Wisdom Christology is here

Late this week I got it in the mail. Then, about mid morning today, I got it in my hands (insert mail-receiving realities of apartment living). Here's what I saw first:

"Two features of this book merit particular praise. ... Ebert carefully demolishes the 'Jesus as Lady Sophia' Christology ... and fulsomely displays how true wisdom is rightly connected to Jesus Christ. Moreover, the author writes well." - D.A. Carson

...

"A marvelous example of biblical theology ... grounded in solid research, yet very accessible." - Douglas J. Moo

...

"Pastoral, insightful, and significant. ... Models how careful exegesis ground sound theology and shoes how sound theology must be applied." - Christopher W. Morgan

...

"Demonstrates persuasively how wisdom, a central Old Testament theme, played a constraining role in the apostolic era's first-order question, 'Who is Jesus?'" - Mark S. Gignilliat

And the above recommendations are only truncated versions of the high praise for Dan Ebert's new book I found when I turned the first page. Then, when I navigated to Amazon to grab a link for this post, I saw the world's largest online retailer announcing to shoppers that Wisdom Christology is almost sold out.

A great cloud

Systematic theology is important. Taking the Bible’s teaching and answering questions about God’s nature, the Bible’s presentation of anthropology and what exactly this thing called church should be provides applications of Scripture that instruct the church and prod her toward godliness. But systematic theology is necessarily done by people.

So theology is a decidedly human project, complete with all of the influences and experiences to which all people are bound. For instance, the Christian formulation of the Trinity, came as a response to those who questioned the deity of Jesus. For this reason, it became imperative for the church to articulate the teaching of the Bible concerning Jesus’ function within the godhead. Without at least a cursory knowledge of its history, one cannot fully understand the importance of clearly and deliberately promoting a Trinitarian Christology.

For this reason, Gregg R. Allison, professor of Christian theology at Southern Seminary, provided the church with a resource tracing the growth and development of the foundational doctrines of Protestant theology.

“Such concentration on the accumulated wisdom of the ages provides great benefit to Christians and churches today as they seeks to live faithfully and obediently to Jesus Christ,” writes Allision.

Allison’s new book Historical Theology, closely follows Wayne Grudem’s popular-standard Systematic Theology, tracing the historical development of the doctrines Grudem presents. Billed as “companion” to Grudem, Allison’s book resembles Grudem’s in both its organization and format.

In his introduction, Allison lists eight reasons for studying historical theology: (1) the church owns a long history of guarding orthodox Christianity against heresy; (2) faithful and diligent Christians in the past contributed foundational biblical interpretations and theological formulations on which the church still relies; (3) church history is home to admirable examples of Christians living as examples of Christ; (4) studying Scripture with personalities from history combats individualism; (5) historical theology informs the church’s communication to her current context; (6) history naturally emphasizes the most important issues -- majors on the majors; (7) the past shines with examples of God’s promise-keeping faithfulness to his people; and (8) historical theology places the church in a long-standing tradition of learning, preaching and living the gospel.

Allison, following Grudem, treats the primary areas of theology: the Bible, God, humanity, Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, the church and the end of time. For each area, he surveys teachings on the subject from the early church, the middle ages, Reformation and post-Reformation and modern times.

“My hope is that the church, and evangelicals in particular, will become as familiar with the giant of the past -- clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, John Wesley, Karl Barth -- as they are with Billy Graham, John Piper, J.I. Packer, Chuck Colson, Ravi Zacharias, Tim Keller, Al Mohler, and Mark Driscoll.”

As an introduction to historical theology, Allison’s new work will not disappoint the reader who seeks to learn from that great cloud of witnesses in church history.

Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Zondervan 2011, $44.99), Gregg R. Allison

Wisdom Christology

I'm super excited about this forthcoming book:

Wisdom Christology: How Jesus becomes God's wisdom for us (P&R 2011), Daniel J. Ebert

LL Cool J introduces essays about Christianity

LL Cool J?

Many quotes and phrases leave a large impact on history, so much so that such sayings need no citation. Without hesitation, most Americans recognize “four score and seven years ago” and the famous “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Around Christian circles, “Here I stand” represents a significant statement from history, the speaker of which few need reminding. And, of course, “It is finished” is perhaps one of the most recognizable statements in history – in several languages.

Now, the quotes above come from the mouths of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther and Jesus respectively. The significance of these figures almost necessitates that their statements leave an enduring impact. But what about LL Cool J?

A new book edited by Kevin DeYoung, Don’t Call It a Comeback, poetically carries a title matching the opening line from LL Cool J’s 1990 song “Mama Said Knock You Out.” LL Cool J doesn’t want people calling it a comeback because, according to him, he’s been “here” for years. And accordingly, this collection of essays aimed at introducing a young generation of Christians to the “most important articles of [the Christian] faith and what it looks like to live out this faith in real life,” and reasserting the “theological nature of evangelicalism.”

“Our hope is that this book might be of some small use in reforming God’s church according to the Word of God and forming Christians in the truth of God’s Word,” DeYoung writes in the introduction.

