached from all of Scripture. Next, we covered more esoteric topics like how do preachers preserve the moral sense of Scripture without abandoning the gospel–or, the question that makes every young preacher’s knees knock–how do we preach Christ from the Song of Solomon?

Sprinkled throughout the discussion were resources mentioned by each of one of the contributors. Below are several of them:

• Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (Eerdmans) (Editors note: Highly recommended)
• John Bright, The Kingdom of God (Abidington Press)
• Edmund Clowney, Unfolding Mystery (P&R)
• Graeme Goldsworthy, The Goldsworthy Trilogy (Send the Light)
• Sam Logan, Preacher and Preaching: Reviving the Art in the Twentieth Century (P&R) – Ryken mentioned specifically Edmund Clowney’s article.
• Mark Dever, The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made (Crossway)
• D. A. Carson, G. K. Beale, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker)
• Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Eerdmans)

Another videotaped panel discussion available for viewing is "Getting to Know the Gospel Personally as One Grand Narrative" featuring Kent Hughes, David Jackman, and Ligon Duncan.

Me:  I've discovered more resources here.

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Gospel Coalition Panel Discussion: What I have learned after years of preaching Christ in the Old Testament

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Owen Strachan
3 Comments

    
    

At The Gospel Coalition national conference, BibleMesh was able to conduct three panel discussions. This is the first of the three, entitled ““What I’ve Learned from Years of Preaching Christ from the Old Testament,” in which I (Owen Strachan) asked three veteran preachers, Alistair Begg, Mark Dever, and Philip Ryken, what they have learned after years of preaching Christ in the Old Testament.

"BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT... BLESSED ARE THE MEEK" - OH YEAH?

As a matter of fact, yeah!    Philip Yancey claims to have discovered that Jesus' Beatitudes unveil "a plain formula of psychological truth, the deepest level of truth that we can know on earth."   Yancey writes in The Jesus I Never Knew:

"The Beatitudes reveal that what succeeds in the kingdom of heaven also benefits us most in this life here and now.  It has taken me many years to recognize this fact, and only now am I beginning to understand the Beatitudes.  They still jar me every time I read them, but they jar me because I recognize in them a richness that unmaskes my own poverty.

Blessed are the poor in spirit . . .  Blessed are the meek.  A book like Paul Johnson's Intellectuals sets out in convincing detail what all of us know to be true: the people we laud, strive to emulate, and feature on the covers of popular magazines are not the fulfilled, happy, blanced persons we might imagine.  Although Johnson's subjects (Ernest Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Bertolt Brecht, et al.) would be judged successful by any modern standard, it would be difficult to assemble a more miserable, egomaniacal, abusive company.

Faith and Reason (Apologetics): More Resources

The following comes courtesy of Wintery Knight blog.  He spotlights a recent apologetics conference held at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church.  For a video and audio of the following lectures, click here.

• How Can I Know God Exists? – Dinesh D’Souza
• How Did the Universe Begin – William Lane Craig
• If God Exists, Why is there Evil? – Norman Geisler
• Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete? – J.P. Moreland
• What Do the Gospels Really Say About Jesus? – Darrell Bock
• How Can I Defend My Faith Without Sounding Defensive? – Greg Koukl

Wintery Knight also includes the following new audio lectures and video from William Lane Craig:

Can We Be Good Without God? (National Faculty Leadership Conf. 2008)  Audio

Why Does Anything at All Exist? (National Faculty Leadership Conf. 2008)  Audio

Healthy Relationships (National Faculty Leadership Conf. 2008) Audio

Who Does Jesus Think He Was? (National Faculty Leadership Conf. 2008)  Audio

Why Does Anything at All Exist? (Wake Forest University)  Video

Response to Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion (University of Florida) Audio

One Question: The top 3 questions Univ. of Florida students are asking God (University of Florida)
Audio

RECENT POSTS FROM DENVER SEMINARY PROFESSOR DOUGLAS GROOTHUIS (A.K.A. "THE CONSTRUCTIVE CURMUDGEON")

-- Groothuis, as many readers know, first achieved name recognition for being one of the first out of the gate evaluating the New Age movement.  He did so with sober, reliable, scholarly, yet readable treatments in such books as  Unmasking the New Age, Confronting the New Age and Jesus in an Age of Controversy, plus his little InterVarsity booklet, Are All Religions One?

A couple of days ago he posted the entirety of his article, "The New Age Jesus," which first appeared in Areopagus Journal (Nov-Dec 2004).   The article comes with footnotes, making it all the more useful.

-- On another post, Groothuis introduces Ian R. Colle (one of Groothuis' students) who published a positive, helpful, substantial (therefore worth reading!) review of  Paul A. Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. vii + 139 pages, $19.95 paper.   Colle's concludes his review:

Boghossian presents the constructivist/relativist views accurately and fairly and defeats the strongest formulation of their supporting arguments in a way that is easy to follow and understandable to the non-technical reader.  This short book should be required reading for all humanities professors and all who care about presenting sound arguments for a realist epistemology.   Read the entire review.

PROF. BEN WITHERINGTON TAKES ISSUE WITH BART EHRMAN'S "JESUS INTERRUPTED"

Ben Witherington is a world class New Testament scholar, so when he reviews Bart Ehrman's Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know Them, one must give due weight to his critique.  Witherington offers his review in three segments (so far), here, here, and here.  Update: Ssgment four is here, and five here.  Segment six is here.

Extra: Stephen Colbert interviewed Ehrman about his new book.  Colbert, as one commentator said, "is at the top of his game" in this interview.  Witherington offers a comment: