Monthly Archives: March 2012
Currently listening to
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Enjoying the day off listening to Gotye “Somebody I Used to Know” | The Civil Wars “Barton Hollow” “My Father’s Father” “Poison & Wine” “Falling” “Tip of My Tongue” | Christina Perri “A Thousand Years”
Logos March Madness
Logos – tagging along with another March Madness – has rigged up a fun tourney that lets you vote for your favorite theologians and pastors. Here’s my brackets:
I realized as I was filling out the bracket that this was basically a popularity contest, and that I was heavily favoring Reformed and pastors over evangelical and scholars. There were some pretty difficult decisions. How do you pick between Owen and Calvin?! Continue reading
Inside the Stradivarius
from this awesome series
(HT: WH)
Comment: Throwing Prophecy Under the Agabus
Aside
Pastor Nathan Busenitz thinks about whether Agabus supports fallible NT prophecy, and I chime in with two further comments:
- Acts ought to be read in light of the larger canonical motif started in Luke’s Gospel, which shows Paul walking in the footsteps of Jesus, including Acts 21.
- Agabus cannot be consistent with Grudem’s own argument because of his use of the tade legei clause.
Select Works of Samuel Miller (1769 – 1850)
Recently, I came across Miller’s Thoughts on Public Prayer, and was greatly helped. I knew Miller to be a staunch Old School Presbyterian, and so I wondered what else of his I could find online for free. Turns out, pretty much everything he wrote is at Google Books. Help yourself!
UPDATE: The original post was by no means exhaustive, but thankfully the PCA Historical Center already had compiled the Samuel Miller Collection. While there aren’t many links at the Collection, there is a complete bibliography listed. I was reminded of this by The Confessional Presbyterian which points this resource out.
A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century (1803, 1805)
A Sermon on Lamentations 2:1, 13 (1812)
An Able and Faithful Ministry (1812)
Memoir of the Reverend John Rogers (1813)
Letters on Unitarianism (1821)
I Love This Guy
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Chillin’ on the back step…
Review: From the Resurrection to His Return
D.A. Carson From the Resurrection to His Return: Living Faithfully in the Last Days (Christian Focus, 2010)
Kindle publication at Amazon
Paperback at WTS Books
(this review looks at the unpaginated eBook version)
Christian Focus has published another brief but useful classic from Dr. Carson on II Timothy. The subject of “end times,” or even more dauntingly – eschatology, brings confusion for many, but Carson treats the heart of the matter: living faithfully for Christ in these last days. More information on the book can be found at The Gospel Coalition (though I myself did not have access to it at the time of the review). Carson’s book is an accessible guide for Christians unto faithful living packed with simple but gripping lessons, that is recommended for anyone.
Overview
Chapter 1, “Living in the Last Days,” is a smooth, concise, running commentary of prose on II Timothy 3:1 – 9. The entire text of 2 Timothy 3 – 4:6 appears just before, but without a note of explanation. Nowhere are you alerted to what this book is: a commentary? devotionals? summary? Despite a disorienting beginning, Carson’s insights into the text are engaging and helpful. Unlike the rocky beginning, the remaining chapters easily flow into one another. Continue reading
The Last Adam Rules the Common Kingdom
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So how does Christ now rule the many institutions and communities of this world other than the church? The answer is that He rules them through the Noahic covenant, for they are institutions and communities of the common kingdom. They operate according to the same basic principles and purposes as before Christ’s first coming. What is different is that God now rules them through the incarnate Lord Jesus, the last Adam who has entered into the glory of the world-to-come.
VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms p. 118
Presbyterian Public Prayer
Few have the Old School street cred of Samuel Miller (1769 – 1850). And I recently discovered his Thoughts on Public Prayer, which can be
downloaded from Google Books here.
There are probably some important connections to think about between the relative paucity of congregational prayer in much of American Christianity, and how modern American Christian worship/entertainment is a descendant of New School ideas run wild. So the fact that you need to go to an Old School Presbyterian to think carefully about public prayer should probably be a no brainer, but I’ve been encouraged nonetheless.
Should the congregation face east for prayer (especially when that practice was so common in the ancient church)? What posture or liturgy best suits corporate prayer? Acknowledging that prayer is not mechanistic, but a Spiritually-derived communion of the soul with the Almighty, what steps or means – if any – may be taken to travel towards excellence in our prayer ministry? These questions, and so much more, is for free in Miller’s Thoughts on Public Prayer. Download it now!
Brian J. Lund 