Don’t Call It a Comeback features 18 chapters, each written by a young(er) pastor or teacher within the evangelical movement. Contributors include Southern Seminary’s Denny Burk, Russell D. Moore and Owen Strachan, along with writers such as Collin Hansen, Ted Kluck and Justin Taylor.

DeYoung organizes the essays into three sections: evangelical history, evangelical theology and evangelical practice. These essays address topic ranging from the history of evangelicalism, the unique nature of Scripture, the Kingdom and the place of Christianity in discussions about gender.

The breadth of topics in this brief book, its accessible writing and pastoral tone contribute to Don’t Call It a Comeback forming a helpful resource for a young generation of Christians who seek to think and live biblically. And for Christians looking for a theological home, this new book offers a case for the confessional nature of historical evangelicalism, even for 21^st-century believers.

So don’t call it a comeback; historic Christianity has been here for years – rocking its peers and putting suckas in fear.

Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day (Crossway 2011, $16.99), Kevin DeYoung, ed.

a (whole) story of creation

During the past couple months I've posted five poems, each with the title "a story of creation." Below is a brief explanation and defense of my work.

The five poems I constructed function at a number of levels. Most straightforwardly, each poem, I hope, stands on its own as a piece of work. I tried to write each poem in such a way that someone who does not see the other four, can still understand and appreciate the message of the individual poem – and hopefully its presentation is artistic. Toward that end, I wrote each poem with intention of clearly communicating its topic.

Concerning the topics of the poems, I have written five poems, and if I succeeded, the poems together also make up a single work. I tried to write a series of poems about creation, fall and redemption, and further, I attempted a chiastic structure. So poems “A1” and “A2” both speak of God’s creative acts, the first about nature and the second about God’s creating man in his image. Poems “B1” and “B2” speak of the fall of earth and sin’s consequences for human kind, respectively. And then for “C,” the center of the chiasm,[1] I placed a poem about Christ. Diagrammatically, my poem(s) follow(s) this structure:

A1(creation of nature)

B1(fall of nature)

C (Christ)

B2 (fall of man)

A1(creation of man)

My framing set of poems (“A”) each follows the same structure of three lines followed by four lines. The two poems together communicate God’s creating act as both beautiful and as a gift from a gracious God. At a different, yet perhaps more important, level, the two “A” poems function as the beginning of a sort of chronological and even left-to-right arrow, buried within my chiastic structure; quite obviously, creation is the beginning of all things, and specifically, God’s meta-narrative.

The two “B” poems each laments the fall of creation due to sin, the fall of the natural order and humanity, respectively. And so, together these poems function as a lament of the fall as a unit. Each poem is only four lines long. I intentionally wrote these as shorter pieces, symbolic of sin’s brief career (from a cosmic perspective). Also just as the first set, the two poems about sin focus the chronological arrow pointing toward Christ further – fall followed creation.

Finally, the center poem of my series celebrates Christ. Symbolically longer than the other poems, alluding to Christ’s lasting reign as King of creation, this poem plays with the upside-down relationship between Adam and Christ. Adam sought life, but brought death; Christ sought death, but bought life (Rom 5). Although in a linear sense, the “C” poem sits in the middle of my collection (rightly so in a chiasm), when the poem takes an arrow shape (chiasm), the Christ poems takes its place as the final and concluding poem in a chronologically directional sense. Creation and fall point to Christ; Christ brings resolution to creation’s fall. Of course, there are many different ways placing Christ as the center can allude to other things: Christ is the focal point of good theology, Christ is the peak of the Bible’s narrative, people are called to center their lives on Christ, etc. The list could continue.

In summation, I hope each of my five poems communicates lament and celebration of creation, creation’s fall and creation’s savior. I also hope as a unit, the poems tell the story of the world’s existence and its restoration in Christ’s reversing Adam’s sin.

---

[1] I am calling this series a chiasm, but usually chiasms are contained in a single piece of work. So in a sense, I deviated from traditional uses of the chiastic structure. But in another sense, I consider my five poems as a single work.

Come on, Chris

This past April, ardent self-proclaimed anti-theist Christopher Hitchens published his monthly article in Vanity Fair about the Old Testament's Ten Commandments. His article, "The New Commandments," leads with an intentionally evocative subhead: "The Ten Commandments were set in stone, but it may be time for a re-chisel. With all due humility, the author [Hitchens] takes on the job, pruning the ethically dubious, challenging the impossible, and rectifying some serious omissions."

Hitchens proceeds to work through each of the Bible's Ten Commandments (OT, Deuteronomy 5:6-21), giving various explanations about how that particular commandment came to be and its function within Ancient Israel. Then comes his grand conclusion:

What emerges from the first review is this: the Ten Commandments were derived from situational ethics. They show every symptom of having been man-made and improvised under pressure. They are addressed to a nomadic tribe whose main economy is primitive agriculture and whose wealth is sometimes counted in people as well as animals. They are also addressed to a group that has been promised the land and flocks of other people: the Amalekites and Midianites and others whom God orders them to kill, rape, enslave, or exterminate. And this, too, is important because at every step of their arduous journey the Israelites are reminded to keep to the laws, not because they are right but just because they will lead them to become conquerors (of, as it happens, almost the only part of the Middle East that has no oil).

