Tom Schreiner | Brian J. Lund

I’ve been working through the Pastoral epistle Titus on Sunday mornings at Zion, and one of the key things we’ve been trying to emphasize is that what you believe about God (doctrine) will of necessity impact your life for God (discipleship).

This can be a hard teaching to swallow: is it really that simple? Can leveraging the Gospel truth in my life really make that big of a transformation? And yet when we remember that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), we are reminded that all of God’s saving work – from the new birth to growing in grace to final perseverance – is grounded in the Gospel. So many texts in Titus have been jumping off the page at me with this idea of Gospel grace bringing godliness to my life, and yet one that really sticks out to me in this sense is Titus 2:11 – 12: “For the grace of God has appeared… training us to renounce ungodliness… and to live godly lives…” As those verses show, God’s grace does more than this, but certainly not less! Continue reading →

Dr. Thomas Schreiner’s magisterial Paul: Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ is one of my favorite texts on Pauline theology (see also Herman Ridderbos). Methodological concerns of a Pauline “center,” etc., are always challenging, but I think Schreiner – and the scholars that he has influenced – are often closer to going in the right direction than many others.

Here’s my question: did his editor see these?!

Some of Schreiner’s words seem nearly identical, mere sentences away from each other.

Here’s a few examples:

Some see this as “stuffy” orthodoxy and a bourgeois ethic.
4 sentences later…
Some may perceive this as a rigid orthodoxy that focuses on tradition and does not comport with the authentic Paul. (p. 390)

The singular overseer is sometimes seen as distinct from the plural elders, but it is more likely that overseer is a generic term here.
1 sentence later…!
The singular for overseer is likely generic. (p. 387)

No big deal, certainly, but it still left me bemused!

~~No big deal, certainly, but it still left me bemused!~~

~~Dr. Thomas Schreiner’s magisterial Paul: Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ is one of my favori~~