As if this conclusion isn't convincing enough, Hitchens again rehearses the content from each commandment, this second time explaining what needs to be "pruned" from the commandments for a new context. And then after liberating his readers too-accepting minds, he offers a final verdict concerning one of history’s most recognizable teachings:

It’s difficult to take oneself with sufficient seriousness to begin any sentence with the words “Thou shalt not.” But who cannot summon the confidence to say: Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color. Do not ever use people as private property. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them? Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly. Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife. Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea how unimportant your call is to us. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions. Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above. In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.

Since sometime during my college years, I've casually kept up with what Hitchens says. Naturally, I disagree with almost everything he propagates concerning Christianity and religion. But I have always appreciated Hitchens' breath of knowledge and his clever use of language in communicating his fervent dislike of any form of theism.

"The New Commandments" represents a fail by Hitchens. I expect more from this admired atheist. Aside from his surprisingly sloppy use of words, the author's conclusions about the intent and extent of the Ten Commandments are foreign to anything in the texts themselves, and Hitchens' lazy use of sources doesn't inspire much confidence in his research. Now, of course, an article in Vanity Fair isn't held to the rigorous standards of an academic journal. But if he intends to displace a body of teaching Jews, Christians and secular persons have embraced for thousands of years, then Hitchens should put a little more thought into his arguments. And where is that humility about which his subhead talks?

a story of creation, pt. 4

Straining for life, for a place next to Him,

Adam tasted the inverse of his with.

Breath, which once anticipated an enduring career,

now kneels at the merciless feet of time.

a story of creation, pt. 3

Of God-talk, the center, the crest of nature

and the peak of Holy Writ;

the eldest of God's work

and the final priest.

Adam introduced death, for life, yearning,

trading nourishment for fruit.

In order to die, arriving,

the Son revoked first-man's curse,

seeking death but life, finding.

Sleeping with his mighty act,

then, living for all his own,

the New King called ground sky and dark light,

raising after falling.

Christians and Biblical Law

Tom Schreiner recently published a book about the relationship between Christians today and Old Testament law. His book quite simply asks and answers 40 different questions related to the subject. The book is approachable and enjoyable -- especially to those interested in the New Perspective on Paul (but don't know too much about it).

I sat down with Dr. Schreiner and discussed his newest publication; you can read our conversation here (pages 8-9).

Here is my reportishreview of the book.

40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law (Kregel $17.99), Thomas R. Schreiner

Asked to consider the most important issues in life, probably not too many people put understanding Old Testament law on their list. But an understanding about how the law relates to Christians today is paramount; understanding how the New Testament church relates to the law means understanding how God saves people from sin.

Toward that understanding, Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, interacts with various questions about the relationship between Christianity and the Old Testament law in his new book, 40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law. For questions ranging from “What does the word law mean in Scripture?” to “Is the Sabbath still required for Christians?” Schreiner offers six to 10 pages introducing the question, naming some key positions and presenting what he thinks is the biblical answer to the respective question.

“[The issue of Christians’ relationship to the law] is absolutely central because justification and law relate to how we are right with God; and that’s the most important question in life. So when people are discussing the nature of the Gospel, and how we are right with God, that’s not a trivial issue,” Schreiner said about the importance of his subject.

Schreiner divides his book’s 40 questions into five parts: the law in the Old Testament, the law in Paul, the law in the gospels and Acts, the law in the general epistles and the law and contemporary issues. The second section concerning Paul makes up the largest portion on the book. And much of the discussion centers on what is known as the New Perspective on Paul, which is primarily a discussion about how Paul viewed the Old Testament law and Second Temple Judaism, an idea first introduced by E.P. Sanders and later promoted by James Dunn and N.T. Wright. The New Perspective has found its way, primarily through Wright, into evangelical circles, and so Schreiner devotes substantial space to overviewing the issues presented by the New Perspective.

Closely related to the New Perspective is Schreiner’s sub-section about Paul’s teaching about justification. There, the author focuses on issues of salvation though faith versus salvation through works, the potential moral laxity resulting if justification is simply by faith, the apparent conflict between the teachings of James and Paul and several other key issues related to salvation.

Throughout 40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law, Schreiner draws both from his scholarly acumen and pastoral experience to present a work that will serve the church as both a primer to more substantial works about the law and as an accessible resource for those looking for understanding about specific issues related to the biblical law.

a story of creation, pt. 2

Mean-spirited waters and roaring skies torment

what, before the bite, they caressed.

Pining age and tenacious disease now descend

in war against the garden upended.

a story of creation, pt. 1

Highlighted with dew, green you created;

armored without, small life you protected;

seasoned with movement, pools you expanded.

A song of your artistry

and a picture of your rhyme,

the earth stands as a trophy of your skill

and a gift for your kind.